Coachella 2006 recap

Despite this year's headliners (sorry Dana), this years Coachella was once again fun as hell. Our crew all converged at our palatial Palm Springs rental home sometime around 3ish on Friday afternoon, but not before Scott and I walked into the backyard of someone else's home completely. I believe that Rachel and Dana actually jumped the fence to get into ours. We hit the pool, got some needed beverages and broke Scott's "Yacht Rock" cherry before heading over to my brothers rented house in order to celebrate Meredith's pre-Coachella Yacht Rock birthday bonanza. Turns out it was also Big Herms birthday, too. Here they are blowing out the cake.
It was a blast.



This is moments before Big Herms throws Mere around like a little rag doll.


At this point in the evening I was dubbed "drunkest dude at the party" and rightfully so


Saturday would prove to be a long day for me, but we started it off right with a dip in the pool and a lovely breakfast of bacon and eggs, fruit and mimosas with mango juice.

Dane got the horsey


Made it to the DKNY party next where we sipped pomegranate vodka drinks by the pool as we watched Nicole Ritchie (not actually an 11 year girl) eat a mini hamburger. Good for her!! Made it to the festival a little bit before 4:00 and we caught some of Wolfmother (the second best band with Wolf in their name at the festival, but more to come on that in a bit).



No one puts Rachel in the box, unless of course, Dana says so


After this we hit up some drinks and the mister in the VIP tent (bitches!!!!) and then caught bits and pieces of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and TV on the Radio (I didn't catch anything really exciting from either of these bands today). My Morning Jacket proved to be the first really great thing we saw at the festival. They opened up with "Anytime" and I think that everyone was pretty impressed with their set at the very manageable outdoor stage.



It was way too packed for Ladytron and it seemed as if I was the only one who wanted to see Devendra Banhart and we were beginning to all get separated anyway. We ended up watching Danny DeVito introduce the Eagles of Death Metal. Their brand of goofy cock-rock was just what we needed. They seemed to be having fun and so did we. So much fun, in fact, that we decided to go see Cat Power and get lost again. However, Mere and Neil shared a very special slow dance and Chan Marshall seemed to be having more fun than I've ever seen her have before."Yayyyyyy meds!!!"



Saturdays headliner turned out to be the dullest moment of the entire festival and even beat out Coldplay last year for the coveted "Worst Coachella Headliner EVER" award. We're talkin about Depeche Mode here people and it was a real snoozefest. I'm not going to get into it, but it was bad. Its not a good sign when people in Depeche Mode t-shirts start leaving early. We were also impressed/intrigued with the amount of overall gayness that was taking place in our section during their set. In fact, part of our crew tried to recreate some of that magic.

Lesbos in training


Day one seemed like a pretty inauspicious start but thankfully was saved by the highlight of the fest- Daft Punk in the dance tent. Opening up with "Robot Rock" I knew I was in for a treat and was not disappointed in the slightest. It was a full-on dance party as the two Frenchmen dressed in spacesuits and helmets were crushing it behind this sci-fi crazy visual set up. Everything sounded great and before we knew it the glowsticks were being busted out.

This guy was mesmerizing only himself


Dancing like pricks


Made it home exhausted and ready for sleep so we could get up and do it all over again.

Day two was an overall much fuller musical experience, but we wanted to start the day off right again. Dip in the pool where we tried to recreate a 1970's smoking advertisement.

Alive with pleasure


Breakfast today was chocolate chip pancakes, more eggs, more mimosas and some chips with delicious guacamole. We DKNY'd it again where we threw down some drinks by the pool and this time I even went in. Neil played soccer with Taryn Manning who almost knocked over a tray of tofu dogs and we danced around to the stylings of DJ Steve Aoki. Good times. Now to the fest. I met up with some old friends and we caught Phoenix who sounded great. Unfortunately, once again I missed the Magic Numbers in an ideal sunshine setting, but you can only fit in so much stuff. After this we tried to queue up for Wolf Parade aka "the only band at the festival that matters" according to an anonymous member of our crew. Turns out that despite the a long delay it was still one of the top highlights of the whole weekend.

I'm getting very excited for some strange reason, Randi's not so sure it will live up to Dana's expectations


Here's Mere trying to remain impartial






And its no surprise that they were Dana's #1 highlight overall. She writes:

1. Wolf Parade- duh- they were unreal. It was 5:30 and 110 degrees out- my bangs were matted down from sheer sweat and Rachel was about to puke (from everytime I raised my arms...jk). they had technical difficulties for about 25 mins which only made it worse. And then they started playing and suddenly it was like the hell tent turned into the Garden of Eden. I danced my face off- I literally thought my arms were go go gadgeting from their sockets to rub off Spencer and his keyboard. Anyways- when they played "I'll Believe in Anything"- I unintentionally was having a fist-pump off with the actress Busy Phillips(Freaks and Geeks, Dawson's Creek). She is now my fave actress EVA.

LET'S GET BUSY!!! She'll believe in anything if YOU believe in anything


Right after their set we ran to catch a bit of Bloc Party but it was a bloody zoo over at the Outdoor Stage. No matter, it was time to catch Gnarls Barkley and I couldn't have been more excited. Cee-Lo came out dressed as the Lion from the Wizard of Oz with Danger Mouse dressed as the Tin Man and various band members were dressed as witches and monkeys. I wasn't so sure how they were going to pull this off live but they sounded amazing. Cee-Lo introduced the band as "Mean 'Ol Lion and the Hearts" and they ran through a quick set of the majority of St. Elsewhere, most of which the audience already seemed to know and love. By the time they played "Smiley Faces" and "Crazy" there was a party going down in the Gobi Tent.



"Hooray for Gnarls Barkley!" says the crowd


Next up was the Yeah Yeah Yeahs who sounded fantastic and were commanding a huge audience over at the Main Stage despite the fact that the majority of concertgoers were slowly making their way over to see Madonna. Karen O is simply a great performer and she is not to be missed.




Next up was Madonna. She made us wait awhile then I called her "Primadonna" and realized that I make an awful lot of Dad jokes all the time. She played some new stuff. The ABBA tune sounded good and she looks amazing for a woman of almost 50. It was slam packed as expected and she had a lot of gay dancers. Is anyone surprised? It was a bit of a short set, we didn't get to hear any real old treats, but it was still cool to have seen her, I think. If she had played "Holiday" or something, I'm pretty sure there might have been a riot. Despite what some people were thinking Madonna's appearance didn't ruin the festival at all. She played some guitar, danced her ass off and just as soon it was over. After Madge we made the slow trek over to the main stage to see Massive Attack who sounded good. I had to sit because my legs were killing me. We got to discussing the power of Madonna's vagina and that it might actually have some sort of all-encompassing, all-seeing eye to it (you know cos shes so religious). We all had different takes on it. I thought that her pubes would be shaved to make a giant M.

Neil's impression of what Madonna's Vagin-eye might look like


We weren't quite finished dancing yet. We had a bit more energy reserved for the anomaly which is the Scissor Sisters. These guys were a total party and we saw some Swedes dancing so hard they literally looked like they were trying to jump into heaven. Catch me, Lord, catch me! Scissor Sisters, madonna, Depeche Mode- yes, this might have been the gay Coachella. During this set we saw some serious man on man action and at one point I was forced to yell, "Get a port-a-john!!!"





Here's our crew after a long and awesome weekend


Driving to the airport on Monday we had a nice treat as we saw Gil or was it Jeeves from Daft Punk drive off on his motorcycle.

Peace bitches!