ON THE FLOOR THE COACHELLA EXPERIENCE
There are very few major music festivals that have gained such notoriety and mainstream acceptance in western civilization over such a short period of time as Coachella. Since 1999, Coachella has grown into a behemoth and every spring in Indio Valley, California, the hottest acts in all of music take centre stage. Hosting legendary acts such as Daft Punk and Chemical Brothers many times over, Coachella is not only an iconic festival for indie, rock, and hip-hop fans, but it lends a great deal of its stage space for those seeking some quality electronic dance music. The following is our take on weekend two of the festival.
DAY 1
On the first day we walked through the campgrounds toward the venue entrance as hungover campers slowly rolled out of their tents. A warm feeling of anticipation was in our guts as we saw the iconic rotating ferris wheel peeking out from over the tree line. Running a little bit late to catch the first major act of the weekend, we beeline’d it straight for the Sahara Tent; one of the many tented stages named after deserts around the world.
Festivalgoers may recognize that the Sahara Tent is a replica (with some variations) to the largest tent at Ultra Music Festival. But, to quote Carl Cox, “It’s not a tent actually, it’s a structure. A tent is when you get a peg and a bit of rope… this is a Mega Structure”. Throughout the weekend, Sahara would play host to acts like Thomas Gold, Nicky Romero, Tommy Trash, Hardwell, and Fedde Le Grand among many others. C2C’s set is already well underway as we lay eyes on the Sahara Tent which is fully packed with people despite its jaw-dropping size. The four DJ’s stood side by side, each scratching away on their own respective turntable and mixing samples and tracks into each other’s sounds. After gazing up at the massive cubes hanging ominously from the ceiling, we look back at the stage to see that the DJ’s have rearranged themselves to face each other and are now playing on their own respective podiums as if they are battling. Taking to their microphones to rap over their seemingly 50’s influenced funk music, they would later get the crowd to sing along as they rap a tribute to The Beastie Boys’ Intergalactic. Looking back, we feel that this may very well have been the best show that we had witnessed all weekend.
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Located across the grounds and adjacent to the main stage, we head over to the Outdoor Stage to check out the funky and comedic beat boxing of Beardyman. This UK musician awes the crowd as he uses his looping machine to create dubstep, hip-hop, and drum and bass, all while using only his voice. We take a minute to fill up our camel backs at one of many water stations before heading back to Sahara to catch Dillon Francis. His bump and grind moombahton fully met our expectations while his flashing visuals pay tribute to everyone’s favorite viral videos. Before we head off to the Yuma Tent to catch one of the most well respected and recognizable DJ’s in the world, Dillon Francis closed his hard hitting set with his newest track Messages. Remembering his voice from every Essential Mix you’ll ever hear, the man behind the booth belts, “my name is Pete Tong, good to be here”. He gives a quick shout out to Four Tet, Seth Troxler, and others who also had sets at Yuma that day before throwing down a riveting set of house like I’d never heard before which included a sensational remix to Summertime Sadness. At the climaxes, the lighting crew would take hold of the CO2 guns to cool down the crowd in the already air conditioned space; a refreshing break from the 35 degree weather outside.
As we take our pick from the overwhelming amount of delicious options available for food, we lie down in the shade while listening to Passion Pit on the main stage. The break doesn’t last too long as we head back to Sahara in anticipation for one of the more hyped up sets of the weekend. Having only officially played together at Ultra Music Festival, the debut of Dog Blood to the Coachella crowd was nothing short of amazing. Sonny Moore and Alex Ridha, professionally known as Skrillex and Boys Noize, bend genres to their will as they mix in and out of each other’s respective sounds and showcase their recent collaborative productions. Again with the viral videos, Sonny and Alex engage the crowd as everyone’s favorite Techno Viking appears and the impressive laser display finally makes its debut in the dark night. Their visuals were absolutely entrancing, complementing their rave like music and constantly keeping the crowd facing forward in anticipation for the next big drop. With all the amazing talent coming through the Sahara tent, we luckily got a chance to sit down with an American electro pioneer in his trailer behind the main stage and Wolfgang Gartner revealed some of the secrets to playing a two weekend festival.
www.djmag.ca
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