Day 12: Coachella, pt.2
Welcome
Yesterday we attended the second day of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
After Coachella day one we had shifted accommodations to an Airbnb close to the festival. It was in Bermuda Dunes, a suburb that falls well behind its neighbours in the most important quantifiable statistic - number of country clubs - but the one country club they do have punches well above its weight. Can you imagine living on a golf course? This dream is now a reality with homes available for purchase right on the fringes of the fairway. Twenty-seven 108mm diameter holes designed by famed golf course architect Billy Bell can be organised into three eighteen-hole courses that are accessible for all skill levels with no forced carries to burden the novice player, which I assume means there are plenty of caddies and golf carts to carry your stuff.
This premium sporting facility is of course open to the public and all you need is your country club membership and set of wearable apparel that is specifically designed as golf attire as seen in popular golf publications, sold in golf shops, or worn on the PGA Tour. Denim is obviously unsafe on the green and should remain at home in the closet except for your post-game lunch in the clubhouse where club appropriate denim is acceptable.
Our house was sadly not part of this impressive piece of recreational infrastructure, but it was still very luxurious by our standards, equipped with a pool, outdoor dining, massage chair, and glamorous art works. If you had been peering over the fence into our luxury resort back yard yesterday morning you would have found scenes of relaxation: bodies lounging on pool chairs, pool floats, outdoor furniture, and sliding in and out of the water when the sun got too hot. There were eleven of us thanks to the addition of a half dozen friends and family who had come over to attend Coachella and the house was alive as everyone prepared for their second festival evening.
The kitchen was a flurry of activity for a while, Dan and Novi claiming they would put together a few eggs and avocadoes for breakfast and then dropping a brunch bomb on the table, a titanic spread to carry us through the rigours of a poolside afternoon. I served up a bowl of fresh fruit with apple, kiwifruit, orange, banana, grapes, and yoghurt. I served up a plate with the main course: buttered bread, scrambled eggs, refried beans, avocado, fresh tomatoes, roasted tomatoes, and fried zucchinis and potatoes. There was orange juice to wash it down and of course coffee served hot and black in a mug, my favourite morning beverage.
We left for Coachella at 4pm, boarding the van for a short drive and then the same rigmarole of driving through all the cones to get to the carpark, although this time it was Tristan who had to pass the driving test. The festival grounds felt busier than Friday and everything had already been underway for several hours when we arrived. The sun was still warm but there was a cooling wind and the temperature hitting the skin felt pleasant. For the next eight hours we drifted from stage to stage to enjoy some of the giants of the musical world. Drifting perhaps doesn’t do justice to the process of travelling around a music festival of this scale because moving around between stages takes time and agility; the skill to dive through gaps in the crowd without standing on feet or knocking drinks is important. Vampire Weekend were one of the day’s highlights with an epic twenty-minute country shuffle that featured an interlude by the Queen of Coachella Paris Hilton playing corn hole.
Bleachers were electric and superb, and No Doubt brought star power, a full production show with the powerhouse that is Gwen Stefani leading from the front, jumping and kicking around the stage and belting her lungs out. English rock band Blur brought on the Cahuilla Bird Singers for a couple of songs, a beautiful performance representing the traditions of the indigenous peoples of this region of southern California. Finally, at 11:40pm it was time for the headliner, a hip-hop artist who calls himself Tyler, the Creator. He began his set by bursting out of a caravan, a tiny trailer on stage that remained as a set piece with a jagged hole the evidence of his opening caper. The set design was amazing, a steep desert cliff face with several platforms to perform from. There was pyro, huge flames and sparks that exploded in time with musical hits. As is tradition at Coachella there were cameos. Childish Gambino, A$AP Rocky, Kali Uchis, and Charlie Wilson came to share the workload as Tyler danced and climbed his way around what looked like an exhausting obstacle course, assailing the rocky mountainside time and time again and then stopping at the top for a breather before he could continue.
There was celebrity spotting by some members of our party and I have been passed the photos to prove it. Rhianna was seen enjoying Tyler’s performance as was Billie Eilish, and apparently Taylor Swift was lurking in the shadows at the edge of The Bleachers.
At 1am it was done. Tyler abruptly flew off the stage attached to a wire rig and the stage went black. We made our way back to the van, cold and exhausted, ready to get off our feet and into bed.
