COACHELLA RECAP
FRIDAY’S WINNER: AFROJACK
The biggest disappointment Friday was that I only got to see about 10 minutes of Lauryn Hill. Partly because she came on about 15 minutes late, and partly because my favorite dance producer at the moment, international Superstar Afrojack, was just getting on stage. Afrojack has some of the best productions I’ve heard in years. And was either a part of, or the inspiration for (I’m still not sure), my #1 track of 2010, Major Lazer’s “Pon de Floor.” We just shot Afrojack at the Fonda a few weeks ago, but this time I got fucked up and got to unwind and party my ass off in the crowd.
The rest of the night was pretty solid. Crystal Castles gave a pretty tame performance. Interpol was good. The Amazing Chemical Brothers went on super late, causing me to miss most of Boys Noize’s set, but what I did see of BN was pretty amazing. I caught the set of the newly super-hyped Odd Future. I’m new to the bandwagon, but I’m not sure anyone was feeling their loud, noisy, live interpretation of their offbeat Hip-Hop.
Spencer & Hill – Cool (Afrojack Remix)
CLICK HERE FOR COACHELLA PHOTO ALBUM #1
SATURDAY’S WINNER: ARCADE FIRE
Arcade Fire came correct. After their questionable song choice on the Grammy’s, I was wondering if Arcade Fire was going in a different direction after their massive success. They were. Up. Every song of their set sounded like a hit. Every song, note, chord, they played had an intensity and urgency to it. It was like Arcade Fire knew they made been making incredible albums that finally enough people were hearing. Their new songs sounded as good as their best older ones. An absolutely flawless performance topped off with glowing, bouncing balls, and maybe the first ever Coachella Encore.
The runner up of the weekend for the Sahara (Dance) Tent had to be Laidback Luke. I’ve seen Luke a few times and he always has some big room tunes that blow my mind. This time was the first time however I heard him drop some dubstep. He had some big electro build ups to these nasty, hard Dubstep drops. Fire. With Skrillex and Magnetic Man on the bill I was not expecting to walk away from Coachella crowning Luke the dubstep King.
CLICK HERE FOR COACHELLA PHOTO ALBUM #2
SUNDAY’S WINNER: KANYE WEST
Kanye West’s performance was definitely the highlight of the weekend. It was the performance I was most excited about seeing leading up to Coachella. I knew that the superstar was going to give a big performance, but I couldn’t have imagined how grandiose it would actually be. The dude pretty much flew out of the crowd after a 5 minute operatic intro to start his performance. And it got even more self-indulgent from there. There were no guest appearances, no solo numbers from the musicians or the DJ, just a whole lot of Kanye. And he pulled off the excess with the kind of success and glamor I haven’t seen since Michael Jackson. And this guy is a RAPPER! This kind of performance was unprecedented. These are the kind of things that bring me to Coachella every year.
I felt like Duck Sauce had some of the biggest hype coming into Sunday. I was hearing people whistle “ooh-ooh ooh-ooh” from “Barbara Steisand” in about every tent. Their set was a steady pulse of heavy Disco House but I didn’t think it ever hit the high points of sets by Laidback and Afro. In fact it was the brother of Duck Sauce’s A-trak who slayed the crowd later that night with his group Chromeo. Overall Coachella was a great fucking party….. as always.
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