Coachella Continued

With several reporters and a photographer on the scene, the
Daily Bruin fulfills its yearly duty and offers to everyone who was
(all 60,000) and wasn’t there the second part of the fourth
annual Coachella diary.

3:30 p.m. When it comes to Coachella weather,
one thing is constant: It can always get hotter. After a steamy
Saturday, Sunday’s temperatures threaten to hit triple
digits. I wander/pant over to the Outdoor Stage where Ted Leo and
the Pharmacists thankfully take my mind off the heat. The
charismatic frontman one of my friends describes as “the punk
Dave Matthews” keeps the audience energized with a collection
of snappy, socially charged indie rock selections as the sun shows
no mercy. The songs kind of run together, but Leo is engaging
enough to maintain a sizable crowd during the hottest part of the
day. Thank God for SPF 50. ““ Nick Rudman

5:10 p.m. Before Wolf Parade takes the stage in
the Mojave Tent, Dante DeCaro sets the tone for the band’s
set when he puts a lit cigarette in his mouth backward while
setting up his instruments. DeCaro proceeds to cough out ash in a
perfect precursor to a set where technical difficulties nearly
derailed their performance. Band members and stage crew fiddle with
the keyboard and the microphone as the band’s start time of
5:15 p.m. comes and goes. Covered in other people’s sweat, I
am beginning to get irritated. When the band finally gets its gear
working, its set is already 25 minutes gone, and in festival time,
where most sets are 50 minutes or less, 25 minutes is forever. The
band manages to play about half of its excellent 2005 release
“Apologies to the Queen Mary,” but I definitely have to
catch a full set the next time they play Southern California.
““ Richard Clough

6:00 p.m. Forget Karen O;
Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein and Janet
Weiss are the true female highlights of the Main Stage on Day Two.
The women from the Northwest deliver a high-energy, sonically
smooth set that mostly favors the group’s most recent
release, “The Woods.” The highlight comes when they
launch into “Let’s Call It Love,” their extended
jam session that reverently emulates Sonic Youth. Tucker’s
first concert may have been a Madonna show in 1985, but today
she’s channeling the Youth’s Kim Gordon instead.
““ Mark Humphrey

6:50 p.m. The year’s obligatory buzz
band, Gnarls Barkley, is a collaboration between red-hot DJ Danger
Mouse and rapper Cee-Lo. True to the buzz band distinction,
Gnarls’ crowd spills out of the Gobi Tent, the event’s
smallest venue, as Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse play a set of material
from their new release, “St. Elsewhere.” It’s
particularly amusing how the crowd disperses within seconds after
the duo plays “Crazy,” the single that has been topping
the charts in the U.K. for a month. ““ Mark
Humphrey

7:15 p.m. One might think a three-person indie
rock band best known for its furious shows in small clubs would be
uncomfortable playing for tens of thousands on the Coachella Main
Stage. But not so for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The New York trio takes
the crowd into the night with a mix of old and new material,
including current single “Gold Lion” and live standard
“Y Control.” Enigmatic singer Karen O, dressed in a
blue and red-striped dress and ripped tights, dances, prances, and
jerks around stage, a consummate rock star. Ever versatile, she
dedicates the heart-tugger “Maps” to “the biggest
crowd we’ve ever played for.” As I watch the sun go
down behind the palms, I can’t help but think that this is
what Coachella is all about: seeing a small-to-medium band on a big
stage create a larger-than-life moment. ““ Nick
Rudman

8:06 p.m. As the Yeah Yeah Yeahs wrap up their
stellar set, there is a mass exodus of people from the main stage
to the Madonna tent ““ excuse me, I mean the Sahara tent
““ to catch a distant glimpse of the Material Girl. But I find
myself in the extreme minority as I beeline for the Outdoor Theatre
to get a good spot for the Scottish band Mogwai. After a slow
opening song, the group unleashes a sonic fire storm on the crowd
that, even if it had seen it coming, is knocked backward. What is
serene and contemplative one second deals me a full-body blow the
next in a three-guitar attack that is profoundly exhilarating. You
don’t listen to Mogwai, you experience them, and most of
Coachella has no idea what it missed. ““ Richard
Clough

8:10 p.m. Everyone at the festival seems to be
going to see Madonna, and predictably, the tent is not big enough
to hold them all. However, with some creative crowd-weaving,
inherent to a three-year Coachella veteran, I manage to snake my
way to about the middle of the audience. And I wait. And wait. And
wait, for the standard Coachella 20 minutes. Not that it matters to
the crowd: Everyone, regardless of sex, age and level of band
T-shirt obscurity goes crazy as the Material Girl pulls out the
infectious dance-pop that made her an icon. Against a drawing of a
white city outlined on a black background, Madonna and her able
back-up dancers groove their way through hits such as “Ray of
Light,” with the star herself sometimes stepping in on
guitar. The response is adoringly enthusiastic; but not only is the
volume turned down too low for the massive audience, the set is cut
short at 35 minutes. Rumor has it that Madonna arrived and left by
helicopter; couldn’t she have descended from the desert sky a
little bit earlier? ““ Nick Rudman

10:20 p.m. I originally planned to see Massive
Attack just so I could get in a decent position for Tool, with only
a minor interest in the Bristol consortium. Yet as Robert del Naja,
Grant “Daddy G” Marshall and a plethora of vocalists
fill the stage, I am taken on an aural journey like few I have
experienced before. The group’s beats hit so hard I’m
almost knocked off my feet, and when they bring out vocalist
Deborah Miller for a few songs, I am utterly blown away.
Miller’s voice intertwines with the group’s piercing
guitars, which cut through the brisk desert air like laser beams.
All the while, the bass lines stay constant, providing an utterly
stellar warm-up for the real show… 11:05 p.m.
The most mysterious quartet in music takes the stage 20 minutes
late (the last of the festival’s countless late start times)
as tech crews attempt to set up the band’s complex video
presentation. Once the opening lines of “Stinkfist”
fill the polo fields, though, any gripes about scheduling are
forgotten, and Tool’s first show in nearly four years
commences. Playing a set that pulls fairly equally from its
catalog, Tool does not sound like a band coming off a four year
hiatus. The group settles into a mind-bending groove as it rattles
off “Lateralus,” “Vicarious” and
“Aenima” all in a row, knocking the entire crowd for a
loop as it stares in awe at the disturbing images the band is
projecting up on the screens. As Tool closes with
“Aenima,” while everyone in the crowd shake their fists
to the chorus, the group’s dark progressive rock is the only
sound filling the Coachella festival, and everyone in attendance
can’t help but watch. ““ Mark Humphrey