Surviving Coachella 2009

Well, I survived another Coachella Music Festival. My son, Jeff, got me started at Coachella five years ago, and I have been hooked ever since. The average age of the kids at Coachella is probably in the mid-20s. At my present age of 62, I have gotten used to the idea of being the oldest guy at the festival, and I take pride in that distinction.

The kids at Coachella already know most of the groups that are playing, and most of their music. They go to hear their favorites. My interest is different. I am familiar with only a few bands and a little of their music, so I am mostly in search of the new and the interesting. With a hundred bands to sample, and three days to do the sampling, I am never disappointed. I am also interested in seeing what the kids are up to, and eavesdropping on their conversations. It is all too easy, because I can stand right next to them, and they don’t even know I am there.

I have another goal the kids do not: I try to survive the three days of hundred degree heat and the chaos that is Coachella. The kids, by contrast, attack the three day festival with joyful abandon. If they pass out and spend two hours face down in the polo grounds grass, so be it. For them, it’s just part of the fun. On the other hand, if I take a nap under a shade tent, there’s a fair chance I will be awakened by a medic asking me if I’m o.k.

I went to Coachella with Jeff and two of his college friends. Friday, in the early afternoon, we parked in our usual spot, in the farthest corner of the fields surrounding the polo grounds, and we hiked to the ticket area at the edge of the polo fields. Once we were inside the festival grounds, I told Jeff I would see him at midnight at the usual meeting place, for the 30 minute walk back to the car in the dark. Until then, I would be on my own in a crowd of about 50,000 people young enough to be my children or, in some cases, my grandchildren.

While Jeff and his friends seemed to gain energy as the weekend went along, I remained focused on pacing myself and making sure I kept hydrated. For me, the most stressful part of the whole weekend was the shocking realization that, this year, I not only didn’t get the award for “The Oldest Guy Here”, I wasn’t even close. I blame Paul McCartney, who played on Friday night. I think he brought out a lot of old Beatles fans who decided to shuffle their way onto the polo grounds to hear him, and they stayed on for the rest of the weekend. Maybe they just couldn’t find their way back to their care takers. As a result, I felt less -- um -- unique, and I did not like that feeling. My four year record was at an end.

I did want to hear McCartney play live, which I had never done before. He was playing at the biggest stage at Coachella, and the crowd there was in the 10s of thousands, but I worked my way up to the side of the stage where I could see him fairly well. I was struck by how youthful his movement was, considering his age, which I think is about 67. But I was disappointed in his voice. Paul may not be dead, but his voice is. It was a sad experience after all these years. I found myself wishing he would just play the records so we could at least hear what he used to sound like.

One teenage girl standing near me said “He needs to play some Beatles songs”, and her girlfriend said “Well, he lost his band. What’s he gonna do?” Good point.

He played for almost 3 hours, and I was done listening after the first hour or so. It was getting late, and I decided to just rest and wait for Jeff and his friends to meet me for the long walk back to the car. But I was saved by a text message from Jeff telling me to come to the very smallest tent at Coachella to see a group I had never heard of and knew nothing about, Bajofondo. I ran over, worked my way into the small crowd in the tent, and caught the last few songs they performed. They were amazing, and it was the highlight of the weekend. When they stopped playing at midnight, I was disappointed. When listening to McCartney, I was tired and ready to go home. When listening to Bajofondo, I was energized and wanted them to keep going, even after midnight.

Bajofondo is from Argentina, and Jeff says he hears strains of the Tango in some of their music. I don’t know just what they played, and I was pleased to hear their leader admit he did not know either. They just played what they enjoyed, they appeared to be having a party on the stage, and the crowd loved it.

Their varied performances featured a violin, a bass fiddle, an electric accordion (old world squeeze box look, but electric) that is sometimes played by two people at once, guitars, a keyboard, drums, an occasional shirtless male “dancer”, and an Apple computer. They have the magnetism, intensity, and exuberance of Gogol Bordello and the old world charm of Devotchka. Sadly, I find that their recorded music is far less interesting than their live stage performance, but discovering a new live act like Bajofondo is exactly what Coachella is all about.

Search on YouTube for “Bajofondo - El Mareo (Coachella 2009)” to see a fuzzy four and a half minute clip of what they were like on stage.

Earlier on Friday, I listened to as many other groups as my feet could take me to. Here are some of my impressions:

Second only to Bajofondo, in my opinion, was Leonard Cohen. How is it that he is 75 and I have never heard of him? And he is playing Coachella, and the kids love him? His voice is so deep and gravelly that I had no idea whether he was singing in tune, or whether the idea of being in tune even applied here. Yes, he is old, but the young crowd went crazy, especially when he assured them that “Democracy is coming -- to the USA”. He gave a magnetic performance even though his physical style on stage is limited to “stand and deliver”, combined now and then with “shuffle and deliver”. How is that possible? He was another performer that I wanted to hear more from, but his set was over.

The Ting Tings: Ya gotta love any group that appears to be having as much fun on the stage as the youthful groundlings are having down below. All together now: “That’s not my name! That’s not my name!”

Beirut: who knew there was such a thing as an electric ukulele? They also featured two trumpets, an accordion, a mandolin, and what I think was a variation on a French horn, but I am not sure. And they played -- gypsy folk? -- I am not sure here either. At Coachella, I stumble across a lot of stuff I am not sure about, but that’s why I come here. But they did get the prize for the most memorable song name: “My Night With the Prostitute from Marseille”.

Molotov was compelling and loud, with their rap/punk/party sound in what I think was Spanish, but it was waaay too loud to tell.

A Place to Bury Strangers performed at a “permanent hearing loss” volume, and I could not make out the distorted vocals, but they did play propulsive, compelling music, and I listened to a few songs before heading off to hear McCartney.

Saturday got off to a good start. On the drive back to Coachella early Saturday afternoon, we passed a redneck truck sporting a slogan that said “Freedom is’nt free”. Hmm. Apparently, an education “is’nt” either. And I saw the best t-shirt slogan on Saturday: “One Nation Under Fear”. But Saturday went downhill when I realized that Friday was no fluke: the polo grounds were crawling with people who looked like they just got off a Leisure World bus at the wrong stop. What are those old people doing at ... oh, yeah, never mind.

Joss Stone has a smooth, 60s soul sound that reminded me of the best of both Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin: “Everybody say yeah!”. The disconnect here is that she looked too young and too white to have that voice. If I closed my eyes, and just listened, I was back at Berkeley and it was 1968.

Fleet Foxes has a choir-like, cathedral sound. Beautiful, but at 8 p.m., with not enough sleep, I need some noise and some action to keep me awake. I need MIA.

MIA put on a big show this year on the big stage. She is still crazy, and, just as she did at her Austin City Limits show a year and a half ago, she invited the audience to come up on stage with her in the middle of her show, apparently failing to notice that, this time, her crowd numbered in the 10s of thousands. The chaos that ensued was wonderful to watch from the side of the stage, but probably not so wonderful for the frazzled security people trying to hold back the flood while MIA kept urging people to come on up. “Let them up! Let them up!” But I figure that’s why we call them “entertainers”. She has a great sound, a big following, and a lot of sing-along hits to choose from. And, for my money, anything that gets the young girls dancing with abandon is good news. Entertaining indeed.

Saturday featured another Coachella discovery: Tinariwen. Where else but Coachella do you see white middle class kids going crazy over a Tuareg group from the Sahara desert, in colorful Arab garb, performing with electric guitars? Craaazy! And fascinating. Ok, everybody, go “Ul-ul-ul-ul-ul-ul-ul-ul!” in your best falsetto.

Mastodon: a parody of heavy metal, waaaay over the top. And, yes, he does resemble a mastodon, albeit a bloated one. More room for the tattoos, I guess.

Killers: the disappointing closing act Saturday night. Killers followed MIA, and were dull by comparison. If you are going to put MIA on the main stage, let her close it out. Above all, don’t try to follow her with a bunch of slow white guys.

Sunday was good, and once again there was too much to choose from. Maybe if I listen to 15 minutes here, I can jog over to there and catch the last 20 minutes there before .... And then I am reminded that the polo grounds are really, really big. Too big to be everywhere I want to be.

Peter Bjorn and John feature a wonderful, driving bass. For several songs, I just sat in the shade tent, closed my eyes and listened to the music and to the fascinating conversations going on around me. Groups of young people were expressing themselves and revealing just about every thought that was coming into their heads -- as soon as the thoughts were coming into their heads. Not much filtering going on. It was the Coachella experience par excellence.

Time to run over to the Outdoor Theater to hear Antony and the Johnsons. I only heard a few songs, because he quit 15 minutes early, but he sounds like - gasp - Bjork! How is that possible? And he/she looks like - well - nothing I can place.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs have an infectious, joyful beat, and once again all the young girls get up and dance. That’s never a bad thing.

I ran from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Davendra Banhart, just in time to catch the last two songs. I liked what I could hear from where I was standing, but Banhart was in the Gobi tent, and I couldn’t get near it due to the overflow crowd, but that is always a good sign.

Then it was time for My Bloody Valentine, and one of the day’s highlights: at one point, they “played” for at least 10 minutes at jet engine volume, with no discernible purpose except to create undifferentiated rumble and distortion. I was standing the equivalent of more than a city block away, but the sound was overwhelming and the duration seemingly endless. It was memorable and remarkable in its own way. A true and unforgettable Coachella moment.

Speaking of memorable moments, I can’t forget the young lady who, just after it got dark, was dancing just outside the shade tent where I spent a lot of time. I was facing the big Coachella stage, and she was almost directly between me and the stage when she gave a tug on her tube top and, voila, popped it up over her head and started dancing, well, al fresco. I thought that, for an exhibitionist, she was at least somewhat restrained because she had waited until it was getting dark. Just then, however, she stepped in front of a floodlight that was illuminating the tent and she vigorously shook everything she had two of. O.K., not so restrained after all, but certainly memorable.

The Kills are not to be confused with the Killers. The Kills are really, really good, and played in the Mojave tent to a big crowd, even though there are just two people in the band. They have their own, unique sound, and I enjoyed what I could hear, with what hearing I had left after My Bloody Valentine.

The best name for a band this year: Throbbing Gristle. Now, that creates quite an image. I still don’t know what they sound like, because they played opposite the Cure, who closed out the show, and I stayed with the Cure trying to find out why they were headliners. I never did figure it out. I shoudda gone to Throbbing Gristle. A hundred bands, but only three days.

Then, it was time to meet with Jeff and his friends and start the walk back to the car. As I said, I survived another Coachella. I hope to survive many more. I think I can, I think I can.