We are the sharp shooters
Coachella, Day 1 (see the full photo album @ flickr)
This place is hot…
It must get to about 40 degrees, and it stays that way all day until the sun sets. It’s a dry, intense desert heat – nothing like I’ve ever experienced. It’s near impossible to sleep in, as the tents turn into saunas about 7:30 each morning.
That being said, I couldn’t be happier to be here. The Coachella camping field is on a lush green polo field, surrounded by palm trees, in the middle of a desert valley, surrounded by barren mountains. It’s a pretty cool sight…
And the campgrounds are one big international mix. There’s just as many Brits/Aussies/Canadians as there are Americans.
The amount of Aussies I’ve run into is crazy – seems hundreds of them came down from the end of the Canadian ski season, where they’ve all been working and snowboarding for the past six months.
With the heat you have to drink about 5 litres of water a day. You can buy 12L in 24x 500ml bottles for US$48… at the camping general store, or you can drive 5 minutes into town and buy the exact same thing at Wal-Mart for $4.98.
I almost felt guilty shopping at this beloved icon of consumerism and capitalism, being here to see Rage Against The Machine and all, but I’m not sure how revolutionary a 1000% mark-up is either, so I went with the reassuringly cheap option.
…
First day’s music was awesome, although after lazing around under a tarp trying to avoid the sun, I only caught the following bands:
Of Montreal
Arctic Monkeys
The Jesus and Mary Chain
Interpol
Björk!!!
Björk was incredible, with her 10-piece, all-female, all-Icelandic brass section (that she personally assembled for this new album/tour), the crazy electronic instruments, including the rune-stone-controlled-radar-machine (which I just discovered is actually called a reacTable), not to mention her colourful-as-ever colourful opening outfit (see the video below).
Arctic Monkeys looked like they were thoroughly enjoying themselves, and put on a bloody good set (although I’m not sure if the crowd quite got their British banter…).
This festival’s full name is the ‘Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival’ and there’s loads of random arty stuff going on everywhere. This included some very extravagant balloon things… umm…
…
Finally, here’s a few of the videos I took:
Bjork
Earth Intruders (full clip)
Interpol
Slow Hands (short clip)
Arctic Monkeys
Still Take You Home (short clip)
Arctic Monkeys
A Certain Romance (short clip)
A short clip ofBjork’s reacTable in action on the big screen