Coachella | Day One | 04/27/07
12:00pm: Alfie: I get ready to eat breakfast at the Residence Inn Palm Desert, where I’ll be staying at for the duration of my Coachella trip.
2:oopm: Alfie: After a 30 minute cab ride (and the outrageous fee of $60), I begin heading through the parking lot of the Empire Polo Field, where I can already here the Jesus and Mary Chain soundcheck “Reverence” and “Just Like Honey.” Naturally, I’m beyond psyched at this point to be seeing one of my favorite bands of all time in a few hours.
4:00pm: Alfie: After reacquainting myself with the Coachella site, I begin to check out some of the early acts of the festival. Heading towards to Gobi tent, I catch the end of the Comedians of Comedy’s hour and a half long set. Although I missed Aziz Ansari, Brian Posehn and Zach Galifianakis, I did manage to catch the majority of Patton Oswalt’s set. As funny as his jokes about the Bush administration, old people, and Star Wars were, I couldn’t help but think how much I’d rather be seeing Bill Hicks. With that in mind, I headed over to the Coachella Stage to check out a few songs from Silversun Pickups, who were lucky enough to not have sound problems for once and delivered a pretty cool set.
6:00pm:Alfie Coachella finally kicks off as I head back over to the Gobi tent to check out the highly anticipated set from Amy Winehouse. Backed by a full band and two male backup singers, Amy Winehouse tore through songs from her latest album, Back to Black. Her songs filled up the tent with enough soul to enthrall the already excited crowd. Winehouse also took the effort between songs to give genuine thanks to the Coachella crowd and spoke about how everyone told her to “wait till you get to Coachella…it’s going to be a blast”. All in all, it was a great warm up for what was to come next.
7:40pm:Matt: Stuck at JFK. Dreaming of Amy Winehouse. Drinking $9.12 beers. Fucking weather.
Alfie: The one band I was most excited to see among all the other great acts scheduled for this weekend was the Jesus and Mary Chain. Opening with the Psychocandy era “Never Understand” and plowing through a set of songs that sounded like their greatest hits, 21 Singles on shuffle with the addition of a new song (”Over It”, which sounded great). Jim and William Reid - who seemed to avoid each other at all costs onstage during their set - exceeded all of the high expectations I already had. Oh, and some lady “sang” a song onstage with them. I’d have much rather seen Annie Hardy with them the night before. Personal highlights for me included “Some Candy Talking”, and show closer “Reverence”. “I wanna die just like Jesus Christ” still sounds amazing after all these years.
8:40-12:00am Alfie: The rest of the night is kind of a blur from here on out, but from what I can remember Jarvis Cocker said funnier and more charming things during his set than I’ve ever heard come out of Morrisey (and rocked way harder), Carlos D of Interpol seems a lot cooler now that he doesn’t look like a pervert, and Bjork is still one of the most creative and beautiful musicians of our times. I manage to catch a cab back to my hotel a full 2 hours after the show is finished and 20 minutes after Matt tells me he’s in California and tasting his first In N’ Out burger.
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