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Chairman’s Blog: Coachella Festival
I reckon it’s really important to travel. Whether its in a Rolls Royce or with a rucksack…
Travel gives you perspective and frees you up from the day-to-day. For me it gives me a kind of sense check of what you are doing, where you are going and what’s really important.
 Even though I’m in my late 30’s… I am a hopeless case with spending at least part of my holidays on one (or many) of my favourite artists. There is always music involved. I can’t see that ever changing… Add in some of your favourite people in the world and I’m pretty damn contented.I’ve done most musical festivals in the world but for me, Coachella is the best and most intelligent. Goosebumps on multiple occasions. Hairs on arms standing up – check. Really – it’s that good.
Imagine, a dream line up… backdrop it with a lush green space in the middle of the California desert. Surround that with palm trees… Then back drop it with an intense mountain range. Cap it with some snow at the very top just off in the distance. Then add a picture-perfect blue sky and you are getting close. This is music lovers festival heaven. At night the palm trees are underlit with different colored spotlights…and 5 massive Hollywood-style spotlights are planted around the parameters of the festival shooting into the sky and meeting up in the middle of the festival space. The sunset at the end of each day is something to behold as the sun rests for the night behind the mountains. And when the bands play, they play to a surrounding backdrop of palm trees or a hint of desert… it’s hard to explain in words but hope you are feelin’ me on how good it was. Although there were 60,000 people each day, it doesn’t feel suffocating or over-crowded. But most importantly, I have never seen so much incredible music and such a musically-forward line up as this year. I highly recommend it. More at coachella.com but here’s my round-up: |
 LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
It’s no secret they are one of my favourites – so to see them 2nd on the bill on opening night was a thrill (and a genius call by the promoters)… and I watched on like a proud father ‘cos I like to see my fave artists do well. They played a blinding, exciting, blistering set. Lead guy and legend James Murphy is actually an incredibly humble human – and as they finished a killer opener Us VS Them, you could see James having a moment to just take it all in. This is of course the last album and tour by LCD and it was a big crowd. James gave a great quote, something gushy about playing in between Them Crooked Vultures and Jay-Z and how insane it was for them. He called TCV “the chicken”, Jay Z as “the main course beef”… and that he was quite happy (and proud) that LCD are “the vegan option” on the menu. Funny! Even though their last album Sound Of Silver was hailed universally by all the good music critics as the best album of 2007, they have never enjoyed any of this exposure in Oz before (Triple J Album Of The Week, National NOVA airplay, Channel V Ripe Clip and the 1st 5 star review in the world). It’s brilliant and I am so proud. Check out the vid and play it loud! |
| GORILLAZ
Damon and co. closed the Festival on the Sunday Night. It was beyond even my wildest expectations. What else? lots of tracks from the genius Demon Days album in the set… It’s a kind of loose narrative in the setlist about the state of the world – that’s the deep genius of Damon Albarn for you. I actually shed a tear with happiness (as did Nathan from Faker) during Empire Ants. Yes, it was that beautiful. It has the Damon melancholy-meets-ecstasy musical trick in full effect with the beautiful and gorgeous tones of the singer from upcoming Swedes Little Dragon – it’s a match made in heaven. Seeing Bobby Womack let rip on Stylo was killer too. De La Soul were there for Feel Good Inc and Super Fast Jelly Fish .. insanely good. During White Flag while Kano and Bashy were giving it a full-pelt UK grime/rap assault. Damon just got a massive white flag and waved it around. Albarn has so much soul he should be black! Peeeeeeeeeeeaaace brother! MTV are running a live stream of one of last week’s London shows still so go to it! |
Others in brief …
THE MIDDLE EAST did really well and played early on Sunday. They have a lot of interest internationally and are touring the USA exhaustively upon invitations from Laura Marling, White Rabbits, and Mumford and Sons. Then there’s the European summer festival circuit. Glastonbury is a long way from Townsville, boys! I think The Middle East’s upcoming album this can be one of the most important Australian albums of 2010.
JONSI played as the sun started to set on the outdoor stage. Even in the 30 degree desert weather, Jónsi’s kooky icelandic pop made it feel like somewhere else. Cant wait for the tour. Just beautiful.
Watch Go Do here.
 HOT CHIP had a really big crowd playing before Thom Yorke and Flea… and they nailed it. We danced, we sang along, bathing in their feel-good geeky electronic pop tunefulness. Its going to be magic when they tour with LCD.
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DEADMAU5 is completing his debut album for EMI. He’s bringing in some big-name collaborators and its going to be one of the dance albums of the year. He collaborated with Daft Punk’s visual artists (they guys who made all those giant pyramids on the last tour) and at Coachella he unveiled his new “Mau5″ head which as you might know…he wears when he starts dj’ing. Check this out!
Lots of other surreal things happened… like Nathan from Faker bringing Vampire Weekend back to our tent (!), like having Kelly Osborne and Agnys Dean the supermodel and John Waters all within reach side of stage as GOSSIP played. Then James and Pat from DFA got up onstage with them for their final song – a cover of Grace Jones Pull Up To The Bumper. I think I fell through the floor!
| And of course also highly anticipated was Thom Yorke performing. His new band with Flea from the Chilli Peppers (yes it’s not a joke) is called ATOMS FOR PEACE. We all just gave each other “is-this-really-happening?” smirks as they came onstage. It shouldn’t work but it does. It works really well. Thom does his thing and Flea stomps around the stage slapping his bass. Thom played the whole of his album The Eraser and then at the end came on for three songs. I welled up in one of them. I think a lot of people did because Radiohead has soundtracked our lives and as we stood in the clear desert sky with the beauty of nature and music… It was really something. Check this out: | |
| New Thom Yorke song called Give Up The Ghost. Sublime… I can’t wait to hear this recorded. | |
| Radiohead’s Airbag… can you imagine how it was when he played the starting chords? Paul Mac came over and we just hugged in disbelief! | |
There were unconfirmed rumours this was me but I deny it all.
What an incredible couple of days… let’s hope the lineup is as magnificent in 2011 and we can do it all again! In the meanwhile, who’s going to Splendour!?
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luchsl says
On May 12, 2010 at 2:27 pm
wooow, sounds really awesome. really wanted to go this year, but it was impossible, next year it’s a MUST.
liked the review, beautiful description of the scene and i’ll definately keep track of every artist!
ty! =)
rach says
On May 14, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Bloody awesome!!!!!! You are an inspiration to all the record company bigwigs out there. LCD Soundystem = wow.