The Rolling Stones perform at the Prudential Center in Dec. 2012. (Evan Agostini/AP)
It’s amazing what the power of a photo and the anticipation of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival lineup can do. On Thursday, Jan. 3, Coachella posted a photo of a round object on the Eldorado Polo Club field on the festival’s Facebook page.
This immediately set off a frenzy at P-E headquarters (where it’s widely known that January is the most wonderful time of the year for the iGuide section as we await the Coachella lineup–at least for the music reporter). The speculation? That it was a hint that The Rolling Stones would be headlining the festival. It had to be a stone, right? We decided to have some fun with it and I posted about it here in the blog to gauge readers’ reactions in hopes they could shed some light on it.
Polo ball on a polo field(Coachella/Contributed Image)
Remember, back in December an Indio date for April 12 magically appeared on The Rolling Stones’ mobile app before being taken down quickly thereafter. I wanted to know if this was another clue. I took to Twitter to ask a few people who have consistently attended the fest for their expert opinions after the blog post went up.
However, I updated the same post a little while later after I received intel that it was merely a polo ball on the polo field. My source was someone who was actually there when the photo was taken. Apparently, sometimes a polo ball is just a polo ball.
Where it got fun was on Friday, the day after my original post, when all kinds of news sites started taking the polo ball and running with it (sorry, couldn’t resist), including Rolling Stone, KROQ, Entertainment Weekly and The Desert Sun. It escalated rather quickly, like the newsroom street fight in “Anchorman.”
However, amongst all of those reports, Rolling Stone did post a new interview with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards by David Fricke early Friday morning in which Jagger says he has no idea how the Indio information ended up on the band’s app last month and that he hadn’t been approached about playing the festival.
That could be true–I doubt Jagger manages the band’s app personally, so I don’t think he would have personal knowledge of its updates. And I can say that there have been times when a band has been booked for a show and the actual members don’t seem to know about it–I’ve had that happen in interviews a handful of times, including one artist who was unaware his band was playing Stagecoach.
What does it all mean? Are The Rolling Stones playing Coachella? Vote in the poll.
Previous Coachella 2013 picks from the Audio File and readers:
Dec. 31, 2012: Alex Clare, Lucero, Alabama Shakes, Beach House
Dec. 28, 2012: Hot Chip, Warpaint, Father John Misty, Cloud Nothings
Dec. 26, 2012: Muse, No Doubt and Alt-J
Dec. 20, 2012: Aesop Rock
Dec. 19, 2012: Daft Punk, The Rolling Stones, Phoenix, Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Dec. 14, 2012: The Rolling Stones
Dec. 12, 2012: Airborne Toxic Event
Nov. 30, 2012: Bjork
Nov. 28, 2012: Nick Cave, Tegan and Sara, Converge
Nov. 14, 2012: Sigur Ros, Pearl Jam
Nov. 9, 2012: Paul Kalkbrenner, Kill the Noise
Nov. 9, 2012: Passion Pit, Nine Inch Nails/How to Destroy Angels, Queens of the Stone Age, Run DMC, Rocket from the Crypt
Oct. 19, 2012: Mumford & Sons, Deadmau5, Local Natives, Blur
Want more Coachella goodness? I tag all of my Coachella prediction posts Coachellaology. The iGuide also has a Coachella section that has interviews, articles, photos from previous years and more. Consequence of Sound also has an excellent running tally of Coachella possibilities and confirmations. You can email me at vfranko@pe.com.