The Bad
Wanna-be rock stars, Kasabian, performed Saturday night (complete with lead-singer Tom Meighan in a trench coat). The group performed most of its hits, like “Fire” and “Reason Is Treason,” coupled with a serviceable light show. Still, the band cannot transcend the stupidity of its own material: ripping off the Stone Roses and Oasis wholesale-ly does not, in actuality, lead to good songs.
Andrew Bird is an incredibly talented musician, performing technically dense music plucking away on his violin. However, whether Bird writes entertaining songs or not is another matter entirely. The man has a tuneful voice, but many of his songs sound almost exactly the same, save for a particularly inspired take on Kermit the Frog’s “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”
The Weeknd, the pseudonym of R&B singer Abel Tesfaye, performed a highly anticipated set that is among their first performances ever. Tesfaye exhibits some stupefying vocal chops on The Weeknd’s three mixtapes, but he was unable to adjust to live performance and consistently ran out of breath.
The Weekend is renowned for his dense production, and his backing band simply could not compare to the records — overbearing base attempted to substitute for musical complexity.
Nature attempted to put a damper on festivities during Weekend one. Despite a week of warning, fans came unprepared and underdressed for the rain and cold — the first weather of this sort at any Coachella. The wind chilled crowds to the bone and forced the festival to lower its stages’ viewing screens, hampering the view of many.
The Weeknd is flying, man, he was a ray of sunshine at coachella.