Tag Archives: Coachella Festival

We’ll be blogging from Coachella here at the Audio File blog, but I’ll also be doing even more updates on Twitter.

Follow along.

Sir Paul McCartney conquered the Coachella Valley Friday night with tales of all the lonely people, a Fireman and bands on the run.

Two things struck me about his set at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Friday–McCartney’s comment about change and President Obama was the first time a headliner wasn’t raging against an administration during my tenure covering the festival, and the fact that wow, he can play a lot of instruments.

I think McCartney played the bass, piano, guitar, ukulele and something else.

He opened the set with the Wings’ hit “Jet” and overall he played everything from a cover of a Fleetwood Mac song (“Hi Ho Silver”) to the best of his Beatles’ collection (“Yesterday,” “Hey Jude,” “Let It Be) and the best of his fellow Beatles’ collections (“Something” on the aforementioned ukulele and “A Day in the Life”).

He also performed songs from his “Fireman” project and told stories and also had really emotional moments, such as when he told the crowd how the night was the 11th anniversary of the death of his wife, Linda, before dedicated “My Love” to her.

The crowd was strange–baby boomers who grew up on the Beatles, their kids and in some case, their grandkids. Billy Idol was there watching. So was Shepard Fairey. And two of the cast members of the new “90210.”

Although there was a video screen on stage projecting various images to the music, the biggest production aspect of the night was the pyrotechnic display during “Live and Let Die.”

McCartney shone brightest when it was just him and a song, like the stripped-down acoustic version of “Eleanor Rigby,” or “Yesterday,” but also seemed to have boundless energy for choices like “Helter Skelter” and “I’ve Got a Feeling.”

I think McCartney had two of those elusive “Coachella moments” in his set–the aforementioned “Eleanor Rigby” and the massive “Hey Jude” singalong.

After playing for more than two hours, including two extensive encores, I think McCartney was the icing and pretty much blew out the candles on Coachella’s tenth birthday cake.

Set list:
-Jet
-Drive My Car
-Only Mama Knows
-Flaming Pie
-Got To Get You Into My Life
-Psychedelic Jimi Hendrix homage on which Paul shreds the heck out of a Les Paul
-Hi Ho Silver
-Highway
-The Long and Winding Road
-My Love
-Blackbird
-Here Today
-Dance Tonight
-Calico Skies
-Mrs. Vandebilt
-Eleanor Rigby
-Sing the Changes
-Band on the Run
-Back in the U.S.S.R.
-Something
-I’ve Got a Feeling
-Paperback Writer
-A Day in the Life
-Segue into Give Peace a Chance
-Let It Be
-Live and Let Die
-Hey Jude

Encore #1
-Birthday
-Can’t Buy Me Love
-Lady Madonna

Encore #2
-Yesterday
-Helter Skelter
-Get Back
-Sgt. Pepper’s Reprise
-The End

Watching Leonard Cohen kneel on stage and sing directly to his mandolin player, Bob Metzger, who was seated in a straight-back red chair.

Watching people with fresh tattoos on their arms drink $4 Minute Maid lemonade slushes while listening to the expletive-laden hip-hop act People Under the Stairs.listening to Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band at the Outdoor stage.

The aroma of suntan lotion, pot and second-hand smoke in the crush of people at the Outdoor Stage of Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band.

The number of performers with British accents. Wonder if it will stand out so much Saturday when Paul McCartney and Morrissey are gone.

—Fielding Buck
–fbuck@PE.com

Who wouldn’t be thrilled when Paul McCartney kicked off his set at Coachella with the Wings hit “Jet” and did that bobblehead doll move everybody remembers from “The Ed Sullivan Show”? You could see it on the multi-story screens that flank the stage.

The stagecraft is spectacular and McCartney is tapping into Liverpool nuttiness in his between-song patter. “We come from many miles to rock your roof tonight he said before launching into “Drive My Car.”

1. Jet
2. Drive My Car

After his second song, the Beatles’ “Drive My Car,” McCartney greeted the crowd in a fake accent.

“We come from many miles away to rock your roof tonight Coachella,” he told the crowd.

two more songs, now it’s “Got To Get You Into My Life” from the Beatles.

Elder statesman troubadour Leonard Cohen proved a point made earlier in the day by Matt Schultz of Cage the Elephant. He got a roar from his large crowd of disciples when he interjected the lyric “I’m not trying to fool you, Coachella,” into his song “Halelujah.”

Cohen performed an hour-plus set for a deep sea of humanity. He started 10 minutes late, which surprised his hardcore fans and caused others to make barnyard noises and chant to draw him out.

He was wearing a dark suit with a baby blue ribbon tied around one arm and a fedora, which he frequently doffed after his numbers, five-minute anthems about blighted love and the decline of civilization and the impact one has on the other. Many audience members knew the lyrics and mouthed them or sang along.

Titles included “First We Take Manhattan,” “I’m Your Man” and his closer, “Democracy.”

Favorite image: A upright piano mounted on a bicycle sitting at the edge of the crowd with a burning candle while Cohen finished his set. The instrument is operated by an English performance artist called Rimski and his part of the Coachella installation.

Cohen’s set overlapped a little with Morrissey’s opening on the main stage, blasted by loud speakers over a large swath of the polo grounds.

Morrissey, however, seemed to be having his own sound problems. He asked the audience how he sounded and said, “It’s rough up here.

—Fielding Buck
–fbuck@PE.com

Check out Conor’s CA-RAZZZZY hat!

Vanessa Franko/The Press-Enterprise

Conor Oberst and Taylor Hollingsworth perform at Coachella.

My mom loves Paul McCartney. He was always her favorite Beatle. She has his solo records on vinyl, she loves the Beatles, she flew from Baltimore to see him tonight.

Her opinion of Coachella? Thumbs up. She has been very impressed with the organization and the food. She even said it was much better than the old alternative radio festival we went to in D.C.

Sadly, my dad is ill and back at the hotel so this is my shout out to dad, we miss you, but we’re going to get our faces rocked off by McCartney.

I had a chance to shoot Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band. Conor was wearing a very large black hat. And then he talked about how there are 8 universes and we only know ours but we can see ones behind us and in front of us but not on the sides. I am so confused.

Vanessa Franko/The Press-Enterprise

Taylor Hollingsworth of the Mystic Valley Band rocks out at Coachella.

I caught M. Ward earlier today. Here are my notes.

Vanessa Franko/The Press-Enterprise

M. Ward performs at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Friday, April 17.

M. Ward has taken the stage at the Outdoor Theatre and has mellowed out the crowd for Molotov that was chanting a word that I think was forbidden in my high school Spanish class.

The people here are appreciative and enjoying his mellow music, despite the dance beats coming from the tents around the area.

He had some sound problems at the beginning of his set. His acoustic guitar kept cutting out and he joked that it was still a sound check.

He also played the rockin’ tune off his new album, “Hold Time,” called “Never Had Nobody Like You,” which is my personal favorite.