Each year Indio’s Empire Polo Grounds, one of the most beautiful venues in the country, becomes a launching pad where the world’s most able artists create transcendent experiences for tens of thousands of people – or not.
Coachella 2010, rocking from the heart of the Southern California desert and its 90-degree heat this weekend, was full of luxuriously crafted experiences. It was also host to a few spectacular failures.
Jay-Z played the hip-hop don as Friday night’s headliner, pushing deep into his catalog despite an ailing throat. He invited his queen Beyonce onstage for a duet of Forever Young for the set’s emotional climax. The following afternoon, the two were spotted enjoying Beach House. Hova needed to remind hundreds of oglers to take their eyes off of him and return them to Victoria Legrand.
Supergroups Them Crooked Vultures and Street Sweeper Social Club conjured blazing sets of veteran musicianship Friday, appealing to the crowd’s desire to revel in unapologetically boisterous anthems.
Georgia prog-metal band Baroness desecrated the land with finely tuned salvos of wailing warfare.
Tiesto spun an enchanted set Saturday night, sending warm streams of synth and tricked-out beats into the night air as an elaborate light show played on the purple mountains ringing the polo fields.
Beth Ditto brought her A-game in a soulful, completely swarmed Gossip performance in one of the tents Saturday afternoon.
Dirty Projectors delivered their African polyrhythms and playful, orchestrated harmonies soon afterward, delighting their swath of faithful fans.
Not every performance took full advantage of the auspicious occasion. The festival’s biggest disappointment – by a landslide – was MGMT. The Brooklyn indie pop stars did not appear to care for the crowd or for any of the songs they performed. With the exception of a well-improvised version of Weekend Wars, the set was flat. Their new songs, written for the band’s sophomore album Congr
atulations, failed. Front man Andrew VanWyngarden’s stage banter was melancholic and he sounded preoccupied with the other performers he had apparently been meeting.
As a final insult to injury, MGMT declined to play one of their biggest hits, Kids, despite fervent encore chants at the close of the performance. Grumbles rolled through the densely packed crowd as it shuffled away, miffed at having patiently waited through the less compelling newer songs for no payoff. If the band has decided they are tired of being famous, as has been reported, the band’s Coachella presence confirmed that kind of petulant exhaustion.
Another missed connection came courtesy of Spoon, whose strutting neo-disco tunes suffocated somewhat in the ether. Their performance was sparsely attended Sunday night considering their critical success, as the group competed against Phoenix and Miike Stone on other stages.
Perhaps the most complete failure of the weekend belonged to Sly Stone, who missed his scheduled slot Sunday evening, then showed up to a rescheduled set 40 minutes late in a ragtag costume and unstable state of mind. Stone rambled to the audience, endured technical problems, stumbled through classic Sly and the Family Stone hits like Stand and Family Affair, then fled the stage.
Stepping over a few sad examples of wasted potential, Coachella muscled through an ambitious three-day showcase, confidently displaying the glory of a great American music festival: sweat, dust, dancing, drinking, and all.
