COACHELLA!!!

Uwtl indeed. Shoulda gone to sleep hours ago but I had to make a quick round trip to a shitty Santa Monica bar for little reason. Pales in comparison to my night last Saturday, in which Arcade Fire and many other musical wonders were rocking my world.

Twas my first Coachella and will certainly not be my last. Went with a solid group and ran into a hearty helping of people, but couldn't even begin to see everybody. Don't you love that we live in a world where our live human and phone interactions are so muted that we find out after major events that all our friends were there? Or maybe i'm just a loser and am way out of the loop (the truth probably lies somewhere in the inbetween).

Anywho, it was really hot and sweaty and exhausting and fun and breezy and dark and bright and joyful and high and low and all kinds o' other stuff. And I was up way way way way too late every single night. Felt like a kid again, haha.

The lineup itself was not the most exciting one ever but for me I think that had something to do with the fact that i'm just not as on top of my music as I used to be. This was my feeling before but once I was there I got really stoked to re-see all my favorite bands i'd seen multiple times as well as anticipation of all the new acts i'd discover. A measly 300 bucks for a weekend of getting back in line with the pulse of the music scene these days was well worth it.

Highlights: Arcade Fire, The Strokes, Cut Copy, Kanye's first 15 minutes or so, Boys Noize and the DJ tent.
Lowlights: One Day As A Lion (the side project of the lead singer of one of my favorite bands in the history of everything, Rage Against the Machine). They sounded like a cheap rage rip off and only held my attention for 5 tracks or so.

Bands I regretted I missed: The Swell Season, BAD (Mick Jones' frickin band!), most of The Black Keys set (tho I did catch a bit of), Delorean and Francis and the Lights (both of which for various reasons I showed up after or near the end of their sets).

All the other bands/ acts I caught (some albeit for a few tracks):

Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All (yup, that's one act), Cee- Lo Green (who's sound was cut off, OUCH), A-Trak, Lauryn Hill, Cold War Kids, Yacht, Interpol, Sasha, Crystal Castles, Monarchy, The Chemical Brothers, The Tallest Man on Earth, The Radio Department, Foals, Two Door Cinema Club, Alf Alpha, The Twelves, Joachim Garraud, Laidback Luke, Broken Social Scene, Electric Touch, Mumford and Sons, Animal Collective, The Kills, The New Pornographers, Fedde Le Grand, Paul Van Dyk, Empire of The Sun, fun, CSS, Wiz Khalifa, Jimmy Eat World, Nas and Damian Marley, Death From Above 1979, Trentemoller (shoulda stayed the whole set), Duck Sauce, Ratatat.

Not too shabby for the 3 days in the dessert. I felt like I was back in college except without any studying and more fun. Except my college was probably 50 times smaller than the festival population.

Either way good times and can't wait til next year (but also can).