Our bodies tired and a little sore, it was time for the third and final day of Coachella to begin. I’d been looking forward to the strong day 3 lineup ever since it was released and was glad that there were not too many conflicts today. Since Delphic had to cancel thanks to Icecanogate, our day was going to start out with an early afternoon set by Local Natives, a band that I didn’t know was among my favorites until today.
There’s really something special about a nice early afternoon set in a tent. It’s a great atmosphere (especially when palm trees can be seen behind the tent) and can really set the tone of the whole day. All I can say after this performance is that I am beyond stoked that I will be seeing them twice more this summer (including a tiny show at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor). The energy was almost incomprehensible at times and their songs took on a whole new life on the live stage. Anyone who has the chance to see these kids live need to do it. As my friend Peabs said, Local Natives justified the price of his ticket and everything else was just gravy. The vocals were spot on (and harmonies are such a huge part of their music, so this was a good thing) and a lot of songs turned into big singalongs, namely the crazy parts of “Sun Hands” and the “oh oh oh oh ohs” of “World News”. Oh boy, I almost can’t imagine my head not exploding had Delphic nailed a set right before this. Here’s two bad pictures of the band. I believe the second was during the insane section of “Sun Hands”
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We sat around for a bit until 3:45 because my friend Sarah was going to be spinning at the Green Stage, you know, the stage that has giant hamster wheels, a see-saw, hand cranks and stationary bikes, all used to create energy to run the stage. Her set was great and she gathered a pretty nice crowd, but I have to say it was pretty difficult riding that bike for more than ten minutes on a 90 degree day on the third day of a music fest. But it was pretty fun anyway, and it was great to see a long lost friend, especially since we’d been talking Coachella for so long.
Next up was another highly anticipated act, Club 75 (who I often mistakenly refer to as Beat 75). This DJ supergroup is made up of Busy P, Cassius (who I must say looks exactly how I envisioned him to look….extremely French), Justice and Mehdi. The set was pretty fun but I think in my head I envisioned this to be a Justice show, which clearly is not what it ever was advertised to be. And apparently when you’re 15 it’s still cool to start a mosh pit. After sweating up a storm we headed back out to take another breather, because next up was Miike Snow. Sorry for no pics. The bright backdrop sort of washed out all of the people. But video footage has been obtained.
This marks my third time seeing Miike Snow live. The first was at Lollapalooza last year, when I had no idea who or what Miike Snow was (maybe back when I thought it was a person, not a bad) and only knew that they had something to do with this Vampire Weekend remix that I really liked. Then I was blown away by their live show at Lolla and by mere chance got to catch them in Chicago a few weeks later at a tiny show at the Empty Bottle. So I pretty much knew what was in store for me. And even so, it was one of the rip-roaringest good times I had all weekend. I can’t quite describe what it is, but there’s something so cool about the way they combine great catchy pop tunes with heavy electro in a way that is completely organic and not forced one bit. And the extended electronic jams are just “the whip”. At the end of the set, lead singer Andrew Wyatt again reminded us that if we didn’t know, Miike Snow is the name of a band, and not a person in the band. And then he implored us to tell our friends.
I’m not sure what it was about this performance, but it was by far my favorite of the three that I’ve seen. It just seemed that the jams were harder and the beats were heavier.
It was time to get some food in mah belly (a slice of pizza that was much inferior to the one I devoured on day 1) before heading over to the Pavementhomyorillaz extravaganza. I’m not the hugest Pavement fan in the world (I like them, but just haven’t really listened to them in depth) but it was still great to see them and hear a few tunes that I really enjoyed like “In the Mouth a Desert” and the classic “Range Life”. In fact, “Range Life” offered up one of those surreal weekend moments where you kind of just look around at the whole scene and the mountains and palm trees that surround the grounds and smile a little bit.
After that, we decided our priority was Gorillaz so we sort of camped out there. We could hear some of Thom Yorke’s set, but I heard his encore was “Everything in its Right Place” aka one of my favorite Radiohead songs ever, solo on piano. So that was a definite fail on my part. I also hear that Flea is a ridiculous addition to Yorke’s music, so was a little sad to miss that as well, but we can’t make it to everything at these festys, now can we. Especially if we want any sort of line of vision for Gorillaz.
Just before Gorillaz took the stage, I noticed quite a few chairs and music stands on the stage. Were they going to have some sort of orchestra accompanying them tonight? The answer was yes, via a 6-8 member string section. They started out with, appropriately, the Orchestral Intro from Plastic Beach followed by “Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach” with a special appearance from Snoop Dogg (if a prerecorded video of Snoop Dogg playing on the big screen counts as an appearance). They played a few older tunes and then hit up some of my Plastic Beach favorites, such as “Glitter Freeze” (which was for sure off the hinges), “Empire Ants” (with a guest appearance by my girl from Little Dragon) and “Melancholy Hill”, among others. Other guest appearances included De La Soul (during “Superfast Jellyfish”) and Bobby Womack (during “Stylo”).
The stage setup was pretty simple but pretty entertaining. There was a large “GORILLAZ” near the bottom just above all the musicians and a giant movie screen showing all kinds of crazy video content, much of which included the cartoon version of Gorillaz, but have no fear, Damon Albarn and company were on stage in the flesh as well performing live.
The group came out for an encore and played “To Binge” (again with vocals from Little Dragon) and a great version of “Feel Good, Inc” that the crowd really got into. And then in a strange turn of events, they brought out Bobby Womack to sing the final song, which I’m not quite sure what it was. And then the weekend was over, just like that. After 5 or 10 minutes when the crowd realized there wouldn’t be a crazy festival ending dance party to “DARE” as so many of us were hoping for at that point in time, we walked back to our cars, most of us completely satisfied with the fantastic weekend we had just experienced, with heavy eyelids and aching feet.
Gorillaz – To Binge feat. Little Dragon
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I know you’re all sick of hearing about Coachella from me, but I think you’ll be getting two more pieces of awesome this week, one of them a recap of the festival as a whole (highlights, misses, etc). And the second, the much talked about video. I definitely have lots of clips (it was all about catching little moments in time and connecting them to tell the full story of the fest), but now it’s just a matter of whether or not I can figure out how to edit them together. Although there are 118 of these moments and I haven’t looked at any of them yet, so they may all be scheisse. Wish me luck.
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