DIGITAL JOURNALIST
The Sahara Tent has grown this year at Coachella. (Vanessa Franko/Staff Photo)
Despite this being my fourth Coachella festival, I had never been inside the infamous Sahara Tent before. What better chance than Moby’s DJ set Saturday night, April 13?
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A giant beach ball gets tossed around as the sun goes down during Portugal. The Man’s show Saturday night. (Nikie Johnson/Staff photo)
Portugal. The Man wants you to listen to more Weezer.
So John Gourley announced midway through the bands’s show at Coachella on Saturday night. He tried to make that happen, ending one of the first songs, “Everything You See (Kids Count Hallelujahs),” with a few bars of “Say it Ain’t So.”
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A campgrounds activity tent is dead at 5:30 p.m. Saturday. (Nikie Johnson/Staff photo)
I’d been thinking before Coachella started that it would be fun to stop in at one of the activity tents that are set up in the campgrounds. I just had to go outside the festival grounds and back in, along the orange path, so I stopped to check out the activities tent in campground 10 around 5:30 p.m.
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Lots of free stuff is available for people who help recycle water bottles. (Nikie Johnson/Staff photo)
Did you know you can get a free bottle of cold water if you bring 10 empty bottles to be recycled?
Did you know you could get a free VIP upgrade if you bring in 1,500 empty bottles?
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The Recyclosaurus Rex at Coachella. (Nikie Johnson/Staff photo)
Have you seen the Recyclosaurus Rex yet? It eats empty water bottles. And will eventually poop them out.
It’s a project of a group called Global Inheritance that’s working with the Coachella organizers on recycling program and a bunch of other cool stuff. (Here’s some info on their bottle exchange program and the freebies available.)
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Brothers Jan Nichols, 70, and Jon Nichols, 65, are at their fifth Coachella festival. (Nikie Johnson/Staff photo)
Not everyone at Coachella is in their 20s … or their 30s … or even under retirement age.
Just ask brothers Jan and Jon Nichols.
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Night falls on the first day of Coachella 2013. (Nikie Johnson/Staff photo)
For one thing, when the sun starts to go down, the blazing heat subsides. Everyone who was baring flesh all day either covers up, huddles with someone for warmth or starts dancing.
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Someone admires the projected swimmers as someone else tries to jump into the “Mirage” art installation on Friday, April 12. (Nikie Johnson/Staff photo)
A swimming pool at Coachella? Not quite. It’s part of an art installation, “Mirage,” that debuted tonight.
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The wood-burning oven at Urban Pie. (Nikie Johnson/Staff photo)
Spicy Pie may have some competition for best pizza at Coachella.
I love Spicy Pie, don’t get me wrong. At this point I think it’s pretty much a Coachella institution. But just now when I lined up for pizza, I realized I was actually in line for Urban Pie, a mobile wood-burning pizza parlor from Orange County.
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Banana man at Coachella. (Nikie Johnson/Staff Photo)
The Banana King is back.
Yep, a 6-foot-something man dressed as a giant banana.
It’s hard not to stop and take a picture. In the five or so minutes he and I chatted, about five groups of people stopped to have photos snapped with him.
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