Music festival expands roster, returns to its roots
By Taleen Kalenderian
April 24, 2007 10:07 p.m.
Last year’s rumor circulating at the Indio Empire Polo Field was that the renowned Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival was moving to another location.
Instead, it expanded its roster and added a third day. Sure enough, the festival is taking place at the Indio Empire Polo Field once again on Friday and will go on until Sunday night. Three-day passes sold out shortly after they went on sale, which has never happened since Coachella’s inception.
This year, Coachella has gone back to its roots, bringing two classic ’90s L.A. bands, the reunited Rage Against the Machine and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, to its stage.
The festival also features international headliners Bjork and Air, in addition to popular indie bands Interpol, Arcade Fire and The Decemberists. Coachella also maintains its reputation for multifarious programming by slotting dance acts (!!!, LCD Soundsystem and Junior Boys, among others) as well as hip-hop groups (Ghostface Killah), not to mention scheduling lesser-known bands to play in the afternoons.
“(Extending the festival to three days is) great, but maybe they’ll have to stop after adding four days next year. … It’s going to be too long,” said Jean-Benoît Dunckel of the French duo Air. “When you are playing Coachella you are part of a community of artists, and you meet other people you don’t know. We can talk with some people that we like and discover new bands, and we are more aware of what’s going on in the musical world. So many bands connect.”
Dunckel and his Air counterpart, Nicolas Godin, are Coachella veterans, returning to the stage in support of their recently released album, “Pocket Symphony.”
“We will be playing material from all of our albums,” said Dunckel.
James Murphy of indie dance act LCD Soundsystem said he doesn’t usually keep up with what is emerging in music and uses Coachella as a way to hang out with bands he respects and experience new acts.
“People can shop for music,” Murphy said. “It’s like window-shopping and wandering around versus having to commit to a single show. They always do a good job of curating it.”
In addition to bringing one reunited band to the stage in Rage Against the Machine, Coachella has slotted the shoegaze band The Jesus and Mary Chain to play the first night.
Crowded House, an ’80s group, is also performing for the festival, as are the Happy Mondays.
Sonic Youth, one of the most influential bands of the last 25 years, is also playing. Icelandic songstress Bjork will be using the festival to preview songs from her upcoming album “Volta.”
“I think it’s a great tool to use to reunite because it gives the opportunity to people who haven’t experienced those bands live,” said fourth-year English student Thia Bonadies.
“A lot of young people go to Coachella that love music, and they probably haven’t seen The Jesus and Mary Chain and Sonic Youth. That’s the good thing about Coachella ““ that it allows reuniting bands to play one show if they don’t have a tour in mind.”
Over the years it has been rumored that Goldenvoice, the company that organizes Coachella, makes bands performing at the festival agree not to play Los Angeles during that concert season.
Goldenvoice did not return phone calls for comment.
“When you play at Coachella I think you have to sign a contract saying you can’t play Los Angeles,” said Dunckel. “It’s part of the deal.”
“It goes to show that there’s a lot of bureaucracy that’s attached to every type of industry. It comes with the territory of a large event,” Bonadies said.
“Coachella itself is an industry that runs on money and runs on commercialism and capitalism to be successful. It doesn’t really surprise me because in the long run it is all about money. Large music festivals are more about the money than the music.”
Murphy has dealt with issues of commercialism in the music industry after releasing a workout mix commissioned by Nike titled “45:33.”
“I make pop music,” Murphy said. “I’m just trying to do it my way. The music industry is a super compromised industry to begin with, and it’s a filtered art form at the moment. Whether it’s commercial or not is not that crazy to me. I just want music to always be good, and they always do a great job of curating the festival so it should be fun regardless.”
This commercialism, however perceived, may be offset by the festival’s efforts to be more environmentally aware this year in addition to its longstanding communal-bonding efforts through art exhibits and music alike.
The art and environment portions of this year’s festival offer a free water bottle for every 10 recycled water bottles a concertgoer retrieves, as well as an energy-factory exhibit.
“You steal away from the cities because you’re in the middle of the desert,” Dunckel said.
“It’s really accepting for foreign and new bands, and foreign and new ideas. American festivals are very different from European festivals in terms of organization and security. In Europe it’s more brutal with more decadence. Coachella is very specific because of the location; people not close to it attend. It’s like a retreat.”
