Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival (Archive)

Well, why the surprise? That’s just Zoran "The Pavement" acting like his usual self 🤣 — he's easily one of the most chaotic writers over at the news site. Honestly, the comments section below is pure gold 🙏

As for me, I had a wonderful time. Between catching The Hold Steady 😍 and hitting that aerobics class 🙏, just meeting people in the rain and soaking it all in... it was lovely

Mother - I showed up just for them😁
!!! They basically forced me onto the dance floor, claiming like 100 square feet of space just for my own personal madness aaaaaaaa
What kind of crazy, beautiful, absolutely brilliant music was that!!!
Listening to the Štuka set actually sent me into a bit of a depression (but hey, I guess that’s just where I’m at right now...)
The Roots - heard them live for the very first time 🙂 and they totally blew me away!
Iggy Pop - it made me remember my old punker days; I wanted to scream, cry, laugh, and dance all at the exact same time!! WHAT RAW, UNHINGED ENERGY!!! That's exactly what we need!!!! 🙏 🙏

One question though - why was everyone acting so boring? Or was everyone just bored? I’ve seen more life and energy at some soul-crushing backyard barbecues. What gives me??!!!

Stajcic generally seems to have some pretty significant issues with his grasp on reality...

Raymond Sanders5 said:Zachary Bishop82 says:
"Iggy Pop is a complete flop. The guy sounds like he's just playing covers of himself."
Can someone give me some context here? What was actually off? Was it the energy? The setlist?

He’s got plenty of energy, but the whole thing just feels exhausted. "I Wanna Be Your Dog" still hits hard, but the rest of the stuff didn't really move the needle for me..

Fair point. I was still buzzing from the last set I listened to, which I practically played all the way through..

brightridge19 said:I had a blast! Honestly, those shows at The Hold Steady stages were just incredible... 😍

I didn't quite catch the vibe with these guys—it feels like every single city in America has a hundred bands just like them? I mean, okay, they aren't exactly Hootie & the Blowfish, but they aren't exactly lightyears away either, right? 😬

🙂
zorator 😈

The first point isn't quite right—but even if it were, here is the crux of the matter:

Sam Smith14 said:I didn't really follow those—it feels like there are hundreds of bands just like them in every single city in America.

brightridge19, we don't even have that kind of scene here in the States.

As for your second point, you're completely off base. 😛

😍

I honestly don't get why everyone thinks Iggy Pop is boring or just didn't show up... if you guys were at shows where he was better, maybe that's just the crowd. Was the audience at Madison Square Garden really the type that would make him give 150%? To me, he was 😍 the Iggy!

The Hold Steady - pretty solid. You can tell they actually give a damn about what they’re doing. Rio Grande was on point too: "this band sounds like they came straight out of some American Vanguard" (or Fidelity, for the younger 😬 folks) "Man, the keyboardist looks like a spitting Ron Jeremy" "Nah, he looked more like Super Mario before..." 😂

Let It Be - some people really swear by them, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Total mistake.

Rage Against the Machine - see my note on Let It Be.

!!! - absolute madness, just pure chaos during that aerobics bit. Then I ran into a problem I never thought I'd deal with—I've lost so much weight that my pants kept slipping down while I was jumping, so I had to chill out a bit after the first few songs. 😬 And honestly, that ruins the vibe; without the craziness and the messing around, everything just feels flat and boring.

Iggy Pop - better than I expected, probably thanks to Mike Watt being there. Passable.

Then, on the way back, we had to listen to some country music blaring from the tents.

Kultur Shock - absolute legends. Not even the best band at the whole festival, but definitely the most fun and wild set—pure mayhem. I'm hooked.

The walk back to the car in a total downpour, getting soaked to the bone, was the ultimate comedown after all that. 😠 Luckily, I haven't lost *that* much weight, so my stomach is still wider than my hips, which meant only the most useless parts of my body actually stayed dry... 😬

stormyviper11 said:"back before Super Mario..."

Haha... 🤣

The Hold Steady 😍

Craig Finn totally gives off those vibes of someone you’d want to grab a drink with at some dive bar in Brooklyn 🙂

To me, the keyboardist comes off more like a young Milo Ventimiglia 😬

..man, I wasn't even really there. I was just wasted, totally out of it, terrified... I felt like I was lost in the middle of nowhere, just spiraling and wanting to shave my head off...

Honestly, I think I like them even more now, especially... The Hold Steady 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏 🙏

The Hold Steady were pure magic. 😍
The crowd seemed a little low on energy, but my partner-in-crime and I soaked up every single ounce of passion those guys threw our way… Or maybe they were just feeding off ours? 😍 Truly unforgettable. The time of day didn't matter, nothing else mattered—we were totally in sync, dancing away, and in that moment, I honestly felt like I’d give them every cent I own. 😍 How could you possibly miss them? Honestly, how...? 😕 😍

And the cheering… absolute ecstasy. 😍 I thought I’d exhausted myself by around 7:00 PM, but I was wrong. You had to be there to hear it, to really feel it! :mrdanje: Iggy Pop, forgive me! 😳 But I caught a glimpse of you too, and everything… afterwards. 😳

I tried getting a little wild myself, but it just wasn't my scene; it's not for me. And right at that moment, fate decided to play its cruel little games. I guess that's just how it goes; life gives you a tiny bit of luck just so it can hit you harder when it takes it away… Since nobody has any clue what I'm rambling about anyway 😁, I think I'll just leave it at that.

But I am definitely craving more festivals like this. I can overlook any little flaws or hiccups, just please, let them play again. 🙂 Come on, bring them back already!

brightridge19 said:I mean, point one isn't exactly right—but even if it were, here's the kicker:

Look, man, we're here in the States and we just don't have stuff like that.

And as for point two? You haven't got a clue. 😛

😍

Honestly, I'd rather pay five bucks than deal with the headache of some overpriced vendor charging me seventy dollars just for them!

I was telling my buddy yesterday: look at how many people are jumping around right in front of the stage and actually knowing every single lyric. That’s probably just one big group of fans from this very forum swearing they love them! 🙂

The organizers should probably just lock the Happy Mondays in a cage for a week—this is absolutely brutal

Iggy Pop-👍
Iggy Pop-👍
!!!-👍
Obojeni-👍
The Stooges 🤮

@notsoevil says a buddy of mine thinks Viva Glorious started off strong but totally lost their edge later on.

After everything that went down, I actually feel better today than I did yesterday. Though, I definitely had a fever on day one.😢

The Hold Steady—I caught them from a distance. They didn't even touch me. Not even a little bit. You know, just one of those bands you play in the background while you're nursing a beer. WOW. And to those fanatics who swear they’d sacrifice their firstborn child at the altar of this band, I say: go ahead, make my day. ☕
The Stooges—I completely ignored them, mostly because they are strikingly, shockingly mediocre. Yet, they carry themselves with such unearned arrogance. It’s infuriating. Honestly, let them die in their own ignorance.
ADF—they aren't even a shadow of what they used to be. I’d love to take that annoying, nasal, pseudo-intellectual frontman and send him for a "chat" with some white supremacists down in southern Montana. Let him see how it feels to swat flies. With a handgun. They didn't play any of the old hits, they didn't even have a drummer, and they played "Fortress Europe" for the first time, somehow managing to scrape by through sheer cacophony. Whatever. 🙄 Still, they did provide a bit of danceable energy to the crowd.
!!!—lived up to their mean dancing machine reputation. From the moment they fired up that locomotive at the start until the very end, it was relentless. Absolutely magnificent. My only gripe is that weird trance-y, "pi-pyu-zwoooing" section in the dark. 🤔 That part was totally unnecessary; cut it. Edit for impact, don't just chop things off! 🧐
Iguana and the vultures—were... well, I honestly don't even know how to describe them. I watched the dear Mike Watt actively trying to pull the rest of the band along, while the original members looked like they were at some retirement home meetup for washed-up rockers, where the main topic of conversation is who managed to grow the longest hair despite being elderly. Mr. Iguana looks like an aged Anthony Kiedis—for god's sake, the wet, long hair is ridiculous. The energy was undeniable, the volume was massive, but the overall experience... err, let's just say it was of questionable quality...

Raymond Barrett12 said:The Hold Steady sounded distant. They didn't grab me at all...

and there's your answer 🙂

I felt the same way listening from afar... once I moved closer and actually paid attention to the band, they completely won me over. Honestly, it was more about their charm than the songs themselves, but does that even matter?

The Stooges were much better than I expected. They only played three new tracks—one of which was actually decent, "Electric Chair"—and they played the whole 🙏 fun 🙏 house 🙏 set. They were energetic, powerful, pure rock and roll... my only question is, was it just me, or did Ashton struggle a bit with those wah-wah parts from the album, opting instead to just grind through three punk chords? 🤔

ADF didn't play anything I recognized, had no drummer, and were frankly terrible. 😕 That "Fortress Europe" track was a genuinely great little thing; it might be worth checking out their last two albums too...

!!! Caught a few sets; Talking Heads were solid, though the frontman was a bit lacking. A shame I couldn't see the full show.

Overall, it was good!

Kevin Chavez3 said:and there's your answer 🙂

Finally. The reality is—and I’ve said this before—simply listening to their digital tracks ripped from some random file-sharing site didn't do a thing to change my mind. Their live performance just hammered that point home. ☕

Who put olive oil in your chocolate milk? 🙂