The Good
As always, the best part of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is once again the music. This year’s incredibly diverse lineup satisfied fans of punk, indie and hip-hop.
Friday proved quite the treat for rock fans, with the three-in-a-row combo of English twangy-rockers Yuck, the eternally dance-able Neon Indian and the soul-enfused Girls. Yuck performed servicable renditions of their excellent songs. Neon Indian stepped it up, as lead singer-songwriter Alan Polomo’s exuberance at performing at Coachella led to a stellar, energetic set.
Finally, Girls performed one of the weekend’s best sets with their signature retro rock. Three middle-aged African-American backup singers were a wonderful contribution to lead singer Christopher Owens’ soulful sound.
The reunited Pulp performed an incredible main-stage set Friday night. From the bombastic opening number “Do You Remember the First Time?” to fan-favorite “Disco 2000,” the set consisted almost solely of Pulp’s latter three albums, largely neglecting their earliest recordings, most of which are unknown to fans.
Recently-reunited Swedish post-hardcore, Refuse, performed to an enthusiastic crowd (a panoply of circle-pits abounded amidst the thick audience at the Outdoor Theater). In between their signature crunching songs, Refuse’s lead singer Dennis Lyxzén egged on the crowd with his extreme leftist tirades.
Montreal’s seminal post-rock group Godspeed You! Black Emperor performed on Saturday this year after a nearly eight- year hiatus and a reformation in late 2010. The group performed in a circle facing each other, rather than the audience, suggesting occult ritual rather than performance. The band is the middle-ground between the melodic tunefulness of contemporaries Explosions in the Sky and the pretentious drone metal of SunO))).
Godspeed’s set consisted only of three 20-minute songs. building slowly to incredibly dramatic climaxes of furious sound against a loop of mysterious black and white imagery projected behind them.
Jeff Mangum, former lead singer and songwriting force behind the seminal band “Neutral Milk Hotel,” performed a much-anticipated solo set Saturday evening, his first in Southern California.
At first, Mangum appeared to have little stage presence by performing while sitting in a chair with an acoustic guitar, despite the crowd of thousands. Very quickly, though, the audience became completely transfixed on favorites like “Holland 1945” and “Oh Comely.”
Mangum’s performance was one so passionate that it was impossible to be unmoved afterward. The audience also went wild when a horn section appeared on stage to accompany Mangum on songs like “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.”
Coachella still manages the spontaneity that brings music lovers back year after year in increasing numbers. Pleasant surprises occurred all throughout the weekend, like when Santigold invited the crowd on stage to dance, to the delight of fans, Odd Future’s recently resurfaced and much-loved Earl Sweatshirt got up on stage as well.
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