Coachella Day 1

Here are the shows that I checked out on the Friday of Coachella:

Tokyo Police Club
Of Montreal
Arctic Monkeys
Peaches
Jarvis Cocker
Interpol
Sonic Youth
DJ Shadow

A few notes about the day. It all started with the Canadian group Tokyo Police Club. They put on a solid performance, and really got me excited for the weekend.

Next up was Of Montreal. I hadn’t listened to the new album yet, so I didn’t recognize almost any of the songs they played. I also didn’t realize how fruity this band was. I still find their music decent, and their stage antics entertaining, but yeah pretty fruity.

After Of Montreal I went and checked out the Arctic Monkeys. They stole the show last year at Sasquatch, and did a good job here at Coachella.

I had intended to see Jesus and Mary Chain after this, however I realized I really wasn’t a big fan, and was more in the mood for some cheap entertainment, so I made my way to check out Peaches! She was pretty much what I had expected her set to be like. What was great though was that her over offensiveness had left loads of people who had no idea who Peaches was fleeing the outdoor theater meaning me and Joe were able to weasel our way pretty close to the front of the stage by the time her set was over. Our plan was to then checkout Jarvis Cocker, who each of us knew nothing about.

Jarvis Cocker had great stage presence, and worked the crowd pretty well, however his music did absolutely nothing for me. By about his 5th song I was ready to head out, but wasn’t sure if Joe was into him or not so I thought I would give him one more song. Well it turns out Joe and me were on the same wavelength because by the end of the 5th song he looks at me and says, “Dude lets get out of here!”

So we headed back to the main stage to catch Interpol. Their set was nothing to write home about, and nothing too inspiring.

After Interpol we headed back to the outdoor theater to catch Sonic Youth. Since Sonic Youth opened for Pearl Jam last tour, I had seen them a good number of times live. However I really enjoyed their sets last year, and this year was no different. With what appeared to be the end of their set they faded off into distortion filled noise. As they are walking off the stage someone says something to Thurston. A minute later the band is back on the stage, and Thurston is telling the crowd, “Nobody tells me anything, I guess we are going to play another song for you…” as they kick into their last song of the evening.

Most people in our group were going to checkout Bjork to close out the Friday, but I was going to have none of that. I finished off my night at the outdoor tent to see DJ Shadow close out the night. It took him a while to get his equipment all setup, but as soon as he did he started right into it. His stage setup consisted of 4 elevated turntables, and a couple microphones. Looked pretty wild to be honest. I stuck it out for as long as I could but eventually I was too tired to watch anymore and started heading out toward the campground. As I did, DJ Shadow started to play my favorite show of his, Organ Donor. So I gave that a listen before breaking out. On my way out I picked up an Emek poster of the event which was a cheap $20. (this turned out to be a mistake by the merch booth as the next day the price was at $60.)

We all met back up at the tent, and compared notes on the day. Friday was the weakest of the 3 days, while Saturday appeared to be the most jammed pack. So we all headed to bed soon after in hopes of gaining a few hours sleep for Saturday.