Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
Did somebody slip something into Tom's beers on Sunday?
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TomAz
Beauty was everywhere on Sunday.
First Aid Kit was another one of my very highly anticipated acts of the weekend and they exceeded expectations by a lot. I really don't think I can remember ever hearing vocal harmonies of that quality and beauty and perfection at Coachella before. Their set was just about perfect and I will never forget it. Beautiful and moving and great. One of the real highlights of the weekend.
Beirut were so great. I've been a fan for years but never seen them live before. Those horns.. damn they were so great. So beautiful. At times I was almost overcome by it. In fact the sheer beauty of it all inspired me to give MJA a big manhug when I met him. I know he appreciated that, and I hope people can think hard about what they heard there. This is a gift of beauty. Admire it and appreciate it.
Next year.
thanks for this, I definately want to try to catch First Aid Kit weekend 2, your review sealed the deal for me. Beruit as well
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
Tom, I have been thinking quite a bit about the question you pose re: Carrie Brownstein recently in the context of Screaming Females. Watch the reviews of that album: I bet every single person will compare them to Sleater-Kinney and talk about how Marisa Paternoster is the best female guitar player. I am of the disappointed opinion that we still hold female musicians to a different standard, as is frequently seen in reviews where the references for female acts are all other female acts. Sleater-Kinney, for example, should have been talked about more in terms of Fugazi than Bikini Kill.
/Thread Jack.
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
Bryan, yeah, it's definitely worth discussing which is why I brought it up. I think it's a more complicated issue though: people are gonna react how their gut says they should react (that was my 'Carrie is fucking hot' joke, except it's not just a joke, I actually mean it like I did with Amy Klein last year). It takes some level of insight to identify gut reactions as just that, gut reactions, and then to think about and understand and begin to question the reasons and societal programming that may be at the root of those reactions, and then set them aside and make judgments based on dispassionate intellect. /pitchfork
But yeah Carrie is great, I spent most of the set watching her work the frets and thinking damn she's better at this than a bunch of guitar gods I can think of.
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
I think more of the problem that I see with it is, because we as men (and indie rock fans are predominantly men) do react to attractive female musicians based on their looks at a basic level, we create a different playing field for them. It isn't a problem, necessarily, to compare female musicians only to female musicians, especially since that is done somewhat dispassionately as a discussion of musical merits. However, the separation that causes makes it unfair to many female musicians who are working at levels comparable to or higher than male musicians. For example, I get frustrated when people compare Joanna Newsom only to people like Joni Mitchell or Karen Dalton (who she shares some similarities to), when lyrically she has a mastery of English more comparable to Bob Dylan. And it's great that Carrie Brownstein comes from a long line of female guitar players, but her style also evinces the best of people like Guy Picciotto and Jimmy Page. And how about bands like The Slits or X-Ray Spex, who were among the first to blend punk rock with outre instrumentation or world rhythms, pointing toward pretty much all of post-punk. Women are part of the field, and we should think of them in that light moreso. So, I agree that it's good to realize that we do it, and better to realize we do it and then to take steps to work against it.
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
I was thinking of Carrie in light of Pete Townshend more than Jimmy Page, but yeah.
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
There was an art installation that wasn't there the previous two days, probably due to the wind. It was a big crane that was made up to be this huge orchid, but it almost looked like some sci-fi monster. There was also this large black balloon garden that I saw earlier in the day but I think it disappeared a few hours later.
Got to the main stage and was able to get up close to Band of Skulls. I had seen them a couple of years ago in the Mojave and became a fan. They did not disappoint. Their performance was more polished than before and the trio really filled up the big stage. Hope to see more from them in the future.
Really wished I had seen Santigold. I had to go meet someone at the lockers and only saw a bit, but she sounded great and two guys in a horse costume and a couple of cheerleaders were on stage when I saw her.
I was really dragging and saw the beginning and end of Beats Antique. Very unique sound. There was a belly dancer, a couple of other dancers, and at the end, they were wearing animal masks and beating up on each other. I think the Zebra dies. Went over to the Sahara and it was pretty crowded for the afternoon, unlike the previous two days. It was warm, not too hot, but it finally felt like Coachella was supposed to feel.
Caught the last part of Wild Flag and really wish I had seen their entire set. Carrie Brownstein tore it up.
Had to go back to the locker to get a long sleeved shirt for the evening. Pushed up through araabMUZIK to get close for Gotye's set. A little moshing going on, nothing too serious.
So I was able to get about 15 yards from Gotye dead center, about ten people back. Couldn't tell how packed it was behind me but I was told that it wasn't as huge as M83's set. Anticipation was high. By the time he started, the sun had finally set and the tent cooled a bit.
Gotye was my favorite set of the festival. Here was an artist that's an overnight sensation 10 years in the making. He certainly did not seem tired considering he had done SNL less than 24 hours before. I believe he was more concerned about doing such a complicated setup (lots of different percussion instruments and sounds and sampling) with no sound check and he even admitted it later in the set. A couple of songs had great animation behind him which helped tell the stories of the songs. Two thirds of the way through, he finally does Someone That I Used to Know. Crowd goes berserk and sings along loudly which is strange because the opening of the song is so still and quiet. Kimbra walks out and the crowd erupts even louder. Seeing it live and seeing both of them relate to each other was a very powerful Coachella moment. I understand a lot of people left after that but no one packed up close to the stage. I say he's the real thing, definitely not a one hit wonder. There is a lot of complexity with all the pieces of percussion and sampling that he uses.
At the Drive In was an interesting and inspired choice before Dre/Snoop. Wasn't familiar with them before but really liked their set. Wandered over to the beer garden and took a peak at Florence. I saw her several years ago in the Mojave (or was it the Gobi?) and wasn't quite won over then. But she had a huge crowd, probably the largest at the Outdoor this year. She certainly had her fans but she's not for me.
Which leads to Dre/Snoop. I'm not into rap at all. Not for me. But I thought the show was fantastic. For many, many reasons, this is a historic Coachella set. Eminem was great. And, of course, the Tupac thing was really impressive, even from a good 100 yards out.
This is my fourth full Coachella and I will say that this year was my least favorite year. Part of it may be due to the weather because it was cold on Friday and Saturday, really due to the wind. But it was still great and also all the little things that GV does from year to year are improvements. I can't think of anything they did that I would consider a step back. They have done so many things right since the meltdown of 2010.
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg may have crowned Sunday on the 2012 Coachella poster, but I had another main event in mind as I entered the Empire Polo Field on that last day: The Weeknd. Abel Tesfaye climbed to the top of my priority list not very long after the line-up released and I came upon his website, where his three magnificent mixtapes – House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence – found heavy rotation on my iPod. Finally there was a flavor of popular R&B that didn’t bore me to death – probably thanks to the alternative nods like the Beach House samples in “The Party & The After Party” and “Loft Music,” but also with much help to the music’s rich electronic taste – like the latter section on “House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls.” I was prepared to stand among the sing-along crowd and lip-synch – so that I could spare my neighbors of my sad noise.
Arriving from a superb performance by The Hives (more on this in a later installment), I found a place in the massive crowd just in time to hear “High For This” whispering out of the Outdoor Theatre. I infiltrated deeper into the crowd, hunting around hip gatherings for an elusive sound that kept bounding away no matter how much nearer I drew. I even removed my Etymotic plugs – an essential tool for any concert fanatic – something I rarely do in the presence of live music – because The Weeknd always remained a faraway sound that could not rise above the gross chatter of so many people talking about things unrelated to what was happening onstage. In fact, it felt as though I were listening to a band from one stage while they played on another stage, plenty yards away, muffled and weak.
I wanted to push my way toward the soundboard – not the stage – and shout at the technicians for allowing such a crime to happen. The general rule should probably state this: Beyond the stage’s signpost – where its set times are located – the music should be loud enough so that you cannot hear your neighbor without their shouting at your face. I mean, really, if your unprotected ears do not ring after the set, something went wrong with the volume. And I didn’t want to fight the crowd for a spot near the rail, where the sound might have been found; I just wanted to enjoy one of my highly anticipated Coachella sets in the way that I enjoyed many of the other sets that came previous to The Weeknd’s performance. Needless to say, I felt grumpy – I even became suddenly aware of a stomachache – and I miserably swayed to “The Knowing” after returning to my initial spot away from the stage, having given up on my dreams.
The real tragedy is that, in the faint murmurs of The Weeknd’s performance, I could hear hints of a wonderful set – the set I wanted. Tesfaye’s voice sounded very good, the band played well, and the setlist contained just about everything I wanted to hear; it was all just a victim of the dreaded “bad sound,” which may arguably be worse than a set falling flat because of an act giving a dismal performance – it is something that could (or should) have been prevented during sound check. And I can’t even imagine why the sound was the way it was, because I heard solid sets from the Outdoor Theatre earlier, and I could even hear Florence + The Machine when she played the same stage later – and I was practically standing at the opposite end of the polo field!
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
Quote:
Originally Posted by
coolhandluck
They have done so many things right since the meltdown of 2010.
Can you elaborate on this meltdown? I wasn't there but I may have heard about it before on these forums. Just too crowded?
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
Quote:
Originally Posted by
xuclarockerx
Can you elaborate on this meltdown? I wasn't there but I may have heard about it before on these forums. Just too crowded?
Friday of 2010 was when the wristband RFID system malfunctioned and chaos ensued. I got there early and missed it but it nearly ruined Coachella. They were using Palm Pilots for authentication and sometime on Friday afternoon, the system blew up. On top of that was a massive, epic traffic jam. And there were literally thousands of people without tickets looking for them. At one point, one of the checkpoints just let people in to avoid a very ugly scene. There may have been 90,000 people, maybe more that day. There's a press article somewhere about that. I ran into tons of people without wristbands that day who simply walked in.
Saturday and Sunday were better but it was still very crowded.
Paul Tollett and GV had a lot of soul searching after that to fix everything and they did it. They created the one mile perimeter and multiple checkpoints to discourage gate crashing which was pretty prevalent in years past. They paid for road improvements to increase traffic flow. They began the shuttle system. In years past, there were stories of being trapped in the parking lot for hours and hours. Don't know how bad day parking is now but I haven't seen any posts complaining about getting out at night. They increased the size of the festival site.
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
Thanks all for the write ups. Very helpful for planning, although, the rave reviews of certain artists keep piling onto my conflict list. I've been dying to see Band of Skulls, but I might have to squeeze some First Aid Kit in too.
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
Quote:
Originally Posted by
bmack86
Karen Dalton
Thanks for this. Never heard of her. Its like Billie Holiday singing folk songs. Awesome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7dDufASwgM
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TomAz
I was thinking of Carrie in light of Pete Townshend more than Jimmy Page, but yeah.
Funny you mentioned this. After that set I told someone -- I think Cara -- that Carrie was entitled to a Townshend windmill after that performance.
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
TomAz and I bro'd it the fuck out. It was glorious.
Re: Sunday Writeups Go Here
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Alchemy
Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg may have crowned Sunday on the 2012 Coachella poster, but I had another main event in mind as I entered the Empire Polo Field on that last day: The Weeknd. Abel Tesfaye climbed to the top of my priority list not very long after the line-up released and I came upon his website, where his three magnificent mixtapes – House of Balloons, Thursday, and Echoes of Silence – found heavy rotation on my iPod. Finally there was a flavor of popular R&B that didn’t bore me to death – probably thanks to the alternative nods like the Beach House samples in “The Party & The After Party” and “Loft Music,” but also with much help to the music’s rich electronic taste – like the latter section on “House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls.” I was prepared to stand among the sing-along crowd and lip-synch – so that I could spare my neighbors of my sad noise.
Arriving from a superb performance by The Hives (more on this in a later installment), I found a place in the massive crowd just in time to hear “High For This” whispering out of the Outdoor Theatre. I infiltrated deeper into the crowd, hunting around hip gatherings for an elusive sound that kept bounding away no matter how much nearer I drew. I even removed my Etymotic plugs – an essential tool for any concert fanatic – something I rarely do in the presence of live music – because The Weeknd always remained a faraway sound that could not rise above the gross chatter of so many people talking about things unrelated to what was happening onstage. In fact, it felt as though I were listening to a band from one stage while they played on another stage, plenty yards away, muffled and weak.
I wanted to push my way toward the soundboard – not the stage – and shout at the technicians for allowing such a crime to happen. The general rule should probably state this: Beyond the stage’s signpost – where its set times are located – the music should be loud enough so that you cannot hear your neighbor without their shouting at your face. I mean, really, if your unprotected ears do not ring after the set, something went wrong with the volume. And I didn’t want to fight the crowd for a spot near the rail, where the sound might have been found; I just wanted to enjoy one of my highly anticipated Coachella sets in the way that I enjoyed many of the other sets that came previous to The Weeknd’s performance. Needless to say, I felt grumpy – I even became suddenly aware of a stomachache – and I miserably swayed to “The Knowing” after returning to my initial spot away from the stage, having given up on my dreams.
The real tragedy is that, in the faint murmurs of The Weeknd’s performance, I could hear hints of a wonderful set – the set I wanted. Tesfaye’s voice sounded very good, the band played well, and the setlist contained just about everything I wanted to hear; it was all just a victim of the dreaded “bad sound,” which may arguably be worse than a set falling flat because of an act giving a dismal performance – it is something that could (or should) have been prevented during sound check. And I can’t even imagine why the sound was the way it was, because I heard solid sets from the Outdoor Theatre earlier, and I could even hear Florence + The Machine when she played the same stage later – and I was practically standing at the opposite end of the polo field!
This is a really sad story. To make sure I had good sound for The Weeknd we camped out about 25 minutes early. His set was fantastic. I'm sorry the sound was bad back there :(.
