Coachella Recap

Rage Against The Machine

The Passionate Lifestyle crew just returned from the annual Coachella Valley Arts &
Music Festival in Indio, CA and we could not be more exhausted. This year the festival was extended to three days instead of the usual two and the lineup included some of our favorite artists such as Rage Against the Machine, who who made headlines by playing their first show in seven years.

Day one was our favorite day of the festival. We arrived in the late afternoon just
in time to catch Digitalism tear things up at the dance tent. I am a huge Digitalism
fan but the heat was so intense that I had to move on after just a few songs, but what I did catch was amazing as usual and the crowd was definitely moving. I quickly ran next door to see Rufus Wainwright, who is one of my absolute favorite singer songwriters. He was draped in a mu mu-esque outfit and was entertaining the crowd with his usual on stage banter. Highlights of the show were "14th Street" and "The Art Teacher". I almost cried. Really.


Rufus Wainwright


Coachella Crowd

Next stop: The Jesus and Mary Chain. They did not disappoint and I was screaming along to every song, even when Scarlett Johansen sang back up on "Honey". I couldn't really hear her that well, but it didn't destroy my Jesus and Mary Chain buzz so I guess she did well.


Bjork

The highlight of Friday was of course, the innovative genius Bjork, who headlined that night. The visuals were spectacular and her voice sent chills down the spines of everyone in the crowd. She even had a trumpet-playing choir wearing robes and colorful face paint.


Bjork

Friday night also brought some of our best celebrity sightings. Strolling around the festival's VIP area we spotted Paris Hilton, Tara Reid, Jessica Alba, Danny Devito, Adam Brody, Ryan Cabrera, Simon Rex, and many more.


Arcade Fire

The other days of the festival all sort of blended into each other due to the massive heat, but highlights included Arcade Fire, who gave me goosebumps, our own NYC dance heroes LCD Soundsystem, and of course, the Rapture, who blew us away for the tenth time.

Arcade Fire

On Sunday, we were amazed by Klaxons, who had every single person in the Mojave tent dancing, jumping, and screaming (some with glow sticks) and Lily Allen, whose live performance has improved tremendously since the last time we saw her. And I am not just saying that because she was very sweet and apologized after crashing into me in the VIP area the day before.

Although I did have an amazing time and was extremely impressed by all that Coachella had to offer, all of the other performances seemed irrelevant around 11pm on Sunday night, when a small part of my heart that has been dead for about ten years was brought back to life...by Rage Against the Machine. They were one of my favorite bands back in their glory years but I had forgotten about how powerful they are. I wasn't the only one pumping my fist in the air screaming along to such classics as "Bulls On Parade," everyone else in the festival seemed just as excited and I thought there was going to be a riot when Zack de la Rocha went on one of his trademark political rants suggesting that the current administration should be "tried, hung, and shot" like the Nazi war criminals. Rage's performance was the perfect closing to a perfect festival weekend. My only regret is that I didn't buy one of the Rage Against the Machine Coachella 2007 t-shirts when I had the chance. Oh well, they don't believe in materialism anyway.

posted by angele.passionate @ 11:36 AM