On Saturday, May 1, I was one of thousands that comprised the sea of people who had just watched the Pixies and were trying to secure a good position for Radiohead. I was about halfway from the stage to the end of the Empire polo field and I was still closely surrounded. Nearly an hour later, when I stood on tip toes even though my legs were quivering in pain, I got a glimpse of singer Thom York frantically flailing his limbs as if they were independent from his body while multi-instrumentalist Johnny Greenwood ripped into a dangerously precise, distortion-soaked guitar solo. It was truly a spectacular performance, as though God himself had descended from the heavens to watch from a loveseat of clouds. This was Coachella 2004.
Since it started in 1999, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival had built a strong reputation as a venue for creative bands far outside the mainstream. Artists like the Icelandic queen Bjork and the multidimensional Beck have headlined previous years. However, the lineup this year solidified Coachella as the premier music-festival attraction.
First of all, Coachella offered the only North American Radiohead performance this year, which would be enough to easily draw a healthy crowd to the desert of Indio, Calif. But Coachella also promised a reunion performance by the Pixies, a band that revolutionized the current state of rock music with its concise, distortion-heavy dynamic songs. Not to mention reunion performances by the Cure (a group known for its moody goth-punk perspective) and Kraftwerk (the band that started “robotic pop” way back in the ’70s). Add to this nearly 40 of the world’s top rock, techno, and hip-hop acts and you’ve got yourself a two-day festival (and a reason to withstand the blistering heat).
And hot it was. Indio, Calif., near Palm Springs, is essentially an oasis in the middle of a desert. From the time the sun rose around seven in the morning until it set at about eight at night, the heat was sweltering. The only refuge was in a beer garden set up by Heineken and the only available water was in small bottles that cost two bucks a piece. This kind of a situation could make for a pretty crabby crowd.
But for the most part, the crowd was well-behaved. There were occasional times when crowd members formed conga lines to push through the pit to get a better view, but that’s understandable, considering the money and time spent to see these bands. Scantily clothed people came from all over the world with a friendly attitude to watch the plethora of bands.
In fact, I found myself talking to a middle-aged man who had just finished a conversation in another language on his cell phone. We compared the bands we had already seen and the bands yet to play. This conversation revealed that two people could go to this festival and come away with completely different experiences. I assumed that most everyone was going to watch the Flaming Lips toward the end of Sunday, but this man was planning on watching Mogwai instead.
What a strange situation: being faced with the dilemma of seeing the Flaming Lips or Mogwai. This sort of overlap was the unfortunate result of a festival that had too much to offer in its two-day span. There were two large stages and three tents that featured music and from noon to midnight, there were bands playing at all stations. The average rock and rap set was about 50 minutes and the average techno set was nearly two hours. Some unfortunate overlaps were Beck and Death Cab for Cutie, The Rapture and Stereolab, Kraftwerk and The Electric Six, and Air and Dizzee Rascal, among many more. Additionally, if you wanted to get a prime spot for any of these bands, it was necessary to show up toward the end of the set before them. This made prioritizing and quick navigation a necessity, but at the same time it was hard to make a wrong choice.
The combination of the multitude of prestigious indie bands and an audience that made drastic preparations to attend the festival despite the climate meant that the bands would definitely bring their A game. Thursday singer Geoff Rickly suffered from serious vocal problems and even collapsed on stage but continued to put all his energy into the performance. Broken Social Scene sported four animated guitarists and two brass players for its set. Flaming Lips singer Wayne Coyne got into a huge plastic bubble and walked around on top of the audience. Radiohead’s set included a solid balance of material from almost all of its albums. The band also reworked many songs to offer something fresh. Johnny Greenwood’s solos were even more ornate and passionate than usual, Thom York sang in harmonies to his usual melodies; drummer Phil Sellway and Bassist Collin Greenwood also beefed up their parts. Toward the end its set, Radiohead gave a rare performance of its first hit single, “Creep,” which York dedicated to the Pixies.
Those are only a few highlights from a show that featured many more breath-taking moments, but just as it was impossible to see everything worthwhile, it is also impossible to commit all these moments to a review.
Even with a diverse selection of music, there was a unifying theme of anti-Bush sentiment. Some bands approached the issue more subtly than others. Thom York made no formal speeches instead conveying his political messages through song choices such as “No Surprises,” during which the audience cheered to the lyrics, “bring down the government / they don’t speak for us.” The Flaming Lips took an overt approach to its political message. Singer Wayne Coyne gave a short, respectful speech about stopping Bush, which he then chanted during one of the songs.
Being an audience member that decided to make the trip despite the climate, cost, and inconvenient clash with finals, I’d have to say that this experience was life-affirming. It taught me that there are thousands of people all over the world that love creative, independent music as much as I do. It was wholly refreshing to spend time with people that dwell outside the mainstream during this time of media homogenization and a conservative government. Here’s hoping that Coachella will be the inspiration for future mass collaborations between today’s best groups and reunions of the artists that started it all.
