kurty's Coachella Music Review

[kurty[B]]

I was going to type up a big long thing on each band. I just decided to pick my favorites and least favorites from each day.

Friday

Favorites

Arctic Monkeys - Great set. Sun went down while they were playing, and they played a perfect mix of music people recognized and new music from their new CD. Either people were exhausted from the heat, or people did not know how to react to them, because the crowd was relatively quiet until the Englanders arrived to get people going. I hope I can catch an Arctic Monkey show in a smaller venue in the future.

Tokyo Police Club - I had never heard them before, aside from seeing them on the TFP CD's Recently Purchased thread I had no idea what to expect. I thoroughly enjoyed them. Great tunes, good time. The crowd in their tent quickly grew when they started playing so obviously people seemed to enjoy their sound. I was certainly impressed!


Disappointments

The Noisettes - They just seemed like your "punk-in-a-can" band. The British version of those chodes on MTV, is it Good Charlotte? The way they moved, the crap they played the fake jumping off the bass drum like you're really into your own music. Not very enjoyable.

Jarvis Cocker - I'm not sure whether this guy's name is fitting, or if he should be named Jarvis Pussy. He would play a song, and then talk on the mic for longer then the song he played complaining about how something wasn't working, or this and that. Tell you what, roll with the blows and play your music, we are not paying to watch you bitch about your set. If I never hear/see this name again I'll be perfectly happy.

DJ Shadow - I like DJ Shadow. The Outsider has even been growing on me, but I guess I was expecting more from him. I guess when I think DJ I think someone mixing different music, vibing with the crowd, and changing up the tune or the flow to the feel of the crowd. In the case where the DJ makes all his own music, I guess I should have expected him to want to mix his own music with his own music. Aside from a few different tones it was pretty much the same songs as his CDs. Of course, he started playing the hip hop tracks off his Outsider album, and I left that crowd quicker than an underager at a party that the cops just showed up to. It's unfortunate, I wanted to say the DJ Shadow show was great, I like his music so much.

Saturday

Favorites

Regina Spektor - I've never heard of her before. Decided to swing by since no one else on at the same time interested me in the slightest. She came on with nothing but her voice, and a drum-stick that she hit against a wooden chair for her beat. It was magnificent. She has a wonderful voice. Eventually her band joined her, and well she never disappointed. It was great.

Ozomatli - Spectacular! This was probably my favorite show in all of Coachella. They did everything right, the music, the vibe, the crowd was into them. When they came out one of the members grabbed a mic and started saying something into it, but no sound came out. Instead of bitching about it like Jarvis Cocker, one of the other band members noticed, picked up a mic and started talking. They immediately went into a song, and the mic was eventually fixed, but this did not take away from the show at all. The whole crowd was moving to their music, everyone was having fun. When their set was done they jumped down into the crowd with a few drums, a trombone and a trumpet and continued to jam for another 20 minutes right in the middle of everyone. It was one of the few shows where no one wanted them to leave, and if they had the last concert of the night they probably could have gone until the city enforced some sort of after hours noise ordinance.

Disappointments

On Saturday I was not really disappointed. I was not expecting much, but between the Fratellis, Hot Chip, Andrew Bird, Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire, and Chili Peppers no one made me want to put in ear plugs for their show.

Sunday

No one really stood out Sunday. Of course I am sure everyone is talking about Rage Against the Machine getting back together, and how great their concert was. I could probably look at the setlist of the two previous concerts I have been to of theirs and it would basically be the same. Oh wait, Killing In The Name Of was the third song played in the concert 7 years ago instead of the last song played. Everything in their show was perfect, too perfect. I'm not saying it wasn't good, if you have seen RATM and like them then it was certainly worthwhile, but if you have seen RATM live then you were not in for anything new.

Disappointments

Lily Allen - Pop singers forgetting the words to their OWN song?!?! Does this sound familiar. At least she flat out said "Sorry, I'm so high right now I forgot the words to the song!". Everyone else seemed to get a kick out of it, of course everyone else was smoking too, but when you have a song like Alfie with lyrics telling your little brother he should stop smoking so much pot I would hope that you could abide somewhat by your own lyrics and at least be able to remember your lyrics if you're going to get blazed before a show. I wanted to see what else she had to offer, but walked away from the stage after this.

[Jetée]

I'm glad to see that you enjoyed yourself kurty, and there will always be some hang-ups in anything. But yeah, Regina Spektor and the Arctic Monkeys are really talented and vocal musicans.

Did you by any chance happen to snap some pics of the grandiose event?
That would be great if you did, and decided to post them to get a feel for what it was like, for those of us unfortunate enough not to be there in person.

[fightnight]

Some day I'll make the trek out west for this, but it's a long way from Boston. I wish I could afford to make the trip, maybe some day. I'm settling this year for Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago during July. Maybe i'll do a similar thing and try to write something up. Thanks for your input.

BTW - Jarvis Cocker is the former singer of the band Pulp, in case you have any interest in where he came from. They were a britpop band in the late 80's who got pretty big.

I'd definitely be interested to know what you thought about all those other bands you brushed over, as they're the ones I personally probably would have been going to see. I hope to see Regina at some point. Thanks for typing it up.

[kurty[B]]

Here is a sunset shot from Coachella on Sunday night. It's a beautiful valley; very hot for my blood, but beautiful scenery. I can comment on a few other bands.

Arcade Fire - A very enjoyable group to watch. The string and classical instruments are great, all the band members were definitely vibing with each other, and having tons of fun playing. I wish I could have been closer so I could see what each member of the band was doing.