Coachella 2011, April 15-17

 
Another year, another amazing Coachella.  Or "Ka-chell-o" if you're my Mom :) 

Coachella is never for the faint of heart, you survive it just as much as you enjoy it so, toughing through it sick this year was a special experience.  Word of advice: if you choose to Coachella in spite of a cold/sore throat/fever situation, mentally prepare yourself!  

And add a few more meds to your survival pack, for sure.  Luckily, my fever broke Friday night so Saturday and Sunday were much better.  It's also entirely possible I was operating solely off caffiene at that point, but I prefer to chalk it up to general badassery and spunk.  

Not to mention that we don't camp.  I love camping, but concert camping in 100+ degree heat that sick would have killed me.  Once you go rental condo you never go back.  I'm fairly certain that's how that saying goes.  Fore sure.

 




















In addition to opening up more grounds space this year, they really beefed up security; you couldn't get within a mile of the festival without a wristband on, which was fine by me as the estimated 150,000+ gate crashes who snuck in with fake tickets and/or fence cutters really crowded things out last year :( Without your RFID chipped wristband, there was simply no hope of getting in.  Cue me having a mini heart attack as we bike into the grounds and my band, which is supposed to stay on me for the next three days NO MATTER WHAT, just falls off.  No big deal, it's only a $300 ticket.  (!)  Luckily, they allowed me a replacement at the gate but I was told thousands of others with the same problem that morning weren't so lucky.

But once we were in, it was nothing but sunshine, sunsets and musical heaven for three days - all the shows we got to are listed below.  I'd recommend every show we saw seeing as how we had to pear down from hundreds of bands to get to our final must see list, but I've highlighted a few that really stood out:

Friday
**Were held up in LA and got to the festival late, hence the shorter list below.
Sleigh Bells , Cut Copy, The Black Keys, Beardyman, Crystal Castles, Monarchy, The Aquabats, Robyn, Gayngz, Flogging Molly and The Chemical Brothers

Saturday
Gogol Bordello, Delta Spirit, Erykah Badu, Cage the Elephant, Broken Social Scene, Yelle, Bright Eyes, Shpongle, Mumford and Suns, Fedde le Grand, the Swell Season, Paul van Dyke, Arcade Fire

Sunday
CSS, Wiz Khalifa, Angus and Julia Stone, Nas and Damien Marley, Best Coast, Foster the People, The National, Duck Sauce, Chromeo, Phantogram, Leftfield, Neon Trees, Kanye West

And without further adieu I present you with the final word in the Coachella experience - the Matt Woods Video!  Where would we be without you, Woods???


COACHE11A from Matt Woods on Vimeo.