Each year, as the Ides of April approaches, a deluge of douchebags, trust fund babies, and payment plan-enticed artistes join a gaggle of celebs in donning wacky, barely-there duds (think: Dazed and Confused on MDMA) and head out to the desert of Indio, California, for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. What was initially intended to be a celebration of music has degenerated into a weird marriage of fashion and commerce.
This is unsurprising. I went in 2010 and it was a lot of fun, and we had a good mix of people there. Most of the ones I talked to were serious music fans, but even then we saw changes happening. There were rumours of celebrities walking around, which seemed odd to us and almost like advertising, and there were a few ASU douchebags there, but not many, and we called out every racist fucker wearing a headdress that we saw. It was packed, but it didn't sell out until two days before the event, and then around the third day, people starting jumping the fence to get it. There were a ton of people at that point. It was one of those weird times that we all thought "this was an incredible experience, but it's going to be a fucking cesspool in a few years." By the time the next year rolled around, it was already beyond repair. Tickets sold out a half hour after they went on sale, and the lineup was far weaker. The Coachella page we followed for news about the bands coming turned into pure advertising. Hell, I don't think they've actually mentioned the music outside the lineup since then. The good news is there are so many much smaller, much more enjoyable alternatives these days.
Confession: I've lived in LA part time since 2007, full time since 2009. I have not been to a single concert. I used to go to several a month in Seattle, but the LA "scene" is so abhorrent to me that I'd rather stay home. It probably didn't help that LA trumpeted the "reunion" of Kraftwerk and the "first show in North America in 20 years" despite the fact that they'd played Seattle nine months earlier. I've got friends out there right now. I've never been. I've driven through Indio before, though, and holy fuck - if you thought The Gorge or Red Rocks were marginal places to see a show, Holy fuck. Let's get a bunch of angelinos out into the middle of the desert.
I'm from the east bay, and I love long drives, but that place is literally the middle of fucking nowhere. It's a weird thing to see endless miles of desert, and this constructed suburb built solely for the purpose of this event. Uncanny Valley sort of thing.
I went in '06 and '08 and never returned. A lot of my friends from high school go with their entire sorority pack. Once they switched it to a two day festival and it became the "cool" thing to do, the fun was gone. Sorority girls who are solely there for their first tan of the season and to take photos for Instagram ruined it.
Here's the thing: Coachella has been held, since 1999, in the middle of fucking nowhere. Bumbershoot has been held, since 1971, right under the goddamn space needle. Two day festivals are great, especially if you can walk there and sleep in your own bed at night. Two day festivals that require you to pay a c-note to park in goddamn Indio? I don't care if Jimi Hendrix is opening for The Beatles, that shit is just stupid.
I totally don't see the appeal of Festivals that are held in the middle of nowhere. Maybe there's some of "we're all in this together" bonding that happens before the festivals explode. As for Festivals held in areas that make sense, see also: Boston Calling, which is held directly at Government Center. See also also: Brand New is playing this year and I might get to hear them play Logan to Government Center at Government Center, at which point I will collapse into myself from the fact that life cannot get better.
I totally get the appeal of small festivals that are held in the middle of nowhere, attract local community performers, don't ruin the habitat in which they are hosted, and basically serve as extremely small epicenters for arts in the local community. Those, i love those. Big "Festivals," as you designate them properly with a capital F to indicate their Stature, in the middle of nowhere - which basically then completely overturn local economy & environment for a short unsustainable ugly period of time - that I don't get and completely agree with you there. It's just that the small-time festivals in the no-where po-dunk places around where I live are some of my favorites, because they are so small no one cares about them except locals, because they are not trying to become anything other than the rustic fest-outs that they are. So I wanted to defend the festival in the middle of nowhere with aspirations to be nothing else. Coachella apires to be a drugged-out rockfest. It belongs somewhere more appropriate.
Oh yes, I completely agree with you. There is a huge difference between something like Mountain Jam in New York and Coachella though. I've actually been to a really cool and small Blues Fest in the middle of the Catskills and had a great time. A big Fest like Coachella and these smaller ones are completely different things to me so I didn't even think of distinguishing between the two.
Yeah, I was speaking up because I went to a very wonderful very small fest right in the middle of nowhere last year and out of the three I went to it was probably #1. It was a folk festival in a public park that you had to access by parking in a neighborhood and following an access trail. A big fest would ruin the place! Then a radio station I really enjoy, WXPN, had a fest in Camden that was pretty great; I got to volunteer and go for free and it had some bigger acts like Dr Dog and the Lumineers. And then there was Firefly which just really wasn't worth it to me.