Picture this: clear skies, towering palm trees, rusty mountains, scorching sunshine, pool parties, awesome music, the celebrity elite, and more fringe than you can fathom, it can only mean one thing, I’m at Coachella.
Being a festival goer and follower myself at home in the UK, going overseas to live the festival dream has always been on the cards and when an opportunity presented itself, I didn’t need to be told twice, it was a YOLO moment (for those who aren’t down with the kids that means you only live once), well that’s what I said to convince myself. And what better place to go than the US of A’s most well-known music festival and the one that kicks starts festival season the world over.
The first thing that strikes you on arrival is the beautiful setting, its pretty epic and was enough to instantly put me into a good mood and the queues, which were surprising non-existent. Shocking I know, the last festival I went to, I queued for an hour in the rain, and remained damp for the rest of the festival, so this as you can imagine was refreshingly different and set precedent for what was to come. Although its quick to get in, you do need to go through a rigorous pat down to enter, and sadly my Clift bar didn’t make it through, tears were shed! That’s one thing about this festival everything is incredibly controlled. From drinking in certain areas, to not being able to take in certain items and pretty tight security! The world most notorious festival goer, Kate Moss, doesn’t ever come to Coachella for that reason, preferring the unpredictable and more relaxed approach back home, embracing the mud. I think I will opt for the pat down and sunshine on this occasion, it would be rude not to especially as I am already here.
On the inside the grounds are perfect, like a hollywood smile. The grass is lush and green, the palms looked like they are standing on a ruler and the different areas are neatly crafted to mould around the polo field setting. Once inside there’s so much going on, the various art installations, the throngs of people, every form of food cart you can think of, the fairground and so much music. Its pretty incredible and I felt instantly at ease and quickly slipped into festival mode. Coachella is comparison to other festival is much smaller so you can walk from one end to the other in 20 minutes which saved my weary feet and helped us catch as many bands as possible, this was music to my ears!
Walking around and switching from tent to tent that easily made the Coachella experience more enjoyable and relaxed. Being on American shores also meant that we saw a lot of new bands and see acts whose music we knew but never knew the artist, so that surprise was pretty awesome when we stumbled on it and that happened a lot! Stand-out acts for me were The Weeknd, they were brilliant and the Kanye West surprise collaboration was just too good, as a character he’s pretty passionate, his musical creativity was genius and he was amazing to watch. Seeing Royal Blood was pretty cool, having won best british group at the Brit Awards earlier this year and sealing their status as the new kings of modern rock back home, they are relativity unknown in the US so getting up-close and rocking out to ‘Out of the Black’ under the desert sky was awesome. We sneaked our way to the front for Clean Bandit who had a day slot on the main stage, and dancing to Real Love in the sun was nothing short of magical for me. Alesso was a great way to cap off the day, and we danced hard along with everyone else, he played a brilliant set of tunes and the laser show was something else.
As well as the music, the festival is also famous for it’s art installations. This years best had to be ‘Papilio Merraculous‘, the caterpillar, which does move, no that wasn’t just a figure of my imagination! and morphs into a beautiful butterfly. Papilio celebrates the changes in nature and the world around us. The ‘Praxis the Neon’ installation, was made up of multi-layered cubes which were great to photograph and I found them fun. The ‘Earthmover‘ design, which I would describe as a cross between a spider and a JCB was strange. It’s meant to be an ant, the most hard-working insect, crossed between excavators, the most hard-working of machines and its meant to symbolise a modern form of intelligence. I think that is questionable, considering what I thought it was, but it was great to photograph and provides a good spot for a meeting point! The ‘Chrono Chromatic‘ piece was another stand out for me, celebrating time and colour and the spectrum of bands and events that go on at the festival. The light show at night is one of the best i’ve seen and it provided a much-needed space for shade in the day as well as a great place for a post band nap! I can’t forget ‘Corporate Headquarters‘, an office in chaos of half human, half hippo workers. It was hilarious, incredibly surreal and a great interpretation of art, I will definitely be signing up to work there post festival!
We sat beneath the Butterfly, to catch some shade away from the scorching rays one afternoon and between napping and people watching, I admired what everyone was wearing. Festivals are a great place to showcase style and Coachella is famed for it. It wasn’t as diverse as I was hoping, everyone pretty much dresses exactly the same, which was incredibly disappointing. Denim cut offs, flower headdresses, fringe, round shades and not forgetting a face mask (not the most stylish of items, but practical!). Although everyone was in uniform it still looked great and added to the festival vibe. Being style conscious myself, I gave it a good go and it was fun to experiment. Being in the mid-30 something degree range in the desert though, does make it that little bit harder to turn on the style. I didn’t miss being able to wear my trusty Wellies, I will have to save my Hunters for a muddier occasion!
It appeared that face masks and bandana’s were the ultimate accessory for a lot of people, it made some of them look like Avengers, which was pretty random I thought, that’s before I noticed the dust. The grounds having been trampled the weekend before and with the heat they had turned the grass in places into a sand track. It was so bad in the evening that we pretty much choked and sneezed our way out of the festival – very attractive as you can imagine! Having wondered why and smirked at so many people wearing face masks earlier in the day, they were clearly having the last laugh now as they happily left inhaling their clean air!
We struck up conversation with some of these festival looking superhero’s that were clearly professionals and were incredibly friendly, just like everyone else. I think everyone’s friendliness, openness and positive outlooks, really made the festival for me. Everywhere we went, everyone struck up conversation, I think our English accents helped but that aside, it was great to share stories and have a chat with the new faces we met, it was really special.
I think by the end of the final day I just made it through Drake, I was at the point of passing out from the pain from standing for 3 days straight, I am not exaggerating! Capping off the festival we took a night ride on the Ferris wheel, looking down on the festival as it drew into the night, it was a beautiful sight. Coachella as a festival was brilliant and just thinking about all the great moments we had and the bands gave me goosebumps or on second thought, maybe that was an allergic reaction to the dust! Having looked at so many photos and envied so many people for years who had been, I had finally made it and it was well worth the wait.
See you next time Coachella!
JR.
THE URBAN EDIT 