Friday at Coachella: MFV Final Chunk
iPHOTO by the author.
6:20p
Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band. A good place to fellowship with losanjealous.
6:40p
Free cigarettes.
6:50p
Franz Ferdinand. Damn, what a band to watch as the sun goes down. Jeanette shows off her Mr. T doll.
7:25p
After sunset, lasers point into the sky to form a pyramid, its apex miles high. All manners of light, fire and psychedelic projection give Coachella a fairy tale, theme park atmosphere.
7:45p
While V eats a steak sandwich, I smoke and we watch Leonard Cohen from far away, the low power talking from “The Future” what we take with us:
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
When they said REPENT REPENT
I wonder what they meant
8:30p
Prior to Morrissey, a video bibliography of his influences play on the Jumbotrons. The brighter kids know who these bands are. V remarks that Morrissey published a book on The New York Dolls when he was seventeen. Then things begin. Morrissey asks us, “May I entertain you?” The crowd rushes to him. Fifteen minutes later, he grows ornery with his stage audio. After three or four jabs at the sound guy, a peculiar negative vibe encroaches upon the Main Stage. We leave him respectfully.
9:15p
Beirut ends their show. I hear Mariachi trumpet in the last song.
9:20p
Girl Talk. A shotgun wedding of rock and hip hop music, a palimpsest of every riff, beat, and meme of the last thirty-five years. When Big Country plays over “Whoomp, There It Is”, I feel kind of elated but not fulfilled, even upon hearing the Whoomps isolated. This isn’t his best performance. All the trimmings but no theme. Not even the cheeseburger monitor brainage elevates it above 80%.
10:30p
Paul McCartney. If you don’t believe, you won’t understand. If you do believe, then why weren’t you there?
Four billion o’clock
We sit in the parking lot waiting to leave. First in, last out. Grr.
**
SATURDAY
10:30a
I fellowship with losanjealous at breakfast. LaVerne is there.
12p
I give my free smokes to a nice lady at the gas station.
**
WEDNESDAY
11a
My Mom writes, ” I read practically everything that was at the losanjealous website re:Coachella. It is so far removed from anything I ever wanted to do even at my prime as a teenager. Never saw a rock concert and never wished to be in that mass of people all smelly and looking for a toilet. Glad you enjoyed it. Your comments are short as you said they’d be, but no one else has written anything about the weekend that I could find at the website: just a lot of photos and a few comments.” Hmm. Perhaps that’s true.
PREVIOUSLY
