The announcement of the Coachella lineup a few weeks back, which we generally await with a certain amount of baited breath, left us feeling not exactly cold, but more…disappointed and maybe a little wistful? As latter-day Natalie Merchant is to the 10,000 Maniacs, and latter-day Sting is to the Police, so is this lineup to the glory days of Coachella. Its like the sad moment when you find out that your childhood best friend’s older brother, who you secretly worshipped and who introduced you the Buzzcocks and the Smiths, has gone away to college, joined a fraternity, and is now listening to Dave Matthews.
Not that there aren’t things that we find titillating about this year’s lineup. The Verve, for those who bother to get beyond “Bittersweet Symphony”, have been smooth rockin’ us for years. And, hungry for a second shot at reunion-icon status, Love and Rockets will succeed Bauhaus and the Breeders will succeed the Pixies (more of a stretch, but Kim was always our favorite, anyway), which is not a scheduling instinct that we want to discourage (especially because it opens up the stimulating possibility of a Throwing Muses cum Belly reunion in coming years.) And in the fine print lower down on the menu, bands and performers that we’re psyched about will be there: those worth the hype like The National and M.I.A., those that can’t remember what decade it is like the Bees and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, those that just wanna have fun like I’m from Barcelona and Architecture in Helsinki, and those that are hungry with something to prove like Akron/Family and Vampire Weekend are all good additions that strengthen the festival and seem in keeping with its roots. But the lineup is definitely weaker than in years past, and is starting to feel a bit redundant and replayed — we’ve already seen Kraftwerk, Death Cab for Cutie, Rilo Kiley, and My Morning Jacket at Coachellas past, and weren’t necessarily impressed with what they did in the desert format, which isn’t suited for just any band.
Moreover, it takes a pretty special lineup to make it worth the structural challenges of a Coachella weekend. For those who haven’t been, it goes vaguely like this: Fight your way through L.A. traffic out past Palm Springs for two to four hours depending on your luck and relationship to various deities, right at the cactus and heckling locals resentful of the hipster descent on their quiet little town, straight ahead for a few miles of dead-stopped traffic on one of the two roads leading to the polo field, bake in 100 degree plus heat for six to eight hours with no reprieve, drop more coin on a couple of beers and bottled waters than you would on the first year at most elite private liberal arts colleges, catch a couple of bands and maybe a headliner on the jumbo-tron, drag your deep-fried butt off to your over-priced hotel you’re sharing with your twelve best friends in order to afford it, lather-rinse-repeat for two more days, and swear you’ll never, ever put yourself through this again. Repeat annually.
Or maybe not. When the headliners were Radiohead, the Cure, the Pixies, Bauhaus, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and Björk it sort of made sense. But this year’s headliners of Jack Johnson and Roger Waters doing Dark Side of the Moon have us scratching our heads. While we don’t want to come to any a priori conclusions about what either will do with their stage time (we’re open to being unexpectedly impressed, why not?), and we’re not advocating a generalized campaign against either (who doesn’t love a little musical “count your blessings, we’re closer to hurling ourselves into the abyss than you are” Pink Floyd moment now and then?), something about this year’s lineup just doesn’t feel like our festival anymore. Let those guys play Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza; Coachella is supposed to be about outsiders music, and we don’t really feel much like sharing.
Perhaps the festival has just jumped the shark and is past its prime. One thing’s for certain, we’re going to think more carefully before pre-booking a hotel in years to come. In the future we may just divert travel funds and head to SXSW or Bumbershoot instead. At least at those festivals you can enjoy a real city between sets if the frat boys get too aggressive.
