itsjustmarco

Coachella Weekend 1 Highlights

itsjustmarco

The kids of America (as well as Europe and Australia) turned out in droves for weekend 1 of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts FestivalFirst off, festival fashion hasn’t really evolved in the last 4 years since I first started attending, so I stepped into the future by skipping pants all together.  Rocking out my favorite Bob Marley tee shirt, I tied a denim jacket around my waist to break up the silhouette and added zebra print Christian Louboutin sandals and bandana a la 2pac to complete the look.  The perfect “I didn’t go home to my pristine, private mid-century modernist residence last night” for the whole weekend.

left, @itsjustmarco

jessirubes

@jessirubes

If you are a music lover and haven’t attended Coachella, I definitely recommend it. The organizers always cater to the people, for instance they added a second weekend in 2011 after receiving complaints that the festival sold out too quickly in 2010. This year, a sixth smaller, air conditioned tent was added showcasing cool house acts like Julio Bashmore, Jamie xx, and Maya Jane Cole.

 

For Friday, those who came out early, were in for a real treat as French DJ champs C2C played to a packed Sahara Tent – quite a feat considering their 1:30 pm set time. It was crazy! I couldn’t miss out on seeing Alt – J, especially since I have been playing their debut album An Awesome Wave non stop for months, and they did a beautiful rendition of “Taro” to close out the set. Then came Local Natives, who sound simply gorgeous live.  Lately I have been into a lot of German techno, so it was great to hear Dog Blood play as the sun set on Day One, even better when they did Disclosure’s “Latch”, (another one that’s been on repeat for the last couple months.) Next up was TNGHT, whose mashup of eclectic musical influences was like catnip for my ears – Hudson Mohawk and Lunice take it to another level (maybe you remember them from our Trendmix?). Never having seen the Yeah Yeah Yeahs live, I was hugely impressed by the Brooklyn trio’s sound blasting from the Main Stage. After that, my friends opted to see Jurassic 5 on account of them reuniting solely for this special Coachella performance, but I snuck away to see new favorite Brit band FOALS, the best band I saw all day. Like true rock stars, they started late, but I definitely didn’t care. I smiled ear to ear the whole time, even more so as lead singer Yannis Philippakis ripped it from his guitar while simultaneously crowd surfing – wow.

bestbeveragecatering

@bestbeveragecatering

distelhurst

@distelhurst

Saturday, Major Lazer played their best set I’ve seen from them, to a overflowing Mojave tent at sunset.  After that, I got nostalgic at The Postal Service, who were excellent, and Hot Chip, who followed on the Main Stage.  The best set of the weekend (besides TNGHT) was definitely the XX, whose second studio album material got a shake from new production from Jamie xx, superb.  The first time I saw the XX was at Coachella in 2010, and a week later in New York when they opened for Hot Chip.  They have excelled tremendously since then.  I wandered into the Pusha T set and was glad I did, although it was a bit of a smoke filled haze.  We skipped on Phoenix but were quite surprised to hear R. Kelly join them for Ignition (Remix) as we exited Day 2.   Sunday started off with Grimes, then Tanlines, a band I have been meaning to check out and will definitely be listening to in the coming months.  Definitely a good pick if you’re into dancing.  Finally, things got pretty weird at Pretty Lights, but I preferred the sparkling set he did at Electric Zoo last year compared to the dubbed out joints he played for this West Coast crowd.  It got even weirder as Wu Tang Clan united for Sunday’s Outdoor Stage finale, at this point I was just over the severe dust winds.  Finally, my most anticipated act also closed out the fest, the British youngsters known as Disclosure did an enjoyable 1 hour set and even brought out label mate Jessie Ware for “Running”, and the excellent Sam Smith for “Latch”.  We were still talking about his voice two days later.  Up next is NYC’s Downtown Festival, see you there!

thedoodledudes

@thedoodledudes

jessirubes

@jessirubes

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@juiceboxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

lanormsg

@lanormsg

zamac_

@zamac_16

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@hrhmj1987

photo

@hrhmj1987

All images via Instagram




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