My picks: Phoenix | The XX | The Postal Service | Sigur Ros | New Order | Grizzly Bear | Knife Party | Benny Benassi | Two Door Cinema Club | Franz Ferdinand | Violent Femmes | Simian Mobile Disco | Portugal. the Man | Bat for Lashes | Major Lazer | Dropkick Murphys | Janelle Monae | Bingo Players | Allen Stone | Kill the Noise | The Wombats | Guards | Savages | Shovels & Rope
With a lineup as stacked as Saturday’s, there are going to be conflicts galore, so ready your disappointment glands, people, because today is gonna hurt.
It’s the same thing that happened last year, when M83, Explosions in the Sky, and The Black Keys all played at the same time. You could try to only see partial sets, but there’s nothing worse than peeling yourself away from an act that hasn’t played your favorite song yet in favor of a band that did five minutes before you got there. Don’t do that to yourself. Coachella’s not about being angry and yelling at your friends for making you leave. Just make the hard choices.
Phoenix is an obvious one (being, you know, the headliner), but there’s some added bonus to seeing their show. They share a history with Daft Punk, and it’s not unprecedented for the electronic duo to join Phoenix on stage. Given the rumors about Daft Punk’s appearance (which, granted, happen every year), the fact that they have an album out this spring, and Coachella’s ability to make magic happen, there’s a chance it could actually happen. It’s an astronomical chance, yeah, but do you really wanna be that guy walking around pretending you were there when it happened?
Of the other headliners, The Postal Service is probably the one most people are stoked on. It’s their first show together in a decade, though don’t expect any new music. That’s okay though. To say people are going to lose their minds when the first few notes of “Such Great Heights” start up would be like saying only a few people in the crowd will be on drugs. It’s just not fair to the drugs. Saturday’s electronic undercard is stacked, though besides Moby, Benny Benassi, and Knife Party, it mostly stays away from the Arena House that’s currently popular. Richie Hawtin and Bingo Players are pretty awesome, but the Sahara Tent might be a very different scene from last year, where the big names drew a cookie-cutter rave crowd.
Who knew it was possible to be a hipster about electronic music, even towards electronic music fans? Major Lazer is a popular big name, but two-thirds of the group quit last year (including their Jamaican hype man Skerrit Bwoy, the one who really set their shows apart from other DJs), so who knows how they’re going to do. However, they’re the group helping to bring Snoop Dogg into his new Snoop Lion persona, so if we’re gonna spread a rumor about Daft Punk and Phoenix, why not one about Snoop and Major Lazer? Calling it now!
As long as we’re talking about bands spotlighting each other, Pusha T and 2Chainz are both disciples in the church of Kanye West’s Ego. Depending on the set times, they could easily come out for each other, so I’d see one or the other. Pusha is one half of the older group Clipse, so his set has a broader range to draw from. How you use this information is up to you (see Pusha T).
There are so many awesome acts performing on Saturday that you might as well stock up on food and water before you even go to the festival. You’re gonna be busy all day. Listen to the Spotify playlist up top and decide who you like the best, and pray to Paul Tolett that they don’t conflict.