Photo by Elysia Cook
After less than 12 hours at the Coachella music festival in Indio, CA, there is one lesson I have learned so far. That is, Coachella is not only a name—it’s a verb, an adjective, and even a holiday. Prior to arriving at 1:30 last night, I spent a fair amount of time (mostly during lectures) searching for information on what to bring, what to wear, how to see my favorite bands while exposing myself to new ones, ad infinitum. Basically, how to Coachella. It transcends a music festival; it is its own entity.
Perhaps it seems that way to me because I’ve never been to any festival before, and this sort of atmosphere is common to festivals in general. But there seems to be something about the location in the middle of a hot desert, the whimsically colorful installations, and the constant exclamations of “Happy Coachella!” from random campers that gives me the impression that there is something special here. It’s possible that I’m saying this more out of delirium from walking across the entire campground to find my group at 2:00 a.m. last night, and waking from my already-sweaty slumber only a few hours later. But either way, I know that the snapshot of Coachella that I’ve already experienced doesn’t even scratch the aurally magical surface of what I’ve about to experience over the next three days.
Coachella veterans are probably laughing right now, thinking about how I haven’t seen anything yet; for newbies like me: I invite you to share in my naiveté and discover what this weekend has to offer. I’m amped on coffee (but not iced, because they charge an extra $3 for that), I’m already getting sunburnt at 10 a.m. as I sit here on the grass while my phone charges, and I’m stoked for today’s lineup, which includes Passion Pit (without a doubt, one of my favorite bands of all time), Jurassic 5 (listened to them for the first time yesterday, and I regret that I’ve been oblivious to their existence for this long), and Bassnector as one of the headliners. I’ll be covering all three and more, so keep posted. Happy Coachella!