Coachella Weekend 1 Day 2 -Yesterday was much different from Friday. More music and more dust. Had trouble seeing all the different acts I wanted to catch today because there were just waaay too many of them, often playing in overlapping sets, to choose from. Secondly I couldnt literally see much in general because of the dust in the air. Around 3:00 PM the winds picked up and covered the entire Coachella Valley in a dust storm that was still raging when I went to sleep at 1:30 AM. Notwithstanding the foregoing I did see at least a little bit of all the groups I had wanted to see, except for Skrillex. He was playing at the same time as Muse, and tough choices had to be made. Pharrell Williams was fantastic. Pop music hit of the festival, so far. As Pharrell is a producer as well as musician he had a ton of guests. A partial list is as follows, Nelly, Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dog, Diplo AND Gwen Stefani (doing her song Hollaback Girl, for which Pharrell was the producer). For me the big deal about Pharrells set was not so much the music, it was the reaction of the crowd to the music. Long before his set started, the migration of tribes (groups of fans) had filled up the field of the Outdoor Theatre. Then the crowds just kept coming and coming, all through his set. When a surprise guest joined Pharrell, especially when Gwen joined him, the crowd yelled out in unison. It was really something to experience. Tribes broke out into a desperate bid to find a vantage point where they could catch a glimpse of whoever it was who was on stage with Pharrell and then figure out who it was. I, being a bit of techno nerd, was following the rotating cast of characters on Twitter which kept up with the comings and goings of the celestial beings on stage. It seemed the entire crowd except for myself knew every word of every song. Talk about a collective experience. Saw the entire Pixies set. During my Day 2, from 12:30 PM Saturday to 12:30 AM Sunday, not a second was spent NOT listening to music.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Apr 2014 15:33:00 +0000