05/03/2004: "Obligatory Coachella Report"

So this weekend was Coachella festival. I really don't know what to think of Coachella festival. On the one hand I had a good time, on the other time I only had a good time after the sun went down. It seems like it should be criminal to run a festival the way they do. Ok, yes I expect miserable heat and such; it's in the desert. The fact that you can't bring in your own water (even sealed) is ridiculous, and they charge $2 for a 16oz Crystal Geezer. Oh but there are drinking fountains available. Or rather, drinking fountain. Yep, one drinking fountain for 30,000+ people (don't know how many people were actually there but it was at least that many). So basically they're charging you $2+ an hour to continue living. Which seems suspciously like extortion to me. But I digress.

Anyway, let me talk about the good stuff. Saw Beck. Couldn't really hear Beck cause I guess they decided that one guy with an acoustic guitar was not as important as having insanely loud bass come out of a nearby tent where no one was actually playing at the time. But I can say I saw Beck. The Pixies were great, they did a ton of songs off Come on Pilgrim which was sort of interesting, since I often mention that album and get naught but blank stares. We were pretty far back from the stage though, which took away some of the magic. Frank Black was smaller than my pinky nail at arms length. Next thing we saw was Radiohead, which was awesome, but we could only stay for half cause we wanted to make sure we had a good spot for Kraftwerk. Again, I can assume from the music being played and the video screens that it was Radiohead. I have very little proof otherwise. Anyway, so in order to get a good spot for Kraftwerk we had to sit through DJ Mark Farina. You know, maybe his albums are better than his live shows, but based on the latter I can safely say that if you like DJ Mark Farina your taste in electronic music, and possibly your entire sense of esthetics, is deeply deeply flawed.

Anyway, Kraftwerk. They were worth it. I can honestly and without hesitation say that Kraftwerk was the best show I have ever been to in my life, and probably will ever see. (Heh, and I've seen Saviour Machine). They started off with like a 10 minute version of The Man Machine and I think I actually got tears in my eyes. It was amazing, it's difficult to even convey how good their show was. They did the new Tour de France stuff, they did Radioactivity, they did We Are the Robots (as Robots), they did By the Numbers which flowed into Computerworld. At the end they all came out in suits with glowing green gridlines on them. They each did a closing solo. It was incredible.

So actually, Pat, and for some reason I have this odd desire to refer to him as El Pat at the moment, so El Pat and I actually only went to Saturday. We had tickets for both days, but after the conditions described above and not getting back to San Diego until 5am, we just didn't have enough Will to make that saving throw. So we actually gave our tickets to one of the baristas at Lestat's, who I understand was absolutely thrilled, and which made us feel like incredibly good people in the bargin. I really wanted to see The Flaming Lips, and Belle and Sebastian, and The Cure, and Prefuse 73, I mean, those are some of my all time favorite bands, but one day was hard enough. My friend Zac was camping up there and he was gonna skip day two.

Anyway, El Pat and I had a good time, and Kraftwerk was an incredible experience. It was all worth it for them. It was even worth sitting though DJ Mark Farina, and that's saying something. Ya tvoy raboti.