21.4.12

Coachella Day 1






Coachella - It is the ultimate place to surround yourself with other music lovers in the middle of the desert to party all day and night. Held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio these grounds go on for miles. I had prepared myself for the heat, just like the weather report showed me this morning saying "HOT" above Fri Sat & Sun of the festival this weekend. Thankgod I have had the experience of a 43 degree big day out, but that was just a warm up for today, and its going to heat up even more. The punishing heat made the day a bit of a game of dot to dot from shade to shade until around 6'oclock when it finally went behind the mountains and gave everyone some much needed relief.

Everyone talks about the amazing fashion at Coachella but I think today the heat must have deterred everyone from trying to look their best. It was a wave of young neon-clad partiers wearing not much else but bikinis and "fanny packs." Anywho lets get down to business - the music.

Basically from 2 - 4 the Do Lab was my sanctuary. This place Is an oasis in the middle of a steaming hot bowl of soup. There was some amazing dubstep, drum & base and electro cranking out of here all day long - I was enjoying it, but I think 50% of the people hanging around were just here for the water getting sprayed over the crowd. We went and caught the last of Grouplove who played their biggest hit tounge tied - making me feel like I was in a commercial and then the crowd went crazy when they covered Whitney Houston's I Wanna Dance With Somebody. Next on was Arctic Monkeys who were rocking out the main stage - finishing up with their new fav "R U mine?" definitely a crowd pleaser.

A few vodka redbulls later it was time to get dooown and dirty to The Rapture and then Afrojack. Using some of the energy from the red bulls, I sprinted over to the other side of the festival back to the main stage to see The Black Keys - my dads fav. These guys were the highlight of my day, fully embracing their headlining status. They saved the best til last and also invited a surprise guest John Fogerty onstage to pay tribute to 'The Band' drummer and singer Levon Helm, who died last week after a long battle with cancer. The trio sang The Band's classic The Weight "Take a load off annie, take a load for free.." After this all anyone was talking about was Swedish House Mafia.. "omg you like, totally have to check them out" so I did, and so did every single human body who survived the heat of the day - the crowd was packed! The trio that make up SHM were just tiny silhouettes beneath a pumping light show and that just about wrapped up my first day. It was time to drag my tired feet home, sneak into the pool for a quick dip and prepare to do it all again tomorrow!!
PS - you can see another photo of me in LA Weekly - how cool is that! xx