I’m just going to give you a quick blow by blow wrapping up the last two days. For everything that this festival does wrong, it does get a lot of things right, they’ve made it more comfortable than say Big Day Out for giving you easy access to decent bathrooms, water, and keeping the grounds clean. Although the prices they used to keep low have caught up to besting Disneyland, $5 for a churro? $6 for frozen lemonade? Food now clocks in at $7 for a slice of pizza, and $9 to $12 for most meals, which doesn’t include $2 for a bottle of water. Factor that into $350ish for your ticket and then hotel or camping and you’ve spent a ton of money. So I’m not going to say worth it or not, that’s all up to you and how much you love the bands, and if you and your significant other or friends can withstand what I call the ultimate relationship destroyer, a festival in this heat seems like it’s been the last straw for many of couples platonic or not.
Radiohead
Must think they’re god’s gift to music, seem so out of touch on stage, I understand they’ve maintained their relevance, but they played they sleepiest set I’ve ever seen them do for a festival crowd. I’d probably bitch if it were all wall to wall hits too, but this was not what I expected, they just seem to ride in on a high horse of their post 2000s catalog, playing all the downtempo electronics that this audience could withstand, throwing a few bones like “Karma Police” which seemed like a fierce rocker compared to 80% of what they played that night. The 2nd encore included “Exit Music” and “Paranoid Android” but if you’re going slow, then might as well get heavy, which they steered clear of almost entirely. They’re a great rock band of the past, and a decent electronic band.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
5 film projectors mixing images live behind the band, impressive set, uneventfully good.
Bon Iver
I’m not sure how they talked 4AD into thinking this was their kind of thing, but they’re bringing home the money from what I could tell from gazing at their giant ass crowd from the other end of the field. I’m sure beautiful and what not, he’s got a song I kind of liked, but this is not my thing. To me this sounds like early My Morning Jacket, which you didn’t see 4AD tossing out contracts for that.
Jeff Mangum
I’m sure today he’s considered a forerunner to all of the painful Bon Iver style, sad folkies and Decemberists, but in my book NMH came along and wrote one of the most sweeping, beautiful and sad story albums, won’t call it a concept record, ever made. The album was subsequently discovered by hippies and fans of Bright Eyes in the early 2000s and they ran with it all the way to Burning Man and back. But I settled into this, and let go of all the bullshit, and appreciated some real fire caused by something real.
A$AP Rocky
I don’t know, A$AP Rocky, Asop Rock? This gets a sad face 
Flying Lotus
Has a mainstream rave crowd, strange for a Warp Records artist, but he’s alright, not my fave but not bad.
St. Vincent
I hadn’t been won over by her in the past, but she did a great cover of The Pop Group’s “She’s Beyond Good & Evil.” I was impressed by her set.
Buzzcocks
fIREHOSE
Santigold
At The Drive-In
It’s like slightly better emo/hardcore, they built a huge career off of one big hit.
tUnE-yArDs
Always seemed super overrated to me, like a much less interesting Dirty Projectors, who I could barely get half a chub for in the first place.
Kasabian
Fucking bravado, heavy and dark, good balance use of electronics. Felt like all their songs were written in front of festival crowds for maximum impact. You have to like that psychedelic brit pop sound to appreciate this, but they put on a stomping and damning set that lived up to their tough talk.
The Shins
Could probably start calling themselves The Panty Liners, I don’t know what these guys are doing, they put out a fluke lo-fi album and then a bunch of super watered down indie top 40 LPs and one of the worst collabs I’ve ever heard with that Broken Bells shit. This is a machine used for making money. This also gets a sad face
SBTRKT
David Guetta
Flo & Her Machine
Giving mainstream ladies a new less interesting Tori Amos, with less depth and dimension to her music. Huge fucking crowd for a 2nd stage set.
Justice
Big overblown basslines, but always enjoy their halloween vibe to their french flavored house.
Growlers
Great band, Ariel Pink seems like their cousin, but they come from 60s surf garage, where as he lives in late 70s/early 80s soft rock.
Dre & Snoop
They should probably have done this years ago, but when you’re a producer, you obviously don’t want to be much of a performer, just enough to launch your artists and sit back and let the checks roll in. They put on a good show, with every major star associated with Dre from the last 20 years. Good set, not an eminem fan at all, gets a 9.2 with a .8 deduction for his inclusion.
Day -1 Filter Party/Coachella Editorial
http://ivacationinyourhell.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/coachella-report-part-1-i-vacation-in-your-coac-hell-a/
Day 1
http://ivacationinyourhell.wordpress.com/2012/04/25/coachella-report-part-2-i-vacation-in-your-coac-hell-a/
Filed under: Reviews Tagged: 2, 2012, A$AP Rocky, and, arctic monkeys, art, arts, at the drive-in, Atari Teenage Riot, bands, Beauty, bon iver, Box, bring on the weekend, brochella, buzzcocks, canadians, carpark, class actress, coachella, couple, Dance, dark, Dark Electro, dead eyes, death grips, deerhunter, Dr. Dre, Electronic, fest, festival, filter, filter coachella party, fIREHOSE, Florence + the Machine, flying lotus, girls, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Goth, growlers, Heat, Heavy Beat, Hip Hop, Hot, i vacation in your hell, james, Jeff Mangum, Justice, kasabian, kickoff, live, love, madness, magazine, Major Drama, mazzy star, music, neon indian, Numeric codes, other lives, part, parties, party, performance, photos, portable toilet, pulp, radiohead, Records, refused, report, review, santigold, SBTRKT, sex, shows, Snoop Dog, snoop dogg, Spring Lust, st. vincent, swedish house mafia, Synth, Tape, the black angels, the black keys, the deer hunter, the horrors, tUnE-yArDs, valley, Video, Videos, weekend, weekend 2, yuck
