This the report Mr. Flackadelic sent to his peeps and homies on Monday. It rocks so I’m posting it here. I’ve posted a few more photos too.
Coachelle F*ck Yeah! Boom Boom by Leona Hobbs
So we made it back, and it was a trip, no doubt. First off, the concert. They were having a record-breaking weekend for heat – hottest April ever. 38 degrees on Saturday, 41 on Saturday, 37 on Sunday. Now, it is the desert and all, but damn. We were well prepared – hats, lots of sunscreen and water, so it was livable…the nice thing about a dry heat is that sweat evaporates quickly, so you aren’t drenched all day like you would be in Florida. Still mother-f*cking hot for Canadians coming from a cool April though. Now, the music — the performances that we saw were great, except the inherent challenges of a festival – no matter how awesome the band, it is hard to rock out at 3:00 in the afternoon in 40 degree heat. I get spoiled in Toronto because all of the bands that played were ones that I could get tickets to see here in a more intimate setting. So we did a lot of sampling of bands we hadn’t seen/heard rather than trying to focus on seeing the big bands we’ve seen, because I’m too f*cking old to push my way to the middle of the crowd of a Red Hot Chili Peppers set in that heat.
Did I feel old, you ask? No, actually. While the crowd definitely was youngish, there were plenty of people over 30 too. Of course, the heat required that all the California girls (and a lot of the boys, lest you feel I’m sexist) to remove almost all their clothing, but I didn’t mind – you have to do what you have to do. Except the goths of course. Poor stupid bastards would be sitting there, suffering, head to toe in black, hoodie up, just baking in the sun. Of course, we only saw them on day one, so I guess they melted into black smears. There were other day one tools of course – like the guys who stripped to their shorts and didn’t put any sunscreen on. Burned to a crisp.
After the sun went down, it was cooler heat wise, and experience wise. Lots of neat-o visual stuff going on and tons of people wandering from stage to stage (there were 5). The crowd was really well behaved – very few problems, and none that I saw personally, though I heard that Crowded House got bottled by Rage fans. Would I do it again? Nope. It was a blast, but the preparation needed just to survive the concert itself took away from the experience – just hard to really party in other words. And no, we didn’t see Rage Against the Machine. We were hot, tired and had a plane to catch the next day….and thousands of Rage fans are scary huge dudes with big f*cking tattoos – another thing I’m too f*cking old to be dealing with.
Now, Palm Springs. Palm Springs itself is really small – it is surrounded by other cities that make up the Coachella Valley – we stayed in Rancho Mirage. It is rich…very very rich. Dozens of golf courses and country clubs (our hotel had two courses). Most of the neighbourhoods are gated – massive walls and gates surround them. The whole place is carved out of desert- we’d be driving (in a rented Ford Mustang naturally – those f*cking rental car guys see us coming a mile away) and you’d pass lush, palm tree lined resort, and right next door would be a vacant lot, and it would be desert sand, then next to that another lush resort. The water usage is insane – and so wasteful. These huge resorts would water the grass in the middle of the day when most of the water evaporates……and you walk down the main shopping district/tourist trap and water is constantly being misted out over the sidewalk to cool down shoppers as they walk. It is not a party town – its a spa/golfing town – lots of old rich people and the stuff that caters to old rich people.
We did drive into the desert, and that was very cool. We drove through the Joshua Tree National park, and it was really amazing/interesting – never having been to the desert it was cool to see the real thing up close.
