20 Moments That Make Coachella What It Is Today | listing

The first major mention of the Coachella Valley Music and Art Festival found in The New York Times Neil Strauss's September 1999 Pop Life column "A Festival Promises Safety", written less than two months after the monstrous Woodstock & # 39; 99, presents the first edition of the festival by highlighting the differences of Coachella, Free bottles of water distributed to each participant to promise them free parking and under-equipped shows. Musically, Strauss had this to say:

More similar in spirit to Monterey Pop than in Woodstock, Coachella offers programming that appeals to an avant-garde audience, many artists not used to playing in front of a large audience. The focus is on dance music and college radio groups, as opposed to popular numbers in the Billboard pop charts or modern rock commercial stations.

Twenty years later, the festival scene has changed for the better and for the worse, but Coachella still remains. On the eve of the 2019 edition, I decided to make a birthday present at the festival. In the article that follows, you will find 20 moments that have helped shape Coachella in its current form. Drawing on 20 years of coverage and memories, these moments range from tents in the Empire Polo Club to Indio City Hall's boardrooms, to the intertwined network of social media, and tells how Coachella has become a festival of music par excellence of America.

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Coachella begins (1999)

You can not be 20 years old without a first edition. Coachella began her life on an exceptionally hot weekend in October 1999, while festivalgoers were spending $ 50 (another $ 75 in 2019) on programming featuring Beck, The Chemical Brothers, Tool and Rage Against the Machine. Critics have praised the festival for its professionalism smoothly after the fire caused by the tire fire at Woodstock just a few months ago, but it was still a big deal. a financial collapse. Goldenvoice lost $ 850,000 and had to postpone the next edition of the festival to 2001.

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Perry Farrell throws reunion fever and saves the feast (2001)

Between stays as Lollapalooza's impresario, Perry Farrell found time to help another nascent music festival. In the second edition of Coachella in 2001, Farrell brought together Jane's Addiction for the first time since 1997 and played for deferred compensation, which allowed her friends in Goldenvoice to regain their financial standing while stunning the crowd. It's a relationship that lasts; At the time of writing these lines, Farrell made an almost annual appearance of the festival between 2001 and 2011, ignoring the 2003 edition during this period. The appearance of Jane's Addiction also contributed to Coachella's reputation for organizing large meetings; Over the years, this included stone roses, Rage Against the Machine, My Bloody Valentine and more.

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The campsite is coming (2003)

For a festival whose camping is at the heart of its identity, it is always disturbing to remember that Coachella has never been in a tent. The camping scene that LA Weekly formerly called "the Wild West of the festival" where "the campers [build] Amazing structures to hide their debauchery "began in 2003, with a single batch for the intrepid weekends to return after the White Stripes, Beastie Boys, Iggy and Stooges sets, and more. The demand for camping packages would only increase next year, thanks to a stellar alignment …

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Coachella (literally) is selling (2004)

… who would see Coachella selling for the first time in her history. Thanks to the Pixies for that one; although the mbad of their reunion was diluted by the consecutive years of constant rounds (and below average records), the starting word that they would make their first big appearance at Coachella was enough for that one group of 110,000 people change their spring holiday plans in two days. according to L.A. Weekly Piotr Orlov, it was worth the wait, as Black Francis and his company "did not exploit any of the detractors of the nostalgia of the 80s who bundled it, taking advantage of power and fame of something that remains unique and future ". Apparitions of Kraftwerk, Radiohead, and the priest did not hurt either.

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Daft Punk: The first legend of the festival (2006)

It's rare that the influence of a festival set goes far beyond reality, but when that happens, it's the kind of thing people have been talking about for a very long time. Example: the transcendental appearance of Daft Punk at Coachella 2006, in which Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo emerged as benevolent masters of robots, forcing the stunned mbades of the festival to dance up and down their digital pyramid thrilling. The ensemble eclipsed even the most prominent names in the lineup that year (including those of the then-rising Kanye West, and Madonna, an artist of the festival legend) and immediately found its place in the legend of the festival.

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