Coachella Day 1: Intro
The adventure began for us long before we entered the Coachella gates. I arrived at the Ontario around midnight and was sort-of-promptly by my good buddy Mike Cassell and we took off on our way to Palm Springs.
I was excited to arrive at the house, but upon entering I discovered something somewhat terrible: not only was there no electricity, but opening the refrigerator revealed that there had not been any for quite some time. An indescribable stench emanated from the fridge. I mean it when I say indescribable; the best I can do is to say that it is something like the inside of a camel’s rectum smothered in rotten peanut butter. Of course, because I was the discoverer of said mess, I was responsible for cleaning it up. But not tonight. The group of us, Mike, Jay, Andrew, Dave, Amanda, and Liz, had a few beers and went to bed around 3:30. Mike and Andrew slept outside, to avoid the hot temperatures, and I slept in all of my clothes in the bed once shared by my grandparents.
Day 1
I woke up around 9:00AM on Friday morning, jived and ready to go for the first of three exhausting days of Coachella. It is always important to remember that a festival like this is a marathon and not a sprint. Enough metaphors. Let’s get down to business. I had a holocaust of a fridge to clean. I got to work with Mike, and we emptied it, and cleaned it. It took me about 2 hours, and it was horrible. The mold, the water, the rotting fruit…I am pretty sure the cure for several diseases were in there, and are now gone. The fridge only smells mildly putrid now, but it will have to do. Thanks, Uncle Barry.
After the fridge incident of 2007, I tried to cleanse myself in the chlorinated waters of my grandmother’s pool, then a shower where I cleaned my hands will steel wool and I was ready for breakfast. We went to a satisfying but expensive meal at the Manhattan deli, and took off for the show.
The drive in was miserable. It appears they are trying to get all 60,000 people into one entrance, and that creates problems. Both Amanda and Liz took multiple naps, and Mike invented some new curse words. The anticipation made it even longer, but we got in around 3:30, just to catch the last 20 minutes of the Tokyo Police Club. At that point it was Mike, Amanda, Liz and myself. After about 5 minutes of TPC (oh yeah, we’re tight like that), Amanda and Liz split to find water. Sissies. It was only 98 degrees that point. In any event, Mike and I began to wander around after Tokyo Police Club, and found ourselves watching a band called the Satellite Party, which we were stunned to see was fronted by Perry Farrell. The band sounded exactly what you would think a Perry Ferrell band would sound like: a bad version of Jane’s Addiction mailing it in. We waited around for that to finish, and watched the LA band the Silversun Pickups with our old college friend Erik Slemon.
Erik enjoys a tasty beverage
They put on an enjoyable enough show. They have two great songs that are catchy, and the rest sounds like low rent Smashing Pumpkins. Not completely memorable, but not a bad way to spend the afternoon. After their show ended, Mike and I realized that we hadn’t eaten anything since 10AM, so we decided to quench our hunger.
Understandably, in the 100+ degree heat, Mike had a hankering for lamb, so we found a proprietor of Greek food. He had a lamb gyro, and I had a veggie gyro. What is a veggie gyro you may ask? It’s a pita with lettuce and tomato. It really filled me up.
Not.
We relaxed in the shade for a bit, and by 6:30 were back at the main stage for the highly overrated set by the highly overrated Arctic Monkeys. Lame. It was either them or Stephen Marley, and after listening to half of a song we were having flashbacks of freshman year of college and returned to the Monkeys. After their set we tried to wait for the beginning of Peaches, but she decided she didn’t want to show up on time so we went to see The Jesus and Mary Chain. The set included two things that did not seem to belong together:
The completely brilliant 80’s song ‘Head On’
Scarlett Johansson singing backup.
Good set, especially for a bunch of old dudes.
The true surprise of the evening came in the form of Mike Patton’s new band Peeping Tom. After a strange introduction by Danny DeVito, the band, including Dan The Automator, took the stage and Patton soon joined, wearing a bullet proof vest. The show was spectacular. Screaming, yelling, swearing, the throwing of obscene gestures…it had everything.
By now it was 9:30, and I was hungry again. Mike, Jay and I got a burrito and listened to Sonic Youth rip through a set while waiting for DJ Shadow. I know many people got angry when I told them I was planning on skipping Bjork for Shadow. Keep in mind, I have seen Bjork several times, and truthfully, if you’ve seen a Bjork show, you’ve seen them all. They are all a little bit different, but she plays the same hits, wears a goofy costume, and has an entire middle school’s worth of girls with sun dresses crying at the sight of their Icelandic queen. For me, Shadow was the way to go.
Despite his short set, he did not disappoint. His video show was great, and the added material he has gives him an even better ability to remix his own tunes live.
It was fantastic. It is now 1:30AM, and I have been on my feet since 1:30PM. I just arrived home and it is 3:15AM. We have to be up in several hours to go back and do it all over again.
Celebrities Seen: 0
Urinations: 1
Defecations: 0
Meals eaten: 2
Bottles of water: 10+
Pair of boxers ruined: 1
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