Coachella 2009

Hello!



This is my first real posting and I've chosen something that I just recently experienced in April for the first time!

The Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, as it's officially known, took place Friday thru Sunday, 4/17-4/19/09, in Indio, California. It was an amazing experience! I was there with the company that I work for, Zia Records, a company based out of Phoenix, AZ. We had a retail tent there with thousands of CD's, vinyl records (new and used), t-shirts, pop culture books among many items. I was one of the main cashiers for the event and was it ever busy in our business! We saw hundreds of people pass through our tent every one of the three days. Sales were outstanding and the atmosphere was electric! Needless to say, I hope that I get to go again next year if we are priviledged enough to be invited back. It was very hard and tiring work but worth every second of it!

My experience with the music unexpectedly began on Thursday evening as we prepared our "store" for the next day's business. At around 7pm, a band started playing on the main stage. They were a Beatles cover band, I assumed, as the first 2-3 songs were obviously from the Liverpool Four. The lead singer did not sound familiar even though the songs did. Around the 3rd or 4th song, someone stated that I should listen more closely to what was happening on the north side of the field. It soon became apparent to all that this was the sound check of none other that Paul McCartney! He continued to play song after song by the Beatles, Wings and other solo tunes. I really felt honored to have been there to hear and witness one of the most influential artists of all-time jamming into the night!

I also want to talk about the three bands that I was able to see while I was at Coachella. The first artist was M. Ward. He is a singer-songwriter out of Portland, OR that moved back to the east coast in 2006. He was in a band at one time called Rodriguez and has played for and with many atrists such as Jenny Lewis, Bright Eyes, Beth Orton, Cat Power and My Morning Jacket. He is also half of the band She & Him with movie star and vocalist extraordinaire, Zooey Deschanel. His most recent album released earlier this year is called Hold Time. He played on Friday afternoon on the Outdoor Theatre Stage from around 4:55-5:45pm. He was very good, indeed! He was alot more folky that I expected him to be live. He started out just playing by himself without a back-up band. As he worked his way through various issues with the mic and amp, he moved on to play a few choice songs from the recent release, including my favorite song, "One Hundred Million Years". It's a simple song about eternal love, really making the show worth seeing and performed with the rest of his band. He ended his set with a rabble-rousing version of the Chuck Berry hit "Roll Over Beethoven".

The second show that I saw was on Saturday night, also on the Outdoor Theatre Stage, from 7:25-8:15pm. The band was the Fleet Foxes. They were number one on my year-end Top Ten for 2008 with their first full-length release self-titled Fleet Foxes. They are a five-piece band from a suburb of Seattle, WA. The vocal harmonies that they produce have reminded many of Crosby, Stills & Nash and Simon & Garfunkel. I really tend to think of their style as "alt-folk". The lead-singer, Robin Pecknold, has a very low-key, humble approach to his demeanor on stage. He apologized twice early in their set about being off-key or out of sync, which I absolutely did not hear. The crowd was much larger that I anticipated and everyone there, including me, were singing along to most of the songs as they played. I really thought that due to the critical-acclaim that they received from alot of indie press that they might have been considered for a higher headlining position. This would have allowed more time for them to entertain a very captivated audience. However, this turned out to be only my second favorite show of the three.

My third and final show on Sunday night was on the main Coachella Stage from 7:50-9pm. It was none other than My Bloody Valentine (also known as My Bloody "Fucking" Valentine when I described to people what I saw that night). Even though I had wanted to see them for years, which was impossible due to a sixteen year hiatus, I was hopeful once lead-guitarist, Kevin Shields, announced that they would be reuniting in 2007. I was unable to get to either of the two shows at the Santa Monica Civic in late 2008. When it was announced that they would be playing Coachella and after I was invited to work at the fest, I knew that it was kismet for this union! As I kept agonizingly checking my cell phone to see how close it was to the show, I wondered if it could even come close to what I had built up in my mind as my show of the decade! When I was told that I could break for dinner right before the show, I strode toward the food vendors to grab a quick bite before heading over. Once I saw the very long lines, I made a bee-line for as close as I could get to the front. Due to the special section for all three-day ticket holders, I was unable to get really close. Based on the high volume, I am glad that I was standing where I was! They launched their set with the ever-popular "I Only Said" and continued on into the set fearlessly after that. One of my top ten recordings of all-time is Loveless and the band did not disappoint as they played nearly all of my favorites from the album. This includes my favorite song, "Soon", the last song on that recording. I thought that they would play that song as their final parting shot...boy, was I ever fucking wrong! Their last song was the one that incited every emotion that you can imagine: joy, pain, anger, resentment, confusion, amazement, among dozens. The song was called "You Made Me Realise" and it started off like many of the others that they had already played. Their signature layered guitar sound with Bilinda Butcher's joyous vocals infused in between. The song was progressing well when all of the sudden, armageddon descented upon the desert! Kevin, Bilinda and the rest of the band, proceeded into what I call a "cacophony of deafening brilliance"! The layers of sound coming from the feverish rhythmic strumming of their guitars and banging of percussion was intense, to say the least! The friends that I watched the show with, Mary and Mike, had an i-Phone application for sound and it registered 90 decibels throughout! From where we were standing, just to the left of center about 75 yards from the front of the stage, that was pretty impressive! According to sources that timed it, I have heard that it lasted somewhere between 15-20 minutes. After they finished the song, the last of their set, I was uncontrollably giddy! This is not an emotion that I'm used to having after seeing a live show, and I've seen hundreds in my life.

To wrap up the MBV show commentary, it was very, very loud. Most of the people directly in front of me had their hands tightly pressed against their ears throughtout the jet-engine like drone, which I could not understand. Sunday was the only day that the event personnel handed out earplugs, I'm sure for this very show. I know that there were many people present who knew little or nothing about the band. Most of the people at the show were not even old enough to remember when the band was still together, let alone what sort of sonic bombardment that they were in for!

As I walked back to the Zia tent after high-fiving my friends, I was interested to hear what people were saying to each other as they exited the show. I heard that they sucked, were brilliant, too loud, untalented, lame, unique, among many random comments. Even my comrades at the tent, nearly 500 yards away, were "victims" of the barrage, as some of them put it. I believe that any band that incites such extreme emotions in people is doing something right. I count myself as lucky to have been a part of one of the most intense music experiences, known as My Bloody (Fucking) Valentine, and would do it again if ever given the chance!

Here is a slideshow of some of my pictures from the weekend:

http://s254.photobucket.com/albums/hh83/squish033/Coachella/?albumview=slideshow

I know that I will be back there someday, either as a retailer or an ardent music appreciator. I'm hoping to make it for 2010 no matter what the circumstances are!

K