This year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival had one of the best line-ups in many years. The line-up was monster and the improving economy made even the mandatory 3-day pass purchases as hot as the festival’s daytime temps.
75,000 fans can’t be wrong. As the moon shone and the sun blazed, all the bands and performers at Coachella 2011 brought their “A” game. The weekend was filled with inspiring, uplifting and thrilling performances that dug a little deeper. Critics and fans alike hailed this year’s literal non-stop lineup of over 150 acts and soaked in so many new and old favorites. There were only a few random snafu’s and artistic weirdness like Ariel Pink and Cee-Lo Green’s sets. Minor bumps in a year that was a genuine celebration. From big time acts such as Arcade Fire and festival-closer Kanye West to indie darlings !!! and Elbow to Duran Duran and Big Audio Dynamite, both participants in festivals from another era. The 2011 Coachella stages spent 3 non-stop days & nights trumping its predecessors in spades.
Of course, when mainstream embraces alternative so heavily, lines of division can be blurred. Advertisers galore seized the marketing opportunity of a captive audience and pushed their brands as far as possible across all avenues. The media covered the festival to the point of over-saturation. And the VIP scene has certainly jumped the shark with A-list celebrities dressing and acting the part of bohemian hippie music aficionados, with the requisite waves of paps chasing them around all day as if it was the parking lot at Fred Segal. Alternative? Only if US Magazine’s indie rock issue is due out soon.
Regardless, many people bought $800 worth of VIP passes with no backstage access because if you think about it, in terms of the three days and the amount of people that were there, it’s not a bad investment. If you’re a real music fan and that’s what you’ve saved up for, and you knew the bands that were going to be there, it’s a no-brainer. I mean, personally, I would drop $200 to see Prince. Why? Because it’s friggin’ Prince. And that’s just one act. People saved up, they were there and they certainly got every minute of value out of it. So despite signs in the festival scene of Fonzie speeding his motorcycle towards the ramp, what transpired on stage was pure unadulterated magic. Great expectations were placed on the lineup but the power of the music, the performances, the experiences that the artists and bands delivered to the true fans were second to none. Music won out on this weekend.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fd2dD3w0Ls&rel=0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3]