@AndyShore For me, discovering Matt & Kim was one of the best things to come out of covering Pitchfork 2009. Their album, Grand, still gets a decent amount of play. 2009 was a big year for the band. They won a VMA for breakthrough video and had their hit, “Daylight,” as the promo song for Community on NBC. The electro-rock duo had taken most of the year off to record their next album. They were more than ready to let loose in front of the large Coachella crowd that had gathered in the Mojave Tent. Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom You’ll notice two things from seeing Atoms for Peace live. The first is that Flea makes everything better. Eraser is a strong album, but I feared it could be too slow for a live festival setting. Not with Flea. The Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist pumps new life into the album. The second thing you’ll notice is that Thom Yorke and Flea were born to play together. They’re mirrors of each other.

Flea moves with his basslines. Thom moves with the beat in his head. Only when he was at the piano did he ever stop moving. Thom bops around like a retarded muppet. Flea thumps around like an injured velociraptor. Nothing against their dancing. It’s endearing, but eerily similar. Most importantly though, Flea adds a layer to Thom’s music that he’s never had with Radiohead. He adds the trademark Flea funky slap bass sound you’re used to and revitalizes it. Eraser sounded better than ever, but the new tracks are just as exciting. Read the rest of this entry »

@AndyShore The only reason I have ever heard of MUTEMATH going into Coachella 2010 is their awesome music videos. Their “Spotlight” music video is my favorite. It’s an awesome idea. It also captures the essence of the band really well. They’re high energy, all over the place and a ton of fun. Zack kept trying to lure me away from their set to go catch some of an undoubtedly great Mayer Hawthorne set. I just couldn’t pull myself away. I was having as much fun as it appeared the band was having on stage. Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom I’ve got a bad festival hangover. And I only had one beer this weekend. It was just a lot to take in for one weekend in the desert. We put in 25 hours on the grounds and I saw are 20 shows I would have paid to see any night of the week. I saw my favorite rapper ever and he was everything I dreamed he’d be. I realized Thom Yorke and Flea were made to

It felt like a cross between a day festival and a camping festival. I guess it was. I slept on the floor every night, but had air conditioning and could shower. There was that fest dust in the air (literally. Like ACL when it doesn’t rain.) We crashed every day. And crashed even harder at night. Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom “Fuck rehearsals. Fuck rehearsals.” These are the first words from Sly Stone as he finally musters the energy to appear on stage. He’s only 20 minutes late. Well, for their 10:45 start time. It’s currently a little after 11. Your schedule told you they should have gone on at 7. But Sly’s here now. Well, physically, he’s here now. For maybe the last time ever.

If your lead singer has gone off the deep end, there’s a couple ways to handle it as a member of his band. You can carry him. Play on even if he decides to ramble and mumble. It’s the recommended move: just play. Play fast and loud and motion to your sound guy to lower his mic. He won’t notice. Sly’s band didn’t do this. It’s like they collectively decided they’d rather watch Sly lie down on stage and lose his mind than try to carry him. I have a feeling they’ve had to do this before. For decades. Read the rest of this entry »

@AndyShore There was a hot debate going on last night in our hotel room about Muse vs. Jay Z. We recorded it for the Podcrash for your listening pleasure. I took the side of Muse, with Zack sticking with night one’s MVP in HOV. Zack tells about his crash of Coachella 2010 and Rob sits in for a brief discussion of the Muse’s light show compared to some of the other great ones out there. Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom It’s getting discouraging. I know I should just accept that Jack White plays drums and is a back-up singer in the band he’s most committed to. Nope. It doesn’t feel right. I was hopeful the new album would feature Jack coming out from behind the kit and picking up the guitar at least a couple more times. Nope. He’s relegated to one song wailing away on the guitar and it’s by far their best.

The Dead Weather kicked into gear right as The Muse ended a triumphant (but wanking) extravaganza of a show Andy is overrating to the point he thinks it’s better than Jay-Z. It’s almost as big a miscalculation as not having one of the best guitars in the world play more than one song on guitar. OK I’ll pretend to get over it long enough to tell you they did play a damn good blues-rock show that I was captivated for. Read the rest of this entry »

@AndyShore I knew I wouldn’t hear the end of it if he didn’t go to the Dead Weather after Muse. My dogs were barking after jumping up and down for an hour and a half during Muse. All I wanted to do was sit down. Rob, @MattSilver and I wandered over and found a place towards the back of the crowd where we could sit down, but still see the screen. I dug some of their new tunes, way more than their first album. I took a video of their set, and sat back down. Soon, Tiesto took the stage and we could no longer hear the Dead Weather from our spot. No matter, Tiesto sounded amazing and that’s where the party was. Read the rest of this entry »

@AndyShore Jay Z was the obvious favorite for MVP of Coachella 2010 after Friday night. Nobody told Matthew Bellamy that. From note one, Bellamy and Muse were in it to win it. So much rock hasn’t come from just three people since Rush hit the scene in the 70s. I didn’t think it would be possible for anybody to rock harder than Street Sweeper Social Club and Them Crooked Vultures did on Friday. Muse didn’t only do that, but their rhythm section keeps you dancing the whole time. The thumping bass of Christopher Wolstemholme and the beats laid down by Dominic Howard provide the danceable groove that Bellamy wails over with his voice and guitar. Read the rest of this entry »

@ZackTeibloom I was worried we’d have to sneak in every day. At least we had a man on the inside. Two actually. Rob and Andy both bought tickets, so we figured maybe if we printed an extra out, they wouldn’t check. We convinced Matt to go at the last second and made sure he didn’t bring his own car so he wouldn’t puss out. He almost did anyway.

I hoped that a separate person would scan the ticket from the person putting the wrist band on. No such luck. But there was a catch. They didn’t scan the tickets. Not all of them. That was the key. Only half the people who scan your 3-day print out had scanners. Some just folded the piece of paper up and put it away. It didn’t matter that two Rob Shore’s were on the print-out in a row. She wasn’t looking.

As always, the key was finding the hole in security. We may have been able to walk by, but getting the wristband was massive. It makes today and tomorrow a breeze. We have the official wristband. I can’t even count it for #30 and #31 like I did for Jazzfest, because we’re no longer crashing. There’s a victory dance that’s been recorded. We’ll upload as soon as we can. Happy crashing.