Everything you expected and more
Coachella weekend one got off to a gloomy start with an unexpected Pacific storm Friday. But fans didn’t let the rain and wind put a damper on their weekend.
This is the 13th year of Coachella, a three-day music festival that has evolved from a music event into a vacation experience. Coachella’s popularity is such that this year the festival has expanded from one weekend to two with the same lineup both weekends. Over 75,000 wristbands were sold for each weekend. Most of the tickets sold out last June before the lineup was even announced.
The headliner Friday was the blues-rock band, the Black Keys, who opened up their set with “Howlin’ For You.Swedish House Mafia was also a huge attraction on the main stage, keeping fans dancing late into the night.
Saturday’s highlights included Radiohead, rapper Childish Gambino, aka Donald Glover of TV series “Community,” and newcomer Azealia Banks, a rapper from Brooklyn, New York, who performed renditions of Amy Winehouse’s hit “Valerie” and Prodigy’s “Firestarter” at the Gobi tent. New Mexico band The Shins also performed as did this year’s winner of the best new artist Grammy, Bon Iver.
Sunday’s line-up featured Florence and the Machine, DJ Shadow, Girl Talk, Beirut, recently reunited At The Drive-In and Avicii. Another popular act was Gotye, whom recently shot to stardom with his hit “Somebody That I Used to Know.”
Coachella is known for surprise cameos, and on Saturday, Usher turned up unannounced to perform “Without You” with David Guetta. AWOLNATION was joined by Macy Gray on their single “Sail.” Rihanna also showed up at the festival, performing “We Found Love” and “Where Have You Been” with Calvin Harris on Sunday night. Perhaps the most bizarre cameo of the weekend was a holographic Tupac, who performed with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg in the final act of the weekend. Wiz Khalifa also turned up to perform “Young and Wild and Free” with Snoop.
With so many bombshells revealed this weekend at Coachella, will there be any surprises left for the weekend two festival goers?
