Thursday, May 05, 2005
Coachella, Part Two: The Reviews
35 artists in two days. That’s a lot of music. Here’s my take on what I saw…
Unquestionably the standout performance of the festival, this was a career-defining moment (think U2 at Red Rocks – I know, cuz I was there, too) on the Outdoor Theatre stage. An enormous crowd of 10,000 or more people (like me) chose The Arcade Fire over The Gang of Four reunion on the main stage (a totally unfair choice to ask us to make – shame on you, Goldenvoice), and were rewarded with a soaring, reckless performance that had everyone in the crowd shouting along with the band. Made all the more grand by a startlingly beautiful sunset, the band tore through its set with a passion that’s rare in rock music these days. Consider: 1) Richard and the sociopathic extra guy in the band (he wasn’t on stage when I saw them in
Everything I said in my Cat’s Cradle review applies to this performance. They performed a breakneck 45-minute medley of nearly every song in their repertoire, without stopping. The crowd, which was larger than I expected, ate it up. Even the sound check was fun.
The Kills killed. They slayed. They fucking rocked. They single-handedly redeemed our Saturday. What a show! A guy with a guitar, and a rock chick with a serious case of the look-at-me’s, making sadistic, chunky rock’n’roll love while pounding out crunchy riffs and bluesy, PJ-Harvey-esque moans and wails. It was glorious, this Kills show was. This was the first band of the weekend that made the most of their Coachella showcase, spitting and vomiting pure rock and roll at an adoring audience of converts like me. I loved every minute of it. I ate it up. And hated it when it was over. So fuck me.
All I saw was one song – a part of one song, actually – but what I saw was simply beautiful. Everything came together for Mercury Rev Saturday night (in contrast to the last and only other time I saw them, after which they broke up) – the soaring psychedelic guitars, the smashing drums, Jonathan Donahue’s ethereal voice – and the band knew it, coming back out onto the stage after their set was done beaming with smiles a mile wide, and bowing gratefully to the relatively small (but appreciative) crowd. Mercury Rev was the only artist I saw at Coachella (including The Arcade Fire) this year who so visibly displayed their own satisfaction with their performance.
This band has grown so much since I saw them in
Prior to the show, folks in animal costumes tossed sets of fuzzy bunny ears to most of the 300 or so early birds clustered in front of the main stage under a high desert sun, setting the scene for the slightly surreal spectacle that followed. I had little idea what to expect, but it turns out Gram Rabbit is a bit of a concept band -- though exactly what the concept is, is unclear to me. Cross suggested they’d fit right into any Tarantino film, and I’d have to agree – filter Siouxsie and the Banshees through Lucas’s THX-1138, and you’ll begin to get an idea of what we’re dealing with here. The music was an electronic fusion of goth and country – electro punkabilly, perhaps? In any case, it was pretty cool stuff.
Lilith Fair outcast? Dido clone? That’s the knock against her (I thought Jem was a band, but it turns out Jem is the singer’s first name – think Jewel, but better, more engaging). Granted, she gets bonus points for being the only female performer in the entire festival with the balls to wear a bikini top onstage, but turns out she also puts on a pretty good show. Even though she didn’t do much for Cross (who had a pre-built aversion to her in the first place), in a year where good surprises at Coachella were hard to come by, Jem was a refreshing drink of cold water on a hot day in the desert.
Surprising fun facts: Jenny Lewis, singer for Rilo Kiley, provides vocals for some of the more arresting tracks on the Postal Service CD. She also ditched a fledgling acting career when she started the band (look up her IMDB entry – I dare you!). Aren’t you surprised? I certainly was by their performance, which was tight, fun, and perfectly balanced between indie rock and country twang.
Even though she elected not to go to Coachella this year, Beth made me promise to see these Swedes, who attracted her attention with their band name. My expectations were admittedly low, but the band was surprisingly good – easily the best of the dozen or so bands on this year’s bill who draw on ‘80s new wave as their primary inspiration (and the biggest problem with this year’s lineup was precisely that homogeneity across the board). Cross summed up their sound succinctly: “If John Hughes were making movies these days, the Shout Out Louds would be included on the soundtrack.” Go, Cross, go!
These five performances surprised me, too. But in a bad way:
The hype. Oh, the hype. Please. Great band name, but not much more than that. If the singer weren’t black, there might be even less to talk about.
This set was probably the biggest disappointment of the weekend. Basically, the Chems played songs from CDs while standing on the stage and waving their arms in the air like they just didn’t care. We made it through four cuts and bailed, our expectations dashed by a listless crowd that seemed to realize they’d been hoodwinked, too.
A most highly anticipated set (I love my Spoon CDs) that was ultimately dashed by Brit Daniels’ hoarse voice, surly disposition, and nonexistent stage presence (to say nothing of the distraction caused by his uncanny resemblance to Gary Busey).
By the numbers. Predictable. Boring. None of which you’d expect from weirdo frontman Rivers Cuomo. We certainly didn’t expect it. And when it became clear Rivers wasn’t going to do anything interesting, we moved on.
These performances were good, not great:
We caught four songs from this set, all from their debut CD (one of my faves this year). Their Sonic Youth meet Pixies sound is nascent, but with scads of potential. Keep an eye out, as a dense tour schedule (they’ve been to the Triangle three times supporting three different bands this year alone) should provide them with an opportunity to refine their live set.
The Dolls had the most visible fan base of any band at Coachella – hundreds of girls wandering the polo grounds dressed conspicuously like slutty goth porcelain figurines. They also played the oddest set. When we got there, they were covering Sabbath’s “War Pigs.” Then, they played a drinking song. Then, a lumbering instrumental piece before closing the set with “Girl, Anachronism,” their signature cut. Not bad by any stretch, just weird and incongruous. This year’s The Sleepy Jackson.
Better than expected, but their politi-disco shtick still sounds an awful lot to me like Dead Or Alive. And what’s with their fans? Dozens of folks noodling like they’re at a Dave Matthews show. Easily the most perplexingly rabid fan base of any band I saw this year.
The Argentinian DJ shmo actually pumped up the rave tent more effectively than The Chemical Brothers did. Good for you, amigo!
Everything Herman Cattaneo did, but even better. It’s hard to write definitively about a DJ set, though, since basically it’s just some shmo (in this case an ex-stripper shmo, but a shmo nonetheless) playing records on the stage.
Intellectual hip-hoppers were the best of the rap acts we saw this year, with smoov grooves and equally smoov rhymes. And, yes, imploring all in attendance to put their hands in the air and wave them like they don’t care. In this case, I actually thought about doing it for a second.
Wilco bailed on last year’s Coachella slot because singer Jeff Tweedy needed to go into rehab. Now that he’s sober, he seems to have concluded Wilco have become serious rock stars, adored by the critics and rich from the thousands of fans who gleefully fork over $50 and up to see them play. Unfortunately, no matter how many times they say it to themselves, Wilco is not a “BIG” rock band. Their music is much better suited to an intimate venue, where you can best appreciate the subtle intensity of the lyrics, and the complexity of the composition. Those important features of Wilco’s music were lost on the big main stage Saturday. Nevertheless, I enjoyed hearing the music, which was quite good even absent the intensity and complexity that makes it great on CD.
Truthfully, I remember nothing of the three songs we heard. Cross says they’d make a competent bar band, and I am inclined to believe him.
He’s a DJ, a shmo who plays records on a stage. Or, maybe he’s a trance artist. Is there a difference?
Mos Def may have starred in last week’s number one movie (Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy), but this anticipated reunion with Talib Kweli didn’t do much for me. He does look good on the Jumbotron, I noticed.
I didn’t see this set exactly, but like I did for The Killers’ set last year, I ate my dinner just outside the tent where I could hear them. And thus, I am qualified to say that The Bravery listened to a lot of New Order and Depeche Mode growing up, and that they will in all likelihood sell as many records as their “rivals,” The Killers (just as soon as they ink that iPod contract). Cross suggested that if the rival bands really wanted to piss each other off, they should start playing each others’ songs live. Great idea!
My book report is about British Sea Power. British Sea Power is a band with a cool logo. In conclusion, buy the t-shirt. The end.
Another DJ. He was fair, not good. But then again, what do you expect from a shmo who plays records on a stage for a living (he does get to work with M.I.A., though, so at least he has that going for him)?
You thought this was another shmo DJ, didn’t you? Well, I did, too. We’d both be wrong. Frankenreiter fronts your basic guitar-based noodling jam band, easily confused with the Aquarium Rescue Unit, Warren Haynes, Phish etc. Not so much a “fair” performance (it was really quite competent) as one that was better suited for Bonnaroo than Coachella.
Trance? House? Beats the shit out of me.
The first band we saw Saturday, M83 was a victim of timing as much as anything else. Their electronic-based music (like an updated Jean-Michel Jarre, as performed by Mike Oldfield) would have been much better suited to the rave tent at night, with lasers. As it was, in the middle of a hot desert day, in the open-ended Gobi Tent (think a huge car port), the set fell flat. I still like their CDs, though.
Just plain weird. These otherwise subtle electronic glitch artists were poorly placed in the
For at least seven years of my life, New Order were unquestionably my favorite band in the universe. And I never got a chance to see them live, so even though they are no longer my favorite band (probably not even in the top 100, sadly), I was excited to see them. But not even playing two Joy Division songs (Transmission and Ceremony – I heard they did Love Will Tear Us Apart later in the set) could overcome the curmudgeonly onstage persona of Bernard Sumner and the beer-addled corpulence of Peter Hook’s visage on the Jumbotron. We left after five songs.
Cross raves about their CD, but this performance did nothing for me. Competent, but kinda dull. Perhaps they’d be better in a different venue.
To be fair, I only caught one song, from far away, as I was walking through on our way to see M83. And that one song didn’t sound bad. In fact, it sounded exactly like the CD version, played loudly, in the distance.
While the new CD works for me as a buff alternative to Coldplay, the live show did not. Competent, but bland and safe – just like Matchbox Twenty (credit to Bill Cross for that one).
This was the second year in a row Bright Eyes sucked – must be a Coachella record. It was a performance so colossally bad even his cadre of loyal fans were streaming out to see the Prodigy just four songs into this set. Using much better-loved The Faint (who preceded the Bright Eyes set with a pretty good one of their own) as his backup band, Oberst croaked through a mopey electronic set that confounded me, Cross, and everyone around us. If this is the best we’re going to get from the much-hyped “greatest lyricist of his generation,” then I proclaim his career trajectory (musically, anyway; his record label seems to be doing pretty well) downward-trending. Sinking. Dead in the water. Crap.
Any shmo can play records on stage and call himself a DJ. That axiom is proven every couple of hours in the
Not much to say here, except she showed up 20 minutes late for her 40-minute set (which is downright unconscionable in an environment like Coachella), then ordered me to put my hand in the air and wave it like I just don’t care. Fuck that, I ain’t waving shit, bizznatch.
2 Buffaloes were bitter enough to post comments:
(Industrial thumping plays in the distance. A 40-foot tall image of a grimacing Reznor appears in duplicate on the horizon.)
Cross: "Is that Reznor?"
Me (looking at schedule): "Yup."
Cross: "Huh."
Me: "Yup."
Bauhaus played, too (to tepid reviews, according to what I've seen on various message boards). I saw neither act, preferring the smaller peripheral stages (where you don't typically need a video device to see the performer perform) to the Jumbotron-flanked main stage. In fact, with the exception of Pixies last year (where we squeezed ourselves pretty close) and Radiohead (where the light show and truly exquisite sound engineering made up for the lack of proximity), I mostly loathed the nighttime main stage performances. I suspect you'd feel the same way.