In all likelihood something shiny will distract me before this becomes anything regular.
Things other than rocking freaking music at Coachella:
I did not get the job. I am pissed. Sorta. Now I'm just sure that I don't want to stay at USC, between this (it has handled quite poorly, insultingly actually) and my best friend here accepting another job this week.
No knee surgery, just physical therapy. Still going to need surgery eventually, but years down the road instead of months (as I thought). Once I get into therapy I'll know more, but most likely I'm not going to be able to go back to soccer. I have a problem with softening of the cartilage in my knees and it's not reversible and as I understand it soccer would only speed up the problem there.
I would also bitch about not having a social life and staying in on average 7 days a week (with Coachella the glaring exception to the last month or so). But thats a good thing. I can't afford to go anywhere.
Yes I jobhunt lots and not much else.
Kill me?
Last of the music details, might throw up another post actually talking about the rest of the weekend (and other things going on in my life), but for now this is truly the more important stuff to me.
Goodbye Radar –Watched from afar. It seems whomever opens the fest is destined to be ‘meh.’
Midlake – I know I saw them, but can’t even think of anything to say about them. I guess they’re the epitome of ‘meh.’
Shout Out Louds – Fun act, very early Cure-ish vocals, not original or interesting, but entertaining.
Gram Rabbit – A gimmick group. They passed out a few hundred rabbit ears before their set, all came out dressed in stark white clothing and played hard rock with a bit of an electronic/industrial influence. Not too impressed, might be better on CD.
Sloan – Pretty cool act that I’ve heard of but never heard. Really enjoyed these guys and wish I the chance to watch more of their set. Might check them out further.
Donovan Frankenreiter – Interesting group, very bluesy-rock with a bit of jammin’ thrown in. Definitely unique to the festival in that sense.
Autolux – I have heard so much hype about this band, and it’s supposed to be really great stuff. The first two songs were flat out boring. The next two were great. Then they went boring again and we left.
Jem – British pop-rock female singer, has a really strong voice and was musically quite talented. Not my normally cup of tea, but was perfect for laying down in the sun
Kasabian – More Brit rock! They were actually really quite good, I have the album and it worked really well live. Again, not groundbreaking, but damn entertaining.
The Fiery Furnaces – Really good live, not as good as I had been led to believe, but I imagine they probably suffered from the outdoor stage as its probably new to them. Musically great, but not that active onstage.
The Futureheads – Fun band, vaguely makes me think of Clash-ish rock with synthesizers
Tegan and Sara – Interesting pair, these something about Canadians with odd voices (Rush) that catch the attention. I liked them better live than what I heard of their CD, so maybe they get a second chance.
Gang of Four – I love it when old farts rock. These guys just came out of retirement recently and they were great, very entertaining, very talented and could still move around with out a problem.
The
New Order – For the second year in a row Sunday at Coachella has an 80’s band. Last year was the ultimately boring and uninspired Cure. This year New Order was actually great, very entertaining and solid set. The highlighted a lot from the new album which was all quite good and also played a number of Joy Division songs, which is a rarity for them. (Note: three of the four members of New Order were also three of the four members of Joy Division).
Nine Inch Nails – Very solid set list, played a decent variety of older tunes as well as a few more recent tunes. The highlight was probably ‘Burn’ as it’s a song that is often in demand, but not usually played. The low points were twofold; one, the set was too short; two, the bassist/backing vocalist can’t keep his voice from cracking to save his life.
The Faint – I just saw these guys a few months ago, but figured I would check out the set anyway. As before, really entertaining set, great video/visuals with lots of energy. Highly recommended.
Prodigy – I knew going in that Prodigy would be a complete shit or total awesome band. I just didn’t see them being anywhere in between. That said: dear god. I can’t describe how simply amazingly mind-blowing that set was, but I’m going to try anyway. Start with a tent about 30 yards wide and 50-60 yards long (maybe more) fill it to the brim with people. Then pack more in. Then put another 10 yards of people surrounding the tent trying to get in. Now imagine the sides of the tents rolled up so that until the tent is 25 feet off the ground there is no tent with exception of the support beams every 20 feet or so. Winds are going about 20 miles an hour, and the screens the size of Hummers that are hanging from the ceiling and flapping around like flags in the wind. Onstage you have a live drummer going at it every song, a live guitarist for select tracks, and Liam up on risers running around between 6 or more different racks of instruments. Then throw in the two maniacs running around stage climbing shit and dancing and screaming and singing and pumping up the crowd. Keep this going for an hour or so, with a decent light show going, and a very aggressive, perfect quality sound. At the end drop a disco ball the size of a Volvo in the middle of a song I don’t know, but half the crowd does and all of a sudden this huge almost violently aggressive dance party because this giant disco sing-a-long. Needless to say, this was the best, and my favorite performance of the weekend.
Bright Eyes – Just stopped for a bit, wasn’t that interested, saw them last year and didn’t care then. Didn’t care now.
Black Star – Only caught about one full song from these guys as we were walking away. As we were leaving though we heard Mos Def between songs responding to someone offstage, ‘No, fuck that, FUCK THAT. One more song, let us live free and die happy!” and then started into what we thought was the last song. Had we known that they weren’t going to finish until 15 minutes later and only end then because Mos Def had to be physically removed from stage, we probably would’ve stayed a bit longer. But given that that is the only regret from the weekend, I think we did pretty good.
I started writing a real review/article piece (because I enjoy it) and then realized that it would either have to be ten pages long or skip over lots of bands. I prefer to touch on it all so I listed all the bands I saw on Saturday (however briefly or extensively) and just made some comments on them, some of them are too short, but oh well.
I hope to write about Sunday tomorrow or the day after.
The Sexy Magazines - unfortunately for them ‘meh’ is the best thing that comes to mind.
Boom-Bip - were interesting, sorta mellow, atmospheric rock
Gratitude - harmless, mindless pop-rock. Not my thing.
Nick Armstrong & The Thieves – The first totally impressive fun band of the day, they played 50’s style rock, but not 90’s with a taste of the 50’s, this was straight classic oldies rock. It ruled.
Buck 65 – I think I liked this guy, he was a sorta rapper/singer with completely out there lyrics, half of it sucked, half was great.
K-Os – Awesome Canadian (two words that rarely work together) hip-hop, had some very unique beats and a great feel.
Ravonettes – Meh.
Jamie Cullum – He, uh, did a nice Radiohead cover?
M83 – Yes. French bands rock Coachella two years in a row, awesomely entertaining synth-driven indie (I hate that word) rock.
Snow Patrol – Not a bad band, not a great band either, pretty good live though.
The Kills – Really liked what I could catch, just good rock, need to find more.
Razorlight – It was nice to sit on the grass for a bit.
Stereophonics – Nice brit rock, good live, but not earth shattering.
UNKLE – I was disappointed because it wasn’t really UNKLE, it was a James Lavelle (1/2 of UNKLE) DJ set. He’s not a bad DJ, actually he’s pretty damn good. But it sure as fuck wasn’t UNKLE.
MF Doom – Largish black man rapping in a Dr. Doom mask? Funny. Decently amusing lyrics too.
Swayzak – Really only walked by these guys for about 5 minutes, but I put them up here because what I heard was outstanding electronic stuff, maybe like a poppier Squarepusher?
Weezer – Still not really impressed with these guys live. Most the band is energetic but Rivers (singer) just stands there morosely the whole time. The new tracks sound promising.
Secret Machines – These guys had an amazing sound, especially for a 3 piece band; fairly straightforward rock with a hint of poppy progressiveness.
Sage Francis – Great angsty, semi-political white-boy hip-hop. Need to get some.
Bauhaus – Watched/listened from afar. Not terribly impressed.
Bloc Party – The current hot hip indie band. Not really bad, but a band I’m beginning to dislike simply because I hear way too god-damn much about them, they are good, and the more I hear, the more I like, but for fucks sake they aren’t the beginning of a new world order. And neither is Arcade Fire (more on that tomorrow).
Chemical Brothers – Pretty solid set for the most part, it was basically a DJ set of their own material, which, since they can’t generally perform the songs live due to the nature of their genre, was about the best I could hope for. It was fairly happy.
Fantomas – Mike Patton strikes again. Experimental noise metal that’s basically all improvised live. Fairly intense set that I would love to catch again when I could see all of it. And, as always, Patton likes to make friends, when one of his other bands, Tomahawk, opened for Tool in
Coldplay – Only watched the last chunk of their set, but it was pretty good, nothing earth shattering but entertaining and enjoyable, I don't feel I missed much by only seeing them 25 minutes as opposed to 75 minutes.