The Daily Swarm

By Andrew Flanagan and Andrew Mitchell

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Credit: © Kiino Villand / The Daily Swarm

Coachella, the venerable West Coast festival, kicked off the season with its tenth incarnation this weekend, proving once again that music, heat and celebrity sightings can still exist in these harsh economic times.

Can nearly 65,000 people a day over three days be wrong? Paul McCartney and his two-and-a-half-hour set, Leonard Cohen, The Cure, X, MIA, and a billion other medium-to-legendary acts ate grapes and fanned in their (air-conditioned?) tents and RV’s until they had to go on stage this past weekend in Indio, California. Take a look at any photo set of the festival; a lot of pasty sunburns and drunks an old(er) people wanting to catch a threefer from The Moz, McCartney and Cohen on Friday, then milling about confused and deranged from heatstroke and gut rot on Saturday and Sunday.

Several reports on horrible soundbleed made some of the bigger shows sound frustrating, leaving attendees sweating and cramped and standing and without even a clean mix (Thievery Corp bleeding all over Fleet Foxes, Morrissey vs. Leonard Cohen) to show for it.

The New York Times reports that the festival was a financial success despite our shitty economy, good news for the upcoming summer festivals, of which Coachella is the first biggie of the year.

Final attendance figures will not be available until Monday for the festival, which ran from Friday through Sunday and featured Paul McCartney, the Cure, Morrissey, Leonard Cohen, the Killers and Franz Ferdinand. But organizers said this year would probably be its third largest. (The most popular was in 2007, with Rage Against the Machine, Bjork, Red Hot Chili Peppers and attendance of 186,000.)

Though promoters around the country report strong early ticket sales for festivals and summer tours, the recession is causing jitters. This year Coachella, which has the most glamorous reputation of all American festivals, began selling tickets on layaway, and 18 percent of its customers took that option, Mr. Tollett said

The L.A. Times’ music blog Pop & Hiss, featuring updates throughout the weekend noted the number of arrests, mainly for alcohol and drug-related incidents (47 in the first two days) and took a guess on how much the festival was charged for going past curfew.

The Beatle performed for nearly three hours, delighting fans with a career-spanning set, and one that went well past the midnight curfew imposed by the city of Indio. Once the clock strikes 12:01 a.m., the charge is $1,000 per minute, said Indio police spokesman Ben Guitron. He estimated that McCartney went “50-plus” minutes after curfew.”

More on McCartney from Blurt:

Macca’s appearance was notable for being preceded by a DJ set that remixed the very tunes that Macca was to soon after perform. A strange opening, but the baby boomer heavy crowd didn’t mind, and the sing-a-long atmosphere was fitting for what was to come. McCartney kicked off his set with a handful of Beatles / Wings tunes – Jet, Drive My Car, and Got to Get You Into My Life – before he went into an extended run of songs from his last few albums that nobody really seemed to know, nor really care about. The second half of the set was Beatles intensive, and exactly what you want to hear when you see an ex-Beatle (that’s not Ringo) perform. Songs included Paperback Writer, Something, Yesterday, Helter Skelter, Can’t Buy Me Love, Long & Winding Road, Let it Be, Day in the Life, Get Back, Sgt Pepper and the final festival sing-along Hey Jude.

Meanwhile The L.A. Times saved their most heartfelt praise for the “victory-lap” set of their hometown heroes, Silversun Pickups.

When they played “Lazy Eye,” the whole audience sang along and was thanked prolifically by Aubert. “You’ve been so good to us, and I don’t know when you’re going to realize how lame we are, but you haven’t yet.” No Brian, not lame, just achingly real.

Rolling Stone on Morrissey:

Back in 1999, Morrissey delivered a powerful and memorable set at the very first Coachella, with fans and performer in equal states of ecstasy and sorrow, peaking with an emotional reading of the Smiths’ “Meat is Murder.” The singer didn’t perform that song at this year’s festival, but its message was very much on his mind, as he practically gagged onstage from the surrounding food merchants. “I smell burning flesh,” he said dramatically, “and I hope to God it’s human.”

The Daily Swarm’s David Prince covered Sunday for Billboard:

The 10th annual Coachella Music and Arts Festival concluded Sunday with a series of challenging, dissonant sets that saw the avant-garde take center stage on the event’s final day of music. From My Bloody Valentine’s wall of noise and Public Enemy’s sonic sculptures to Devendra Banhart’s rollicking reimagining of classic rock and Throbbing Gristle’s industrial revolution, Coachella flew its freak flag high while the delighted crowd went along for the ride.

My Bloody Valentine, the 1990’s U.K. shoegazers whose return to music in 2008 after a lengthy hiatus was spurred by an unrequited offer to play Coachella last year, made the wait more than worth it. Playing just before The Cure on the main stage, MBV‘s insanely loud layers of feedback were only enhanced by the open-air setting, with the vocals of guitarists Kevin Shields and Bilinda Butcher perfectly centered in the mix for maximum effect. By the time the band finished the nearly 15-minute earthquake-like feedback jam at the end if its set, Coachella had witnessed the most radical, difficult and unforgettable hour of music in its decade-long history…

With a program of music that demanded more than simple casual listening in an unparalleled setting, Coachella retains its place as the premier venue for seeing and hearing live music in the United States.

Passion of the Weiss went after the VIP section:

I’ve made this analogy once before, but after sunset, the VIP section turns into a terrifying place, undercut by a river of foul pink slime oozing beneath the verdant sprawl. Think the hermetic bubble that covers the New York City museum of art in Ghostbusters II. Raw uncut malevolence, Carpathians, people launching bolts of lightning from their eyes. I think I saw Vigo there. He was wearing a pair of $1,000 sunglasses, his lank hair worn in a windswept comb-over, leering at 19 year-old girls in floral print vspring dresses. To get even triter, the place was one big pose, except no one knew that the cameras were off. But who am I kidding? I like clean bathrooms as much as the next neurotic.

Some Twitter highlights from Stereogum:

• The Cure continue the jams but we’re happy with Throbbing Gristle as the tramsgendered exclamation point on our Coachella.
• Belinda Butcher. I’ll have what she’s having. Ageless as Loveless
• DONE. 15 minutes. Going to dinner with My Bloody Valentine must be the loudest conversation ever.
• Wasn’t sure they’d do “You Made Me Realise” but here it is! Brandon and I are taking bets on the noise duration. Over/under 10 mins?
• MY BLOODY VALENTINE. Putting Coachella’s new sound system (and their two semis full of custom speakers) to work.
• “We’re trying something different today.” Antony’s doing a set w/ violins, keys, and electronic beats by Matthew Herbert.
• As far as desert sunset soundtracks go, you could do a lot worse than “Staring At The Sun”
• “I wrote this next song for my friend John.” (“Here Today”) This is what you call an applause line.
• “May I serenade you?” “Are you standing uncomfortably?” Morrissey, whatever you ask the answer is “yes.”

And from Pitchfork:

• mbv is turning indio into a smoking crate
• there’s a guy next to me with a 4-year old with no earplugs. parental epic fail
• lykke and robyn brought up for “nothing to worry about”- crowd seems to have no idea who robyn is :(
• included in the list of questionable sartorial choices for a hot #coachella day: lacy suede boots, polar bear costume
• it’s pronounced “awk-ervill river.” thanks, will!
• upset alert! no age inspiring more dancing than supermayer
• all the vivian girls switch instruments- it sorta sounds exactly the same
• upset alert! tvotr: bigger horn section than calexico
• glasvegas gets in touch w/ their inner crystal castles- their set axed at the last minute
• here’s one you don’t see every day- perry farrell’s talking to other people about himself! and damn if he doesn’t look all sorts of 50
• ida maria might’ve drawn a greater % of dudes than mastodon will
• meanwhile, pb wolf rocks sabbath and wu’s “triumph.” just call him “guy talk” from now on
• i guess coachella could’ve got the pumpkins, but every penny counts these days- hence, silversun pickups
• morrissey at #coachella is heaven to southern california fans. so much love from the latino/chicano community
• girl talk proves that anyone other than asher roth sounds ill over the “say it ain’t so” beat
• oddly enough, the only 21-year old who doesn’t know that “beirut” is a variation of beer pong is in a band called beirut
• n.a.s.a. wants to party. the 12 people in their tent half-heartedly oblige
• cc already running 20 mins. late. that better be one hell of a kick drum