The Sights and sounds of Coachella

Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is what one might call an oasis amidst the Californian desert. This annual three-day event has drawn thousands each year to this tiny desert-resort community of Indio, California, a two-hour drive southwest of Los Angeles.

A kick-off for summer festivals in North America, Coachella boasts established, popular and up-and-coming musical acts that have included legends like Prince, Madonna and The Cure in past years.

This year’s line up showcased superstars Jay-Z, Thom Yorke and Gorillaz mixed with current indie pop darlings Passion Pit, Phoenix and Vampire Weekend.

The Planning

As soon as the line up was announced in mid-January, my friend Tina and I decided to attend this year’s festivities. But first we had to address various issues such as how to get there, how to purchase tickets and where to stay.

It was decided that Tina and I would meet up in Northern California, take the short plane ride to Los Angeles and drive a rental car down to Indio.

As with most music festivals like Glastonbury in England and Japan’s Mt. Fuji, it was de rigueur to go camping on the concert grounds. I initially wanted to try it out but haven’t gone camping since the ‘90s. I then realized camping was something you do in your early 20s, while I am a decade past that.

Other options included renting a house with a group of people and booking a hotel in the general vicinity.

Through Tina’s amazing Googling skills, she found a package that included a three-night stay at a resort in Palm Springs (15 minutes away from Indio), a bus shuttle pass to-and-from the event grounds, and three-day event tickets.

The Journey

We took a Friday morning flight out of San Jose Airport via Southwest Airlines and landed in Burbank, a city in North Hollywood famous for television and movie studios.

From there we took our rental car, and through the genius of GPS, we reached our hotel, the Hyatt Grand Champions, in a little over two hours.

At the hotel, we received our Coachella essentials: three-day ticket and shuttle passes (both in the form of bracelets) and an event booklet which included the schedule of each act with their corresponding venues, plus event grounds map.

The pack proved to be a godsend as designer Kate Torralba and her friends had to wait in line for three hours to receive their tickets and bracelets. I have read numerous articles and blogs talking about how much the event has grown and that this year, logistics was at its worst.

Coachella

The overall vibe was a weird collision between subversive youth culture and capitalistic greed.

As soon as we reached the event grounds, the first thing that hit me was the smell — a rather pungent mix of dried grass, smoke, sun block and sweat.

The grounds had two major stages (Main Stage and Outdoor Theater), three concert tents (Mojave, Gobi and Sahara) and several other sponsor-led tents, which housed album signings, computer games and various contests.

Food stalls, a beer garden, water refilling station and several huge, designated portalet areas also filled up the space.

The Fashion

A major concern for the trip was what to pack.

Friends who had been to Coachella warned me about the desert heat, so I planned a wardrobe that consisted mainly of light cotton shirts, tank tops, dresses and daisy dukes with the prerequisite sunglasses and straw fedora.

Major fashion trends seen on the field were floral dresses, denim cut-offs and espadrilles of the Toms variety, which were reminiscent of the stuff I wore in the early ‘90s.

Another big thing was American Indian feathers with matching face paint. I found it interesting because most of the Coachella population were, ironically, young Caucasians.

There was also a glut of dirty hippies walking around the concert grounds, barefoot in their crocheted bikinis. I shudder to think what kind of dirt can be found under their feet after a trip to the portalets.

The Music

Coachella is all about the music after all. This year’s lineup had the biggest names in hip-hop, electronica, pop and rock, giving the event a much-needed boost amid flight cancellations and natural disasters hovering over it.

With over 100 acts in a span of three days, it was impossible to see every musician on the roster. We had to pick who we wanted to see the most, deciding whether to see them up close or watch them by the outskirts of their respective venues.

My personal Top 10 were Passion Pit, LCD Soundsystem, Flying Lotus, Whitest Boy Alive, Tokyo Police Club, Hot Chip, Gorillaz, Florence and the Machine, Spoon, and Thom Yorke with his new band, Atoms for Peace.

Thom Yorke and Atoms of Peace were beyond amazing, even though I had to miss seeing Pavement because of them.

I was fairly amused with Jay-Z’s performance; liked Yeasayer and Grizzly Bear.

Vampire Weekend’s set started out slow but improved as their show progressed.

Superstar Phoenix was a huge crowd-drawer as seen in the amount of people watching them and wearing Phoenix shirts all weekend.

But we missed the light show that accompanied their performance that we saw in Jakarta last year.

Apparently the Phoenix lighting guy was one of the victims of cancellation due to the Icelandic volcano eruption.

Of course there were disappointments. MGMT was a letdown because they were clearly too high to play. Tina and I almost died during their pre-set stampede, no thanks to their over-aggressive teenage fans who were just as wasted as them.

The XX I found stiff and dull which further proves my theory they are better heard on your headphones.

For future Coachella Festival hotel travel packages, visit valleymusictravel.com/travel_packages_stagecoach.php.