Quarterlifeparty

Coachella Sunday

We went into the festival pretty late on Sunday because a) we were tired b) there weren’t too many bands that we wanted to see early in the day and c) we had already seen 33 bands in two days…i think we earned a couple more laps in the lazy river. I wish I had gotten to the festival a little earlier to catch the Shout Out Louds, but the extra relaxation time was key to having enough energy for the bands at the end of the day.

Duffy
Not bad, but when i see this blond milkmaid looking girl singing soul i have to think it’s just some labels attempt to cash in on the Amy Winehouse Effect. Her voice was good enough, but singing soul and being soulful are two different things. There was just a general lack of energy. Enough lack that we left after about 3 songs.

Stars
Exactly as I had expected them to be live. They were really good. The male lead singer was a little over dramatic and they kept throwing flowers into the crowd, but they sounded good overall. Good music for mid afternoon…and somehow, miraculously, the sun was being blocked by clouds for a good portion of it.

Does it Offend You, Yeah?
We were hoping for this show to be one of the surprises of the festival and it didn’t disappoint, but it wasn’t mind blowing either. I think the band hypes up their own show too much, constantly saying things like “Are you ready for this!? It’s going to get hardcore in here?!” to the point where you are disappointed because it never gets THAT hardcore. If they would have just played their music it would have been fine. I see this a lot with bands from the UK. I call it the NME effect: “hype yourself and you will get hyped”. Unfortunately, while that might work in the UK, in the US it’s something we like to call it a self-defeating prophecy. They have a lot of energy, their songs lack a lot of diversity, but they are somewhat of a dance band so that repetitiveness works. The tent had a lot of energy in it, and it was probably the first band of the day that I really got into.

Gogol Bordello
I didn’t get a chance to see Gogol Bordello last year and they were apparently one of the best of the fest. So, this year they were playing the main stage and I think it loses some of its appeal on a bigger stage. Don’t get me wrong, they were great, they are all over the place and the Eugene Hutz is quite the performer. But this is definitely a must see for a smaller venue (and below-100 degree temps). I can’t help but be reminded a little of Primus when I see them, if Primus played Eastern European music (which sometimes their music sounds like it). I found myself wondering what made this music any different than the feel of an Irish band playing drinking songs (replace irish sounds with eastern European ones), who doesn’t like that kind of fun, dance a jig music? Add in a guy with a crazy mustache and vaudevillian-esque costumes and of course people are gonna leave with a “wow, that was INSANE” impression. And i can’t say i blame them.

Spiritualized
This was one of the shows I was most looking forward to at the festival and because of a bad set time (15 minutes before MMJ) and technical difficulties, it was like a bad train wreck. People were really pulling for them in the tent, but there was constant feedback and I don’t even think the 10 or so violin players they had were even miked. In addition to this you could hear the booming bass from the sahara tent as spiritualized attempted to play an acoustic guitar. Ugh. Not to mention during one of the songs it took the sound guy about 3 minutes to get of the mics working. Mojave consistently had the worst sound of the weekend. I found myself thinking “this is the BEST sound people they can find?” I was glad to hear that they pulled it together at then end of the set. I felt bad for them, because they have some great songs, it’s just one of those unlucky things that happens to bands sometimes.

My Morning Jacket
They Even though I would have loved to hear “So Alive” by Love & Rockets, we weren’t going to miss this show. We had been listening to the live shows that had leaked onto blogs with MMJ playing a lot of their new songs and they sounded great. Jim James vocals on “Evil Urges” hearkened back to a couple days ago when watching Prince. His falsetto just gets better and better (and higher and higher). “Highly Suspicious” is a great song coming up on the new album, just really fun vocals with an over-the-top 70′s rock feel to it. The set ended a little abruptly with them closing out with a new song, not sure what the name is, and then just leaving the stage. But the last song was awesome, Jim James was singing and playing on some small casio he had propped up on his knee. MMJ never disappoint. Oh, and Jim James was also wearing some bad ass skeleton moon boots.

Roger Waters
There were frequent WOW moments during this 2 plus hour set. Just seeing the guy on stage who is responsible for writing some of the best music in history was amazing – and surreal. He came out with all guns firing playing “in The Flesh” making you feel like you were part of the show by shining spotlights down on people and calling them out for “being a queer, there’s a jew, there’s someone smoking a joint…” which I truly never got until I was in the audience experiencing it. There were songs that I was completely surprised that he played, thinking that he would just stick to some of the wall hits and Dark side. But when he broke out with “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun” I almost blew a load. He went through “Sheep” off Animals, a song from the Final Cut and then into some of his solo songs.

He ended the first half of the set with the now-infamous Pig flying over the crowd while 60 foot flames flew up on both sides of the stage. Meanwhile a prop plane flew overhead blowing “vote obama” confetti out the back. Unfortunately the wind blew the confetti past the crowd, but it still left the crowd with a “what won’t roger waters do for a live show?” feel.

After an intermission the band came out and did a perfect front to back of Darkside of the Moon. I had heard about pink floyd’s n> infamous quadraphonic sound, but never did i think it would sound as good (and real) as when they started playing “On the Run”. All the sound effects – cars whizzing buy, synthesizers, people’s voices – had people looking behind them to make sure a car really wasn’t about to plow into them. The addition of quick interferences of train and traffic sounds (that are not on the album) were jarring and added to the overall effect. It’s hard to even describe it other than like seeing an imax movie live.

Throughout the entire set, great video’s were accompanying each song, from andy warhol-esque pictures of Syd Barrett during “Shine in you Crazy Diamond” to videos of the landing on the moon, all of which only added to the show. They ended the darkside with a giant prism above the band with a beam of light shining in, only to come out as a huge rainbow onto the crowd. It sounds cheesy, but if you were there, it worked. Although there were times when the whole thing was really over the top and I broke out laughing, especially with the frequent bomb explosions in the back of the stage, it was mainly because I had never seen a show with such a grand scale and the “over-the-topness” was more than welcome.

After Darkside, the band returned to play some songs from the wall, starting with helicopter intro of “The Happiest Days of Our Lives” into “Another Brick In The Wall (part 2)” and then skipping to “Vera” into “Bring The Boys Back Home” (unsurprisingly, with his highly political slant to the show/props), and finally ending, perfectly, with “Comfortably Numb”. After such an amazing set, and the fact that he had already played a half hour over, i couldn’t bring myself to head over to Justice. And i am 100% happy with that decision. I can think of no better way to end the three day festival; because at that point, i think i was, literally, comfortable numb.

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