My Sunday Writeup: All we are is dust in the wind

[TomAz]

No but seriously.

Cloud Nothings started the day with a great wake up call. They sounded clear, they sounded loud, and they sounded right on. Nothing like a jolt of good hard guitar rock to get the blood flowing the last day of Coachella. Daft Punk did not join them on stage, however.

Actually Sunday was very heavy on the guitar rock -- not that my Friday and Saturday were not, but Sunday it all seemed to gel.

The Three O'Clock were next, and they were tuneful and beautiful and also loud. Hardly anybody showed up though.. it was a real shame. These guys deserved a lot better. At least they took it like men, got that Ian Brown? Daft Punk also did not join them on stage.

JEFF the Brotherhood were my most anticipated 'new discovery' (for me at least) of the weekend but they really weren't very good. I mean they weren't bad but they weren't good. Sound problems out the ass.. first the guy's wireless lead doesn't work, so he replaces it with an actual wire, but I guess that threw the sound balance off? At one point I actually could not hear the drums over the guitar. I could see him playing drums but could not hear it. And I was in front of the sound board. Unsurprisingly I suppose, Daft Punk did not join them on stage.

The Gaslight Anthem played a rousing if predictable set of rousing but predictable songs. I like these guys though. They sounded good. Predictably, Daft Punk did not join them onstage.

I should have gone to see Kurt Vile but I needed a break and a beer and some social time. Then I went to see Daft Punk not join Dinosaur Jr onstage. Kings of Indie Guitar Rock. so fucking great. one of my highlights of the weekend.

SIDEBAR: Someone explain to me why the Stone Roses get to headline and Dinosaur Jr is playing at 5pm on the Outdoor. Is Stone Roses 'bigger'? no, definitely not. Is Stone Roses 'more important, more influential'? I would call that a tie. Stone Roses is certainly rarer, though.. is that all that is required?

Apparently Rodriguez had been counting on playing his records by pushing a button in Daft Punk's pyramid, cuz when they didn't show up he just sort of shifted about aimlessly and played songs that no one could hear.

I had a robot-helmet-sized hole in my schedule at that point, so I milled about and had dinner and massaged my poor aching blistered feet. From afar I overheard Daft Punk not playing Walcott with Vampire Weekend.

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds imported a group of aliens dressed as schoolchildren, who sang us songs about pregnant prostitutes, drug addiction, and Daft Punk. Cave sounded great though and I'm still so pissed I missed Grinderman.

The douchebag factor seemed markedly lower on Sunday. I guess Saturday was just a bad day, with bro-magnets the XX and Phoenix and Daft Punk playing.

In case you weren't there and haven't heard there was a bit of wind on Sunday evening, which threw dust and sand and hot dog wrappers in peoples faces. But even if you were there you may not have seen the fucking bizarro world that was I-10 west of Indio on Sunday night. holy shit I have never seen anything like it. Wind and sand much, much more intense than anything we saw on the Polo Grounds; sheets of sand tearing across the freeway. This was not like any Arizona summer duststorm. This was a fucking blizzard of sand. Traffic on I-10 slowed to a crawl because nobody could see. I almost missed my exit, I couldn't see it. Finally made it to the hotel parking garage, the cars are covered in a nice coating of sand and dust. It blew like a damned hurricane all night. I wake up this morning and the palm trees outside my window look like one of those Weather Channel hurricane reports. Sand drifts in the parking garage and on the street. I am not making this up. Fucking sand drifts. I-10 at Bob Hope Rd at 8 am this morning, it was still fucking whipping and blowing and throwing sand everywhere. 5 miles down the road it let up. Must be something about the geography of that spot where my hotel is. Either that or the pyramid-shaped space craft in the parking lot.

[prettyawfulperson]

Thanks for these write-ups. Along with the webcast it's given me some tips on who to see next weekend. Curious though, you didn't say if Daft Punk played with the RHCP or not. I figure I should hang out there next weekend just in case since I didn't see any confirmation on this vital piece of information.

[algunz]

Jim got another flat, so we had to walk our bikes home in that wind. I don't think I would have been able to pedal anyway.

[bobert]

Pretty funny, Tom. One of the greatest things I saw all weekend was when I was waiting for my girlfriend to use the bathroom outside the Gobi. The screens inside the tent flickered to life and and I see the word Daft Punk flash on the screen while throbbing electro pumped from the soundsystem. Hundreds of people dropped what they were doing and made a crazed dash for the tent convinced that the mythic, secret Daft Punk show was actually happening right there. In the Gobi. It was mass hysteria, and I just stood there and laughed as all these imbeciles slowly realized they were freaking out over a commercial. I saw the exact same situation play out on the main stage a half hour later. One of the highlights of the weekend.

[santasutt]

It was fun seeing you at Old-chela all weekend, Tom. Thee Oh Sees crushed it in the Gobi during Jeff's problems on the Outdoor. One of my top sets of the day, along with Dinosaur Jr. and...wait for it....


OMD!

So awesome. If you want to get your synth pop on after a healthy filling of cranking guitars all day then this was the place to be. Such a happy set. No regrets whatsoever for missing Nick Cave. One of my top 5 for the weekend.

[crazzz2007]

I've never seen the words "The xx" and "bro-magnet" used in the same sentence before.

[Wolfbeckett]

The I-10 was INSANE. I left after Nick Cave because I have less than 0 interest in RHCP and the I-10 was fucking surreal. It looked like one of those video clips you'd see on Planet Earth or something of the huge sandstorms in Africa and shit. Hope to never experience that again, that was a nerve wracking drive back to the hotel.

[fatbastard]

My Sunday Writeup.

I shivered and shaked for the final 90 minutes. Lots of dirt in the shower. I just woke up right now and my left eye had dried blood on the outside.

Dust...damm.

[missedout]

Glad to hear Daft Punk, despite rumors, was NOT at every set.

[footixy]

was crunching sand in my mouth beyond 5pm

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[TomAz]

Glad to hear Daft Punk, despite rumors, was NOT at every set.

You know what, they exceeded expectations. Not only were they not at every set, they weren't at any set. It was fucking EPIC.

[algunz]

I ate spicy pie and plenty of dust.

Grimes
Dinosaur Jr.
Social Distortion
Rodriguez
Vampire Weekend
Pretty Lights
Nick Cave
Roni Size
Dead Can Dance
Red Hot Chili Peppers

[CrimesceneCookie]

Three O'Clock was pleasant while I ate my breakfast pizza, then left to get a little more excitement.

Jeff The Brotherhood was kinda good & heavy, but the wireless guitar thing kept cutting out.

Thee Oh Sees rocked my head, at that point I felt like my day truly started.

After that, Kurt Vile started, but after rocking out at Thee Oh Sees I wasn't in the mood for a mellow set.

Walked around and got a 15 minute taste of some goofy trap in the Do Lab, and liked it. People were all smiles and getting silly.

Wandered over to see what Mimosa was like in the Sahara, and it was more trap. I wasn't expecting to like it, but I enjoyed a nice 15 minutes of that as well. Good energy in there.

I caught the last song of Grimes. It was okay. Kind of reminded me of a female Jamie Lidell.

I'm not a big Dinosaur Jr fan but I checked out the rest of that set, and enjoyed it a lot. I took a lot of video of the mosh pit. "This next song! This next song! This next song! This next song! Is from my first hardcore band... (or something like that)..." Good thrashy fun.

Right before Tame Impala I finally caught up with my friends who had spent half the afternoon eating at Applebees. Tame Impala was the most crowded set I saw all weekend and I couldn't see much, but the combination of the wind and the super sonic sound was magic to my ears. My friends weren't feeling it so much and left for Rodriguez which turned out to be a disaster for them. I got closer for Tame Impala and had a most excellent time. I just wish they hadn't been late and ended early.

We made our way over to one of my most anticipated sets (Father John Misty) and we couldn't stop laughing at his goofy stage banter. I wound up taking video of the whole set with my BroPro. That was the highlight of the day so far.

Hurried over to catch 5 minutes of Pretty Lights but didn't get enough of a taste before it was all over. I would have loved to see more.

OMD.... FUCK! We were not expecting them to be so awesome. Everything was perfect. "Forever Live and Die" left me on a huge plateau and were by far my favorite of the day.

Took a break after that and tried to figure out how to close the day, either with Prydz who I worried would be too cheesy, or Disclosure who might be underwhelming due to the mixed reviews I have read here. We went with Prydz on the condition that if he got too cheesy we would bail for Disclosure. He didn't. I love impressive light shows and multi colored lazers, and the music wasn't bad at all, at least in the condition I was in. We were all having a blast and decided to stay to the end.

Overall it was one of the most well rounded Coachella Sundays I've ever had and I have no regrets. We all floated away from Coachella towards the shuttles wide-eyed and in a state of bliss.

Well done, GV.

[TheWatcher]

In case you weren't there and haven't heard there was a bit of wind on Sunday evening, which threw dust and sand and hot dog wrappers in peoples faces. But even if you were there you may not have seen the fucking bizarro world that was I-10 west of Indio on Sunday night. holy shit I have never seen anything like it. Wind and sand much, much more intense than anything we saw on the Polo Grounds; sheets of sand tearing across the freeway. This was not like any Arizona summer duststorm. This was a fucking blizzard of sand. Traffic on I-10 slowed to a crawl because nobody could see. I almost missed my exit, I couldn't see it. Finally made it to the hotel parking garage, the cars are covered in a nice coating of sand and dust. It blew like a damned hurricane all night. I wake up this morning and the palm trees outside my window look like one of those Weather Channel hurricane reports. Sand drifts in the parking garage and on the street. I am not making this up. Fucking sand drifts. I-10 at Bob Hope Rd at 8 am this morning, it was still fucking whipping and blowing and throwing sand everywhere. 5 miles down the road it let up. Must be something about the geography of that spot where my hotel is. Either that or the pyramid-shaped space craft in the parking lot.

Highway 111 was in much better condition than the I-10. Somewhat windy/dusty, but no rivers of sand. Heading up Monterey toward the I-10 the wind picked up and I got to drive through shimmering rivers of sand on the road. Pretty surreal. I think there has been wind this bad in past years.... Leaving at 7am this morning, it was still a bit too windy and sandy for me till we got past the windmill areas (some time after Morongo). Being very cautious after only 2.5 hours sleep, I was the slowest car on the freeway, watching the cars pulling trailers pass me.

Anyway, Highway 111 is a good choice when there are high winds, compared to the I-10. After passing the last police-directed traffic block, the traffic was minimal. And, adequate street lighting for the win!

[TeamCoachellaHellYeah]

Holy shit, that sandstorm heading back was just insane...never seen anything like it...was terrified and in awe of it at the same time.

[LickTheLizzard]

I'm not sure where else to put this, and I don't feel like making a thread, but when did Cloud Nothings become a 3 piece band? They usually have a second guitar player that does all the back up vocals. It totally changed their sound, not necessarily bad but it was definitely different.

[Miroir Noir]

Sunday was an awesome day of rock and roll, made all the better by hanging with Tom and so many other boardies for most of it.

My only regret was not leaving after Nick Cave. I mean, Wu and Disclosure were cool, but that storm was the fucking worst.

[mountmccabe]

I'm not sure where else to put this, and I don't feel like making a thread, but when did Cloud Nothings become a 3 piece band? They usually have a second guitar player that does all the back up vocals. It totally changed their sound, not necessarily bad but it was definitely different.

I am pretty sure Cloud Nothings are still a 4-piece band; Joe just wasn't able to make it to Coachella.

[mountmccabe]

I should have gone to see Kurt Vile but I needed a break and a beer and some social time. Then I went to see Daft Punk not join Dinosaur Jr onstage. Kings of Indie Guitar Rock. so fucking great. one of my highlights of the weekend.

SIDEBAR: Someone explain to me why the Stone Roses get to headline and Dinosaur Jr is playing at 5pm on the Outdoor. Is Stone Roses 'bigger'? no, definitely not. Is Stone Roses 'more important, more influential'? I would call that a tie. Stone Roses is certainly rarer, though.. is that all that is required?

The Stone Roses are a co-headliner with Blur. This pairing makes a whole lot more sense (musically, historically) than any of the other artists on that list, including Dinosaur Jr.

Rarer is a big deal but I would consider the Stone Roses to be bigger. My impression is that they also had a higher peak than Dinosaur Jr, and at around the same time.

For numbers, try this list of selected Coachella bands, ranked by last.fm listeners. I acknowledge that this skews the data to younger/computer/social people as well as towards artists with new material... but Dinosaur Jr. have both more and newer music to scrobble (again, this is listeners, not total plays).

Red Hot Chili Peppers: 3.9 million
Franz Ferdinand: 2.8 million
Blur: 2.4 million
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: 2.1 million
Modest Mouse: 2.0 million
Vampire Weekend: 1.7 million
The Postal Service: 1.6 million
Phoenix: 1.5 million
New Order: 1.4 million
Metric: 1.2 million
Wu-Tang Clan: 1.1 million
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: 978k
The Stone Roses: 933k
Dropkick Murphys: 827k
Violent Femmes: 758k
Yeasayer: 656k
Dinosaur Jr.: 643k
Jurassic 5: 632k
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark: 586k
Social Distortion: 531k
Aesop Rock: 448k
Spiritualized: 397k
Dead Can Dance: 391k
Descendents: 384k
Sparks: 251k
The Three O'Clock: 11,640
The Make-Up: 5,239

From this list the Stone Roses are below a lot of bands but (a) not Dinosaur Jr. and (b) Blur, their co-headliner are ahead of everyone except for the Sunday night headliner (edit: and Franz Ferdinand, a band I just added to this list).

[amyzzz]

I should have done a day by day write-up as it was happening like you, Tom, because now I am so old all my days kind of run together in my mind. On Sunday at some point I realized my car wouldn't start -- the battery was dying. I decided to put that out of my mind for a while and figure out what to do later. Meanwhile my daughter Cerys really needed to go to the bathroom and could not tolerate any more campground portapotties with the bees and the smell and the trapped heat, so we decided to take the Pink Path to the grocery store shuttles so we could use a bathroom with a real toilet at Ralph's and maybe get some gourmet coffee and sandwiches. That all worked out well -- all three of us got lattes, I got a sandwich, etc, etc, but when we exited the shuttle back at the campground, my daughter Eve realized she did not have her wristband! Somewhere, somehow it had fallen off, and I felt really bad about it because the previous day one of the workers told us she had tightened her wristband up too far and was using the other looser end as the bracelet, so it wasn't very tight on her wrist -- the worker said we needed to go to the box office to get it replaced. AND WE HAD NEVER GOTTEN AROUND TO DOING THAT, WHOOPS. So we explained to security what had happened, and after they radioed a supervisor to come over, he said we could go ahead back into the campground, but we still needed to go to the box office to get a new one replaced. We trudged back on the Pink Path to our camping spot, and lo and behold, Eve found her wristband in our tent! WOOHOO!

We went in the fest for a while, tried to go in the Yuma for Jamie XX, but the line was too long 15 minutes before start time, so we just gave up and got ice cream (the coffee bean ice cream was TO DIE FOR) and eventually wound up at Grimes. Cerys did not want to go in the tent because it was too crowded so we stood/sat outside in the sun and I could barely hear Grimes over the whomp-whomp of everything else, so we gave up there and decided to go back to camp a while. Once we got back, I noticed our neighbors were all packed up and about ready to leave, so I asked if they had jumper cables. They did and we had already packed our car that morning, so we got jumped, drove to Lot 2 to day park so we could leave the festival whenever we wanted (camping lot was closed down from 10pm-2am every night, no one can leave), parked there, jumped out of the car, hiked/jogged back to the main entrance, grabbed some kettle corn in the Terrace, and got a spot by the Outdoor Theatre soundboard with just minutes to spare before Tame Impala. They started a few minutes late, but were wonderful to behold. Everyone was dancing and grooving, and I wish they had a longer set because they are really my favorite new band right now. What a great band! And at sunset too. Lovely.

We didn't really have anyone else to see that day except OMD and Dead Can Dance at the end of the night, so we did some wandering, and ended up at the Sahara for Hardwell. The lights were flashing, the bass was thumping, and everyone was dancing their asses off, but the greatest moment at Coachella happened for me when I looked over at my daughter Cerys -- who is very reserved and nonchalant about the bands, who brought a BOOK to Franz Ferdinand the night before for pete's sake and they're one of her favorite bands! -- anyway, Eve and I looked over at Cerys, and she was jumping up and down at Hardwell! So we all started jumping up and down to the beat and smiling from ear-to-ear. It was glorious! Some young hippie guy came over to me as we were leaving the tent, asked me if Eve was my kid and told me I was the best parent ever. Greatest Sahara experience ever. Yeah, we didn't stay long because either someone had to go to the bathroom or get more ice cream or whatever -- I have kids with me, so I couldn't really stay anywhere for too long.

In any case, we got all our body functions out of the way in time for OMD while the dust storm had really started to pick up. I hadn't realized how many OMD songs I actually knew -- pretty much all the new wave songs for which I could not remember the band were OMD songs, and the main singer was so energetic and enthusiastic. They were a lot better than I would have expected. Great show! After that we braved the storm to the Terrace and I spent the last of my cash on three tiny 8 ounce vanilla lattes, then we fought our way back to the Mojave for Dead Can Dance. Roni Size was still in there, and what the fuck is that? High energy dance music with an MC or something. It was a bit too peppy for me at the moment, but the crowd was were jumping and dancing around (who has that much energy on Sunday of Coachella??). When that was over, I saw Erik and said hi, we moved closer up to experience Dead Can Dance. Words can not express how hypnotic and lovely they were. With the wind swirling all around them, Lisa Gerrard had a beatific, serene smile on her face (a singer's mask I think -- you keep a slight smile on your face and it helps you stay on-key, learned that in choir. .) Her calm was very soothing to the audience, and her voice was very controlled and goddamnit words cannot describe how rich and beautiful her alto voice is! Many people around me were swaying to the beat and there were several odd individuals going through the audience dancing erratically as if they were trying to spread their enthusiasm for the music to everyone. And again the storm was raging throughout the performance. I don't know the names of any their songs, forgive me, except the Ubiquitous Mr. Lovegrove with which they closed their set, no encore. Frankly, I was relieved they didn't cancel the show because my god, the windstorm! What a terrific way to close the festival. We immediately went back to Lot 2 and got out in about 20 minutes, no too bad at all.

[gam3g3ni3]

Loved the story about your daughter at the Hardwell set. Great stuff.

[Y0UNGBL00D]

I've never seen the words "The xx" and "bro-magnet" used in the same sentence before.

came in to say this.

[Y0UNGBL00D]

amyzzz im excited about OMD. i had no clue thats who they were. the acronym just didnt register through all of this lineup madness.

WE2 here i come!

[amyzzz]

I should note that my daughter Cerys is 12 and Eve is 10. They had a blast but were not too fond of camping. It was ROUGH.

[Y0UNGBL00D]

they into a lot of the music?

[amyzzz]

Yes! They were really excited for Phoenix, Blur, Franz Ferdinand, Grizzly Bear, and Tame Impala, but most of the bands were on so late at night that they got too tired.

[Lynn163]

I can't believe you missed Grinderman Tom

It was great meeting you Friday!