10. Grace Potter & the Nocturnals: I saw the set designed to support their last self titled release more times than I can recall. This set was filled mostly with new tunes off their upcoming record. I loved what I heard.

9. Wild Flag: This set was exactly what needed to happen late Sunday afternoon. We sat back on the grass where we could still see the stage and screens well. These chicks rocked it. It was fun to see Portlandia’s Carrie Brownstein performing onstage rather than clowning on my television.

8. tUnE-yArDs: Their worldly sound and looping make for a fun afternoon festival set. Merrill Garbus is a great front-woman and engages the crowd with her performance and banter.

7. Seun Kuti & Egypt 80: You need one of these per festival. This set was like nothing else I saw all weekend. I love afrobeat. It was great to see the son of its originator with his father’s backing band (of which Seun Kuti was also a member). Kuti has the most and best mic approach moves I’ve ever seen and is a delight to watch move around the stage. You couldn’t help but get footloose and fancy free during this Sunday afternoon set.

6. David Guetta: I wish I could have caught Calvin Harris, Kaskade, Afrojack and AVICII as well. Conflicts kept me from those sets. I made time for David Guetta and am so glad I did. LED screens and lighting trusses stretched front to back on the roof of the Sahara Tent making the entire structure the light show. Guetta played many hits, but it was the song he crafted especially for Coachella that stood out most to me. Plus: Usher.

5. The Shins: If I’m being honest, the Shins may have been the first indie band I was ever into. Thanks, Natalie Portman. This set was absolutely everything I hoped it would be. Several favorites off Port of Morrow dotted the set. Their excellent cover of “Breathe” was one of my festival highlights.

4. Black Keys: This was four years of seeing the Black Keys at festivals culminating in a headlining slot. They proved they deserved it. Adding the keys and bass for much of the set fills out the sound for the better. The hits flowed from El Camino and Brothers. Dan Auerbach wails on the guitar and you’re reminded of how much he does when it’s just him and Patrick Carney onstage. Happy birthday, Patrick!

3. Swedish House Mafia: This set matched an energy that I’ve seen so few times at a festival. Foo Fighters in the rain at Lollapalooza. Rage Against the Machine at the same fest just a few years prior. Phish’s Exile on Main St. set. The lights and pyrotechnics were incredible. So was the dance party. Read the fantastic Lefsetz Letter about it. Watch the whole set. I never thought I’d be as into EDM as I am. This festival solidified it. I was ready to shout it from the mountain tops after the Swedes.

2. Justice: This would be numero uno, if they hadn’t played 50% as long as they were supposed to. This set floored me. I had more fun during those 30 minutes than any other time during the three days at Coachella. The highlight was “Helix > Civilization.” These guys didn’t say a word to the crowd and rolled in late and it still wasn’t enough for me to sour on them after this set. See them ASAP.

1. Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg: This was the favorite going in. It did not disappoint. It was the history of hip hop and Sunday’s (Smunday’s for those in the know) lesson was the Dr. Dre family tree. I’m not likely to see a show like it again. That’s why it belongs in the top spot. That group of artists probably won’t share the same stage again. Several days later and the Tupac hologram is still the water cooler topic. I’m sure you’ve seen the video. Here is another highlight:

The festival won on Saturday night. My poor sleep on Friday night in our wet tent and the cold weather zapped all my energy. I made it through an hour of Radiohead before succombing to my exhaustion. I missed most of what I’d want to hear. They deserve a place in this top ten. I just didn’t have it in me to enjoy it for how good it truly was. This will happen at a festival. Pulp was an unexpected highlight that just barely missed this list. I should also mention how great it was to see how Alex Turner has matured as the front-man of the Arctic Monkeys.

I feel like you must already know this if you’re reading an analysis of it, but since I had to explain it to my sister and another friend today, a hologram of 2Pac performed two songs during the Dre/Snoop extravaganza Sunday night at Coachella. It was bizarre, kind of cool and really gimmicky. Look, 2Pac is dead. So are Elvis, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and half of The Beatles. This is a reality we have to live with. Plugging Kurt Cobain into Guitar Hero and making a hologram of 2Pac doesn’t change that. It cheapens their legacy. I understand having a recording of Nate Dogg play during his parts of a song, because he’s an integral part of the band  and it wouldn’t be right to do it without him. But a hologram that has 2Pac saying “What the fuck is up, Coachella?!” Seriously, what the fuck is up? It’s sacrilegious and tacky and fake. When you have Dre & Snoop & Eminem & 50 Cent & Wiz Khalifa & G-Unit live, in the flesh, bullet wounds and all, why project 2Pac into the proceedings? It was as unnecessary and excessive as the Dre/Snoop cover of “Jump Around.” Live music is a sacred thing. I’m aware that this isn’t the first time* there’s been a digital image of one artist performing with another, but this is the first one that’s gotten huge national attention as soon as it happened. I fear that we’re heading down a terrible path if this goes from an occasional gimmick to the norm and I can’t even come to grips with how I truly feel about it.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you haven’t seen the hologram performance, give it a glance.

When Andy e-mailed me “zombie regulatorrrrrrrrrs” two nights before Coachella, I was intrigued. We thought Nate Dogg would be the one to get hologram treatment, but all he got was a seriously 90′s Bar Mitzvah-esque slide show full of pictures slowly zooming out to reveal a young Nate with Snoop. The Bar Mitzvah slide show got old pretty fast, but was a crazy expensive (reportedly $100,000-$400,000) hologram better? Kind of, I suppose. You know how when you’re watching a movie in 3D and when things first jump out at you, you have that “whoa!” reaction, but then twenty minutes in, the glasses get annoying and you wish you could take them off? That’s mostly how it felt. As it was happening, I thought it was kind of cool, but odd. I never relaxed and let myself enjoy it. I watched it with a critical eye, wondering what to make of it. I kept wanting Snoop to put his hand through hologram Pac or interact with him in some way but of course he couldn’t, just like 2Pac’s hologram couldn’t smoke a giant blunt or joint on stage like Snoop and Wiz did. When 2Pac’s hologram dissolved into thin air, part of me thought, “cool!” before the slightly more sensible part of me feared that we’d just entered a horrifying new future for live music.  Obviously holograms won’t replace live music, but we can’t open this can of worms.

Reaction has been mixed. Nas loved it. It’s worth noting that he recently tweeted, “Shout out to Kid Rock! One of the realest muthafuckaz out there.” Take his opinion with many grains of salt.

 ”Tupac has almost become Elvis, where people still think he’s alive, so the hologram thing I thought was genius of Dr. Dre and Snoop,” the veteran MC tells Billboard.com. “It just shows you how amazing Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg are, and how they hard they’re riding for their West Coast brother Tupac, in the name of hip-hop music. I thought it was a great look for hip-hop as a whole — it stepped hip-hop up a notch. And it was also revolutionary on a performance scale.” -Nas

Grantland wants it to happen:

“So here’s what I’m saying: Let Hologram Tupac tour — arenas, stadiums, bowling alleys, backyard barbecues, my apartment, wherever — and then let the people decide for good if we are ready to traverse this breach. Let Hologram Tupac get out there and mix it up with the masses; either they’ll run toward his ice-cold ghost arms, or they will flee to the hills in terror. But one way or the other, we’ll know if it’s time. Unleash the Hologram Tupac.”

OK, not all the whole staff:

“Seeing it was cool, then terrifying, and then awkward, and then cool again, and then the worst thing ever. I think. You know what? I don’t know how I feel about the hologram. Actually, if there were a Luther Vandross hologram, I wouldn’t be mad. Or I might be furious. I hate NASA.” -Rembert Browne

That bold part totally nails it. How do you process such a thing? I’m glad I saw it. I like seeing random, odd things. I applaud them for trying, I suppose. I’m OK with it this time, but this is America. We never stop when it’s enough. There’s already rumors of expanding this one-off (OK, next weekend too) into a world tour. Eventually, that will lead to:

See, this is what I’m fearing. Entire festivals built around dead artists. I can’t even start discussing this poster without mentioning what a horrendous job they did with ordering this line-up. G.G. Allin and Drowning Pool slotted higher than Led Zeppelin?! The Beatles aren’t headlining?! Jesus gets lowest billing of all?! OK, that’s funny. Anyway, we don’t want this living in the past, holograms of old artists thing to become a reality. Of course I’m sad I never got to see any** of these artists live in real life, but if I saw a hologram of them, that wouldn’t change that. I have not seen 2Pac in concert. There are better ways to do this. Whether it’s a cover band*** or an old band with a new member replacing the deceased or just a video or voiceover of the deceased, any option is better than a hologram.

I’d like to end on that note, as a champion of live music and saying that holograms are stupid and phony and music snob blah, blah, blah, but I’d be lying. The truth is, the above poster sounds like an awesome time. I’d get to watch all my favorite bands in a live venue one after another with guaranteed awesome performances? It’s like a far better concert film, right? Would it cheapen it? You can’t tell me you’re not intrigued, even if that intrigue is cloaked in disgust. I always thought something would come along like Dubstep that would make me feel out of touch with “what the kids are listening to,” but now I’m left wondering if holograms are that thing. Am I going to tell my grandkids, watching a Bieber 3D hologram projected into their living room, that “In my day, we watched real musicians! I mean, sure, they played synths and lip synced and rapped over packaged beats and pressed play on a laptop, but they were there in person!” I hope none of that happens, but what if I’m the one going to a festival in five years to see some hologram festival. It’s a very confusing time to be a music fan. I don’t know how I feel about any of it.

*I won’t subject you to it, but a virtual Elvis performing with Celine Dion on American Idol video exists.

**I did see James Brown three months before he died and Ray Charles when I was barely old enough to remember.

***Caitlin and I see LCD Soundsystem cover band All My Friends every chance we get. I’d rather watch them play live music over a hologram of James Murphy, every time. Even if Caitlin has to help All My Friends’ singer remember the lyrics. Especially when Caitlin has to help him remember the lyrics.

Getting In

• Security is really, really good. Be better: If you’re camping, they’ll go through every single bag of yours when you drive in. Don’t plan on bringing in anything you can’t keep on your person. They will find big things like bottles of alcohol and nitrous tanks. Don’t even try. Once they’ve gone through your bags, stuff what you’re sneaking in back into your bag before you get the physical pat down. That will happen at the car check-in. You’ll have to be on your game for this one.
• Hide things in your socks: They’ll also pat you down when going into the fest every day. They don’t pat down your shoes. Hide things in there.

Music

• Don’t leave JUSTICE early for Girl Talk: Even though Justice was 25 minutes late, they were, minute for minute the best
• Catch every second of PULP and pay attention: Jarvis Cocker is a brilliant front man. Soak in his banter and bask in it.
• See FEIST: She blew Florence (and the Machine) out of the water and was truly fantastic.
• Stay at that stage after Feist and get close for MIIKE SNOW. This was honestly my favorite show of the festival. They’re at the top of their game and getting better all the time.
• Go to GIVERS, not Kendrick Lamar: Andy made this mistake and was kicking himself for it. Givers are fun and energetic live, while Kendrick Lamar can’t pull off a solo show.
• Stay for all of RADIOHEAD: You may be exhausted and want to head back, but don’t.
• Revel in JIMMY CLIFF: The reggae legend still totally has it and dances around in a gold suit and will make you happy, I promise.
• Savor the chance to see Sean Kuti: His dad, Fela Kuti is the legend, but Sean is a fantastic dancer and frontman for some authentic Afro-Beat. When else would you see this?
• See some DJs: Andy raved about David Guetta and Swedish House Mafia. I feel like I missed out a bit by not seeing any DJs besides Justice and Girl Talk.

• Ride the ferris wheel: Do it at night. Maybe after The Black Keys and before Swedish House Mafia on Friday night, maybe before Justice takes the stage Sunday night (our choice) but take that ride. You’ll really appreciate how gorgeous Coachella is from up there. It’s unlikely that you’ll ride with David Hasselhoff, but that’s what happened to us. Just ride it. It’s $5 each. You’ll seem extra smooth if you treat someone special to a ride.
• Use bathrooms near your campsite and try to use ones that have just been cleaned: Don’t use ones inside fest grounds if you can avoid it. Usually there’s toilet paper, but put a little in a plastic bag in your day bag just in case. Look for dudes with long hoses that are cleaning them and then use that one.

Getting Out

• Move your car to Day Parking on Sunday: They lock the campsite down from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. This is a good idea in theory because a bunch of high/drunk people won’t be running other high/drunk people over with their cars. It sucks donkey dick if you really need to leave the campsite to get home and have to sit in your car for two extra hours not moving. Andy realized we should have moved our car to the day parking. That would have saved us. Do that if you want to leave as soon as the hologram’s disappear. Drive safe and don’t speed. There are a lot of cops out there.

10. Gotye (Sunday 7:10-8:00)

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How can you not be intrigued? I can’t remember a song resonating so much with so many people. Half a dozen Facebook friends who don’t typically post about music had an eerily similar “I can’t stop listening to this song!” status. Even the HR woman in my office plays it on repeat constantly. They’re not alone. 150,000,000 YouTube views and counting for “Somebody I Used to Know.” (I used the live version from JKL since you’ve already seen the original video five times if you’re reading this.)  I listened to the album a couple times on Spotify and it feels like Gotye didn’t know what album he wanted to make, so he made four different ones. 1/3 of it is pretty good. I dunno. I realize he goes on just 35 minutes before Justice, and he’s on a smaller tent that will be packed by the time we get over there, and we won’t hear “the song,” and Kimbra likely won’t be there, but I’m intrigued. I want to see if he’s a flash in the pan or if this is just the beginning.

9. Pulp (Friday 7:50-8:50)

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I don’t know almost anything about Pulp. I know they were big in the 90′s and Jarvis Cocker is their lead singer and he has a sweet solo career. But seeing some music lovers I admire, like Rob Shefield, gush “Oh Jarvis, that was harder & corer. My first Pulp shows were so worth all those years of waiting.” I love harder and corer! I’m in.

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Sure, Natalie Portman isn’t making you listen to them anymore, but The Shins will still “change your life.” OK, they may be a bit dull, but they write a ton of good songs and the new album is better than it should be. I’m looking forward to them quite a bit.

7. Jeff Mangum (Saturday 7:20-8:10)

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I’m mostly going off of this song and the fact that a Jeff Mangum tour is so rare that you need to soak it up. I’ve loved everything I’ve heard, but haven’t heard nearly enough.

6. Andrew Bird (Saturday 6:05-6:55)

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He’s the new Muppet, for fucks sake. Andrew Bird has an otherworldly voice and whistle that’s just haunting to watch. I got to see his soundcheck before ACL a few years ago, with no one else watching and felt truly lucky. He’s always worth getting close for.0

5. Justice/Girl Talk (Sunday 7:45-9:15)

I just want to dance as much as possible during this block. We’ll start at Justice and probably stay until the end since Andy and Caitlin love the French so hard, but if he’s just standing behind the booth and we’re not dancing hard, I’ll make a motion to move to Girl Talk. That’s ALWAYS a great time.

4. The Black Keys (Friday 9:45-11)

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3. Miike Snow (Saturday 10:10-11)

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It’s nice to be all amped up about a band’s newest album right before you see them. That’s certainly the case with Miike Snow’s sophomore surprise Happy to You. It’s just perfect all the way through, and “Paddling Out” is getting an even bigger response live than “Animal.” Caitlin tells me their light show had the makings of something special, but they didn’t quite bring it together in the rush of SXSW. We should see them at their best here. And have you seen their newest videos? They’re fucking insane.

2. Radiohead (Saturday 11:05-forever please)

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Radiohead really does have it all. The best catalogue. The best light show. The best dancer (for my tastes anyway) and the best front man. We really, really enjoyed their show in Austin, but being stuck in the seats, we felt out of place dancing and letting loose. No such worry at the festival. This is the only show with the potential to be #1 in all likelihood. They play more of the electronic stuff on this tour and it’s pretty dark, but they’ll give us some fan favorites. Thom knows what we want. And delivers. While still keeping his integrity. It’s a tough balancing act and he totally pulls it off.

1. Dre. Dre & Snoop Dogg (Sunday 10:35-we leave)

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This one should be special. Jay-Z was the best show of the last Coachella we went to (Unless you believe Andy’s nonsense that Muse was) and I have a feeling this one will be our favorite, if we have any energy by late Sunday night. It leaked that we’re getting some extra special guests. Snoop is good, but loses focus on his own. Dre will keep him in line. Having Warren G and Em will just up the ante. We’ll still throw up the west side sign, but it won’t be *as* constant. It should be a real collaboration, with some OG’s getting the desert hyped up. Also, HOLOGRAMS.

*I can’t understate how a big deal for me to be at all packed the night before. As Andy g-chatted me, “I would have been impressed if I talked to you at this time tomorrow and you were 5% packed.”

10. Seun Kuti & Egypt 80: I just love Afrobeat. I caught his brother Femi at Rothbury a few years back. He’s fronting his father’s band (and falls under my Legends Rule). Sure to be a great time.

8/9. GIRLS/Real Estate: Two bands that are perfect for California sunshine. I’m hoping for early afternoon sets to ease into our day. Beach House did this well a couple years ago.

7. Afrojack/Swedish House Mafia/AVICII/David Guetta: All I know about these four, is that they make great music to workout and/or dance party to (I have a problem with forgetting I’m in public sometimes). I’m hoping to catch parts of all three and could be swayed to stay at any of them.

6. The Black Keys: It is rare that I turn on a sporting event these days and don’t hear a Black Keys song blasting over the PA. We’ve seen these guys at festivals for years. They’re in the midst of their first stadium tour, and I can’t wait to see what they bring to a headlining slot. I never really thought they’d make it that far, but I’m sure excited they did.

5. Kaskade: The last time I saw Kaskade was in Las Vegas at the Marquee Club with my brother, cousin, a friend, a bunch of cougars and Lloyd from Entourage. I had a great time. Coachella with Zack and Caitlin is basically the same thing, right?

4. Kendrick Lamar: Section.80 is another album that has gotten heavy play from me since its release. I put “No Make-Up (Her Vice)” on my Coachella Spotify playlist that I work out to after discovering “A.D.H.D.” on Pitchfork’s Best of 2011 Playlist on Spotify. He may not by on your radar yet, and Coachella is a great time to fix that.

3. Radiohead: Can’t really put them any lower and still have this list hold any credibility. Atoms For Peace was one of my favorite shows of my last Coachella. It’s been years since my first (and only) Radiohead show at Lollapalooza 2008. Will certainly be a special show.

2. Justice: I know I’m supposed to say Radiohead here…or even at #1. That’s just not me. I played Audio, Video, Disco for months upon its release. I still can’t get enough of that album. There’s a lot of opportunity for dance parties with this lineup, but this is where I will boogie my hardest.

1. Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg: Rolling Stone reports that Eminem, Warren G and Wiz Khalifa will join this duo onstage. Em was my favorite show of Lollapalooza 2011, and he’s a guest. I’m hoping Dre can knock the rust of and treat the hometown crowd to something to remember.

Honorable Mention: Grace Potter & The Nocturnals (always always always), Florence & the Machine, M83, Miike Snow and Girl Talk.

Weezer has had far more misses than hits in the last decade, (Hurley, anyone?) They had to resort to playing their first two albums, Blue Album and Pinkerton, live 15 years after they came out to connect with their original fans. I don’t even bother listening to their new stuff anymore. I don’t know anyone who does. I loved seeing them live last summer, but only because they were almost exclusively playing old stuff. They’re way too young for that to be OK, but that’s their reality. It’s been a joy to watch Beck’s “Mutations” from Odelay to Sea Change to Midnite Vultures to Guero and The Information, but it’s been a hollow few years. He hasn’t put out an album in going on four years, and his “Record Club” was a far better idea than it was executed. I still have hope for a lot more greatness in Beck’s future. With Jack White, the ups and downs have been unlike any artist I’ve ever followed. I’ll detail it in painstaking detail in the next couple paragraphs, but it was absolutely killing me to see him spending so much time producing or playing drums or buying an elephant’s head on American Pickers, when I just wanted to scream “pick up a guitar and sing to me!” but on Friday night, he showed us the next phase of his career and became everything I always dreamed he would be. And then some. 

Jack has been working tirelessly the past couple years, running a record label, producing all the artists, drumming for The Dead Weather and sure, it’s all been inventive and interesting, but if you fell in love with the man who was front and center playing guitar and singing, you were left wondering where that artist had gone. We went from non-stop Jack in The White Stripes and The Raconteurs to Jack pushed back behind a drum kit, and with Alison Mosshart as the real frontwoman, Jack was only getting to sing and play guitar on a couple songs. I couldn’t help watching them and, as electric as Mosshart is to watch, I kept wishing Jack would literally drag her off stage, so he could go back to being the frontman he was born to be. Apparently this happened once…

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Over the last couple years, all three Jack White bands came apart. The White Stripes announced they were broken up (I wasn’t really sad, they kind of had been for years.) The Raconteurs stopped recording and only played a handful of shows over the last year (Loved them, but they’d run their course.) The Dead Weather went their separate ways (Fine, The Kills are a great fit for Alison and it freed Jack from the drum kit.) Of course, he kept plenty busy. He was Wanda Jackson’s bandleader, collaborated with Danger Mouse on the excellent Rome album, had a week of hilarious cameos on The Colbert Report, (Yum, yum yum yum yum yum, yum), recorded a song with Jay-Z that never saw the light of day, produced Conan’s live album and was featured in his incredible documentary, and had everyone from John C. Reiley to Insane Clown Posse in his studio to record a 45 or two. Was he just a producer now? Was I going to have to convince myself that producing Insane Fucking Clown Posse was cool,* instead of a complete waste of everyone’s time?

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I was lucky enough to stand 10 feet away for this show, shoulder to shoulder with Aziz Ansari, and analyzed it like it was the Zapruder film here)

In a 2011 Rolling Stone interview, Jack said he didn’t want to start any new bands. It was just going to be The Dead Weather or The Racounteurs or solo. What would solo Jack look like? The month after that interview, we watched him play three songs by himself at a surprise SXSW show on the street, and were left with the impression that this was it for Jack. Thankfully, he had a lot more up his sleeve than street performances. In the last couple months, we got news that Jack White was putting out a solo album and got small tastes of what that meant. First we got a country-tinged single called “Love Interruption.” I really dug it. It was Jack on acoustic guitar with a spectacular female vocalist singing with him, named Ruby Amanfu. Country, acoustic Jack was getting closer to the dream, but the SNL performance showed us what new Jack could really do.

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After playing “Love Interruption,” with an all girl band, Jack trotted out his all-guy band for the hard-rocker “Sixteen Saltines.” It led me to post “This is everything I dreamed it would be. And more. Jack front and center, with an electric guitar, rocking the fuck out” on my Facebook wall. I watched the video over and over again. Of course the answer wasn’t to start another band. The answer was to start two bands. And he was swinging that electric guitar around with vigor. It was simply glorious to watch. I guess what he meant by no new bands was that he wouldn’t start one with someone who’s already famous? Clearly, he’s got two bands here. If anything, he’s following the Frank Zappa model. Just put together a talented collection of musicians and keep himself as the sole focal point. That’s essentially what we have here. Jack as “the man,” front and center, with faceless band members who can really play behind him. When the setlist for his first show came out a couple weeks ago, my head nearly exploded. Almost half White Stripes songs! A Raconteurs song! A Dead Weather song! He was opening up the entire catalogue! He now had two distinct bands with two distinct sounds and carte blanche to play everything Jack’s ever written. Pinch me! How did we get here?!

There was nothing in the world that could keep me from this show. It was in the 650-person capacity Stage on Sixth, and I had to pull off a hell of a crash to get inside, but there I was. Third row. Center. No more than eight feet from Jack’s microphone. After waiting through a delightful Reggie Watts looping show, a strong, yet slow John C. Reilly performance and an impressive Karen Elson set, they started setting up Jack’s equipment. At 11:40, more than four hours after the showcase started, Third Man Records executive Ben Swank came up to tell us that there would be no photography or video taken and that they’d immediately kick us out if they saw any. This was great news for me, since my phone had died an hour before the show started. He told us we’d have to go off our memories and it would be better this way, which it completely was, but I had nothing to take notes on, so excuse me if I remember a couple of new songs incorrectly. The set list especially has a few errors, I guarantee. The guy next to me (@matulaj – great guy. Reminded me a lot of Andy’s brother, Rob.) noted that the 45 minutes it took to set up his gear was longer than pretty much every act had played at SXSW. It was well worth the wait**.

Jack strutted on stage in a blue suit and black dress shirt, with his new all-girl band decked out in old-looking blue dresses and they went right into White Stripes staple “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground.” When he played it last year at the pop-up show I wrote, “The crowd recognizes the song and starts to lose it. We thought this would never happen again. Does this mean White Stripes songs are on the table from now on? We can only pray.” All prayers are answered, and this is the best version I’ve ever heard. Jack’s playing electric, but with a stand-up bass and fiddle, there’s an entirely new quality to it.

And I can’t say enough about Ruby Amanfu. She has one of those voices that sounds lovely on record, but just soars live. She’s instantly right up there with Alison as the best co-singer Jack has ever had and in a lot of ways, she’s far more enjoyable. It’s a soothing, reassuring backing vocal that stays in the background, but adds so much texture. She’s a gem. The rest of the band is quite strong, all the way around, from the fiddle player to the slide guitarist to the drummer with peacock-esque hair, but I found myself watching the wild stand-up bass flourishes of lady Bryn Davies.*** It’s incredible how natural the addition of so many instruments sounded when put to use on the two-person White Stripes catalogue. And every song had a new intro that left us guessing what song it was for the first twenty seconds. It was quite a revelation. I’m curious how long he’s been playing with these bands. They were incredibly tight. The girl band would go back and forth between adding a wonderful new quality to White Stripes songs and giving Jack the Tennessee rock sound he’s developed after living there for years. Jack switched to a super-old looking acoustic guitar for “Missing Pieces” and gave us some more hints of the girl band’s contributions to the new album.

It was back to electric, for smashing new single “Sixteen Saltines.” It’s quite simply the best song he’s put out since The Raconteurs’ last album, which was full of monsters. I’d easily rank it above every Dead Weather song. The guys played it on SNL, but the ladies can sure rock when they need to. They followed it up with the first single off the new solo album, “Love Interruption,” (order may be switched) which put Ruby back on display, with her gorgeous vocals. They went back to the White Blood Cells well (and oh what a great well it is) next, playing “Hotel Yorba,” another simple White Stripes song now flush with accompaniment, sounding better than ever. How do you top yourself after a couple of classic White Stripes songs? The Raconteurs’ “Top Yourself,” of course, which built and built into Jack howling “How you gonna rock yourself to sleep when I give up my midnight creep, girl? How you gonna get that deep when your daddy ain’t around here to do it to you?” I had to wonder how Karen felt, watching her ex-husband sing that. I paused on that thought for half a second, wondering how she and Meg manage to be around him so often, but before I knew it, the first set was closing with a bang. New jam “Hypothetical Kiss,” led into “Hello Operator” and the Dead Weather’s “Blue Blood Blues.” Jack left the stage, having never introduced anyone in the band, but left us with “We’ll be back in a bit and we’ll be playing in the lounge all night,” with a big grin on his face. We all wore all ear to ear smiles.

We didn’t really know what was happening next. Was Jack coming back to play a Raconteurs set? We knew a couple members of the band were there, including little Jack who played with Karen. I guess we should have realized it was time for Jack’s all guy band to come out. As much as I adored the all girl band, the all guy band is way more my speed. And my speed is fast, hard rock with wild flourishes. Jack had a full costume change from the blue suit to a form-fitting black t-shirt with short sleeves and black pants with red vertical stripes. His band was impeccably dressed as well, which we’ve come to expect from any Jack White project. They came out with a roaring new one called “Freedom at 21″ that let me know we were in good hands the rest of the night. They continued the trend of not letting us go more than five minutes without playing a White Stripes song and gave us an explosive “My Doorbell.” The drummer with the cool jazz-drum style and keyboardist with the sunglasses and flailing hands were the stars of the guy band, and I enjoyed the slide guitarist quite a bit as well. They were all exciting enough for me to sneak glances at, when not completely transfixed by Jack.

Jack made a point to walk around the stage and lean in to jam with pretty much every member of each band. It made the bands feel especially tight and held the show together exceptionally well. He could do no wrong. “I Cut Like a Buffalo” kept the crowd rolling, before unleashing a couple more hard new ones on us. I have a feeling I’m going to just love the new album, based on what we got. The new songs the guys played were all spectacular and had an instant familiarity about them. I couldn’t get enough. Then again, when he went back to The White Stripes catalog for “Ball and a Biscuit” and took a few face-melting live affirming solos, I knew we were entering sacred ground. I was starting to come to grips with the fact that I was at the best concert of my entire life. Then the mosh pit started. The crowd had been enthusiastic and completely locked in, but it wasn’t quite the jumping up and down, rock show I’d come to expect from a White Stripes or Raconteurs show. “Steady as She Goes” changed all that. I was tossed around anywhere from the second to fifth row, jumping with abandon and losing all control, as the crowd went into hysterics. We settled down a tad as Jack started playing a long intro to something, but before we knew what was happening, we were in the middle of THE White Stripes’ anthem. Let’s see how it looked from outside the venue…

Click here to view the embedded video.

On the inside, Jack started slow, but whipped us into a frenzy. That classic riff just pounding through. He kept egging us on to chant “Oh! Oh oh oh oh oh, oh!” waving his arms at us, making us act like soccer houligans as we got louder and louder. That’s when I lost it. I found myself jumping up and down, tears blinding my eyes, just ecstatic that it had all come true like I’d dreamed it would. Jack was so very back. He had it all going. The entire catalogue, sounding better than ever with “Seven Nation Army” back as the big show stopper. He was in complete control of the room and stage. No other egos to deal with. Just the man, back on stage, front and center with his guitar. It was perfect.

As I’ve thought about writing this review the past few days, while my ears were still ringing from being in the third row, I kept thinking about Bill Simmons’**** write-up of Paul Pierce in his Book of Basketball. He talks about how Pierce stuck with the Celtics through thick and thin, and, in winning a title and Finals MVP with them, became everything he’d always dreamed he’s be, finally coming through as a leader and champion. Jack has the same shoddy facial hair as Pierce, and he’s had his moments of not playing quite the way me, the needy fan, wanted him to, but it sure felt like he was hoisting up a championship trophy at SXSW. Simmons says he feels he would have wanted to tell Pierce how proud he was of him, but fears it would come off like he was talking down to him. I’m sure I’ll never get to talk to Jack, and if I did, I wouldn’t be able to form a reasonable thought, let alone tell him anything of import, but if I could write him a letter, I’d tell him I’m proud of him for this show and how far he’s come. And thank him for the best show I will ever see. It was a dream realized.

10/10

P.S. The show ended with a cover of “Goodnight Irene” that had the crowd singing along to something most of us didn’t know, but apparently it led Bill Murray to dance on the table. I never saw Murray there, and still have yet to see a picture of him dancing on the table and the Internet can’t find a single image when I search for it, so I’ll chalk it up to one of those SXSW urban myths. Murray is known for walking up to strangers in New York, covering their eyes, saying “guess who?” and then when they turn around, saying “No one will ever believe you.” Well, believe me. This show was real. And it was spectacular.

*I’m still unsure how I feel about that ICP thing. I mean, of course I’d rather Jack just be playing guitar and singing, but I still find it funny and want to buy it every time I see it in a record store, even though Caitlin threatens to do horrible things to it/me if it was ever brought into our apartment.

**I hope it was worth the wait to read this far. That intro really got out of my hands. I couldn’t help myself. I hope it replicates the long wait we had for Jack to go on. As a thank you, I’ll include John C. Reilly’s knock-knock joke from the night, while he was tuning his guitar. Say it out loud to yourself. “Knock Knock.” (Who’s there?) “Smell Mop.” (Smell Mop Who?) “That’s the whole joke. I just got you to say “Smell My poo!”

***If you don’t know, Bryn Davies is also the name of a long-time friend of mine and my previous roommate. We have a competitive, tenuous I’ve gotten endless joy out of saying that Bryn Davies is a big girl and having it be accurate. If I couldn’t get Peyton Manning to my beloved Dolphins, away from his Colts, this will have to do.

****It wouldn’t be a Jack White gush piece without a Simmons reference. Tonight, Caitlin decided that Jack White is my boyfriend, Jordy is my bro, Andy is my husband and Simmons is my Mr. Miyagi. I told her that worked especially well, because Simmons loves Karate Kid. Then I asked her if she knew I once had a bong named Mr. Miyagi. “I did not. Oh, Zack Teibloom, you are a man of many blogs.” “I said bong, not blog.” “You are also a man of many bongs. Sigh.”

Setlist (I realized most of the way through this that it could be off on a few songs. If you know what is wrong, please comment and I’ll fix.)

All Female Backing Band

1. Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground (The White Stripes)
2. Missing Pieces (New)
3. Hotel Yorba (The White Stripes)
4. Love Interruption (New)
5. Sixteen Saltines (New)
6. Hello Operator (The White Stripes
7. You Know That I Know (New)
8. Top Yourself (The Raconteurs)
9. Hypocritical Kiss (New)
10. I Cut Like A Buffalo (The Dead Weather)

All Male Backing Band

1. Freedom At 21 (New)
2. My Doorbell (The White Stripes)
3. Hardest Button to Button (White Stripes)
4. Slowly Turning Into You (The White Stripes)
5. Weep Themselves to Sleep (New)
6. Ball and Biscuit (The White Stripes)
7. Steady, As She Goes (The Raconteurs)
8. Seven Nation Army (The White Stripes)
9. Goodnight Irene (Leadbelly cover)

All week leading up to Friday, I prayed that some surprise last second rumor would get passed around to divert some of the attention away from my boy Jack. They always happen. The Jay-Z and Kanye rumor that has everyone running all over town. Anyone? I’d even be OK with one of my favorites like Arcade Fire or Radiohead. Anything to make sure not everyone in town would be lined up for Jack. It never happened. There weren’t any big surprise rumors and The Third Man Showcase was the place to be. Only the Kanye show last year at the Power Plant was more impossible for badge holders to get into. The poster for the show said badge holders and wristbands would be welcome, but that wasn’t to be the case. My fellow die-hard @MichaelRox had been lined up since noon, and he even had a badge! I’d joked about spending the night in the Stage on Sixth’s bathroom overnight to make sure I got in, but it was Caitlin’s birthday and I promised to stick with her for afternoon shows, through The Drums at 6 p.m. I sang along and danced to The Drums, but that 7:30 start time for Third Man was beckoning.

We’d already put in over 7 hours for the day on our deeply blistered feet, so Caitlin decided she needed to rest up and have some dinner before meeting me at Jack. I was sad to see her go, but knew it was what we both needed. I took off my Ezra Furman t-shirt and handed it to Caitlin to take home, revealing my White Stripes t-shirt* underneath, ducked into IHOP for a quick piss and started literally running towards Jack.When I arrived at the Stage on Sixth, I saw a confusing scene unfolding. A couple guards were re-directing a line and having everyone in it get against the wall. I joined the line about halfway back as they were forming and started talking to a few people around me. They’d been told that it was now badge only, and several big signs on the door let us know it was now a badge-only show. I didn’t understand why everyone in my line had a wristband only. I saw a large cluster of people around the Third Man Rolling Record Store Truck parked in front, but assumed they were buying vinyl. After five minutes, I spotted @MichaelRox third in line by the truck and realized that that it was the badge line, not people buying vinyl. It was approaching 7 p.m. and they weren’t letting anyone in yet, so I didn’t have a move to make. I just stood in that useless wristband line and started a barrage of tweets. I had no idea how long that line was at that point.

After tweeting “Challenge accepted!” as a response to @MichaelRox letting me know it was badge only, I tweeted, “I feel like I used to right before an advanced math class test I was totally unprepared for.” This was a reference to when I was 7th grade and I was in an accelerated math class where they bused me to the high school every day. I was really good at math, but not that good, so I was totally out of my element. I failed the first test miserably and then was so panicked the day of the second test that I kinda pretended to throw up so I could go home and not take the test. My mom called me on it and they put me in a less nerdy math class. I had that pit of my stomach feeling that it was not going to work out, but throwing up was not going to get me out of this one. I wasted like 20 minutes in this wristband line talking to these drunk kids who had no shot of getting in. I was biding my time and finding solace from a lot of encouraging tweets from friends and well-wishers, tweeting “I mean, I’m going to fucking try. I’m not above bribes or extreme measures if it comes to that. Thanks for the encouragement**.”

Another picture of everyone who didn’t get into the show, but tried to watch from outside. Can we get Jack a bigger venue next year, please? And more than one show.

Just like the night before at Tenacious D, they tried to temper the expectations of people in line. This really detestable woman came by with an announcement, leading me to tweet, “Some bitch just told us wristbands are not getting in. I kill you!” I typed the c-word in my phone and deleted it. I was really steamed, you guys. Nosy lady wasn’t gonna hold us back! “Easily 100 people in wristband line refuse to leave third man showcase even after they told us we will not get in.” OK, she didn’t discourage me altogether, but I did realize I’d need to find another way in. I think it was an accident, but @mcgonicleATX set the wheels in motion for the crash to happen. He tweeted “I don’t think the day party VIP pass means sh!t, but if it does you’re welcome to it. Also, short secretive line in the back.” I didn’t know what to make of that, but I did try to find “the back.”

I started walking around the venue and finally see how daunting the badge line is. It’s at least a couple hundred people long and not moving an inch. I say hi to a couple friends in line and head for the alley. I find there are two doors. One of them is guarded by an Australian guy who says he may be open to being bought for $20, but not now, since no one can go in or out of the venue. “Try back in an hour.” Then I see a friendly guy in a Third Man Records yellow and black uniform and try to shmooze it up with him.

The Third Man employee is walking around in his yellow and black outfit, getting the last of some supplies from a truck. I’ve pulled the fake roadie crash a few times and ask if he needs help carrying anything. Unfortunately for me, he has just about everything unpacked. I try to lay a sob story on him about how I only bought the wristband to see this show and now they aren’t accepting wristbands. He’s a total gentleman about it, but he makes it clear there really isn’t anything he can do. As I tweeted at the time, “Making friends with door guy and third man staff…still doubtful.” I go back around to the front and see there’s another option. There’s a roped off porch in front, where people on the inside are going to smoke cigarettes and congregate. It’s still fairly heavily guarded though, and it’s right in front of everything, so every move I make would be seen by easily a hundred people. Way too visible and way too many guards around. The sit down slide guitarist for Jack’s guy band sees me and a few others looking into the venue wistfully and tells us it looks like we’re in jail. I tell him it feels that way.

I head back to the alley and find a number of people eating sandwiches and milling around, but I don’t have time for that. I’m locked in on the mission. It’s after 7:30 at this point, and people are slowly being let into the venue, so I’m getting to the point where I’ll be more aggressive if a move is there. The door guarded by the Australian guy is now closed, and locked from the inside, I have to assume, but there’s three people milling around the other door. That door is guarded by a volunteer and a door guy, but neither of them look too concerned and neither is really blocking the entrance way. At least one of the people by the door looks like they’re in a band, stepping out for a smoke or something and all look like they could duck back inside at any moment. I sidle up near them and then the three of them start moving into the building. I’m close enough that I could conceivably be with them, but not convincing enough that the door guy doesn’t ask, “Do you have a badge?” as I walk past. I don’t break stride or make eye contact. I just say “yes” way more convincingly than I did the night before and keep walking. And I never look back. I find @MichaelRox in the second row and prepare for the best concert of my life.

*Yes, I was double that guy, wearing the shirt of two bands I was going to see in the same day. What can you do? If I could wear a shirt that described every activity, I’d probably do it. Driving shirt! Eating shirt! Sleeping shirt! Too far?

**Thank you, @sideonetrackone, kpengell, sierraelisabeth, @kibbe, @john_estrada, @sushigirl_ATX, @oxfordist, @2dogphish, @mattsilver, @snoogans913 and of course @catwitt for the encouragement while I was trying to crash. It really helped.

I know all the venues in Austin quite well, but had never even heard of Haven. I found it at 11 p.m., after not too much wandering, and checked noticed there were two lines. There was a wristband line on the left of the door and a badge line to the right. Just as I walked up to the front door, I heard a door guy address the badge line, saying “If you are here to see Tenacious D, you are not getting in. We are at capacity. It’s one in, one out, and no one is leaving.” There was one group they were still letting in, however. The only group they were letting in was those with SXSW Express badges. These lucky bastards get to skip to the very front of the line, in front of regular badges. There were only four such people waiting to get in and I found myself with two express badge holders behind me and two in front of me. One of the guys behind me asked if he could stand in front of me, with his friends. I said, “Yeah, sure. I don’t have an express badge anyway.” A door guy heard me say that and seemed confused as he asked me, “Do you have a fast pass badge?” I said, “yeeeeesss…” in that trailing off way that means “nooooooo,” but that is one nice thing about SXSW. So many of these door guys are volunteers who really don’t know to actually check for the things they ask you for.

So I’m standing in this line to show a badge I don’t have, and notice there’s yet another line, inside the door to the left. I didn’t particularly care to find out what that line was for, but I’m assuming it was the guest list. It’s so much easier when two different lines funnel into the same end territory. If you hang around one line, look busy, and leave, the guards will assume you’ve just gotten checked off the guest list. I hung around the guest list for all of thirty seconds before casually walking up the stairs into the venue. The whole thing took less between five and ten minutes, but I wasn’t done there.

I walked in and noticed it was packed, so I bought a lone star at the bar and looked around the venue. I noticed a taped-off area to the right of the bar. I thought it was just a way to get to the right side and sneak a little closer, so I ducked under the tape. What I then realized, was that I was in the bottle service area. Everyone in there was dressed like they were going to a shitty night club, but they did have an awesome view. I felt super out of place, since I had cargo shorts with Doritos Loco stains and a t-shirt on w/ a zip-up draped over my shoulder, and these douches had ties on. A guard must have noticed how out of place I was, so she asked me if I was with “them,” signaling towards some bros. I nodded and she moved on. There was a booth right in front of the bottle service area, so I just sat down on that and found myself with a perfect elevated spot, 8 feet from the stage. It felt damn good to be crashing again, after having not even attempting one in 5 months, since the ACL fail. I needed the confidence booster for Friday night’s far more difficult Jack White crash.

*I got into one Drums show 20 minutes earlier than I would have because of the wristband. That was literally the only use I got out of it. Paying for (or working for) a badge is worth it to be able to go to the panels and go in and out of all venues with ease, but wristbands are useless. Never again.

By June of our first year, I was sneaking into REM at the United center and we were about to embark on the best festival summer of our lives. We went to 10 festivals just in that first year alone, driving or flying to any festival we could reach, even if it meant dragging Andy to Minnesota against his will. That whole summer is a blur, but I know at one point on a long road trip we discussed a Four Year plan. Maybe Andy remembers better than me…I’ll footnote his memory of it.

@AndyShore I’m not sure who said it first, or at what point we started discussing it. Some time, during our first summer, we began discussing the Four Year Plan. We didn’t know what it meant. In our heads, it meant we’d have a Madden Cruiser, our own festival, the world*. Four years later, we have more than we could have ever imagined.

*We also wanted a magazine, book, TV show, film trilogy and we could never figure out the name of our festival, but that was always a major component. Festival Crashers Festival didn’t sound right.

After attending our first ACL, Zack fell in love with Austin*. He lives there now, with his girlfriend who he would later meet leaving ACL (our third). The skills Festival Crashers has taught me got me my job after making the best worst decision of my life to move to California. We might not have our own festival (yet), but we’ve done something right.

*Even before the festival. When the ACL ’07 line-up came out, I wrote “My first reaction is that I finally have a must-go-to-Austin moment and I can not wait for David Byrne! When Vampire Weekend is about 40th on a list of Festival artists, you know you’re in for something special…” I had no idea how special Austin would really be.

We were doing something right when we were contacted by a production company to make a Festival Crashers TV show (see below), and after Lollapalooza this year when we had newspapers asking to interview Zack about his crashing ways*. I’ve had to opportunity to see my photos on Blender.com and the Huffington Post**. We’ve met and conversed with countless amounts of fellow festival fans, journalists and musicians. Zack likes to remind me that I have a propensity to brag (I do). Well Zack, thanks for four incredible years filled with the reasons I have to brag***.

*I’d like to pretend that I denied doing the Chicago Tribune story because I thought it was more punk to not do it, but in reality I couldn’t get a hold of the journalist, with the terrible phone reception.

**And proudly hanging on my bedroom wall, an Andy Shore original Jack White action shot.

***Right back at you, buddy. You’ve always been the rock of Festival Crashers, keeping me focused and making me work harder at it than anything else in my life (until I recently started taking my job seriously.) It’s been great having you as my festival partner and best friend all these years. I hope it never stops.

Click here to view the embedded video.

(This video has gone through a lot of incarnations. This is clearly a pitch to win a contest I didn’t win, but it’s the shortest, most direct version. You get the point.)

A special thanks to anyone who has ever read a single word on Festival Crashers. Every tweet, comment and even attack* on us brings a smile to my face. Thanks to our family and friends** who have supported us through all of this, and never judged either of us too hard for being Peter Pan.

*I really do live for the feedback. The attacks always make me laugh and nothing warms my heart like the entire Internet hollering at me whenever Jack White does anything because they know I need to know.

**Seriously, we couldn’t have had more supportive people in our lives. You supported us as we went broke over and over, chasing the festival dream way past when we should have. And you always encouraged us. It means the world to us.

We’re the clowns who started our little blog on Leap Year Day. We didn’t even realize it until we were trying to figure out when our one year anniversary was. Four years later, we’ve come a long way (though we’re still clowns). However, it’s only been one leap year. Perhaps the Four Year Plan* has another 12 calendar years to go…

*Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

@ZackTeibloom One last shout out. Two ACL’s ago, I was on the shuttle, riding home and overheard an excitable girl talking about all the shows she’d seen that weekend. She couldn’t remember who she saw after Miike Snow that was especially good. Being a friendly festival goer, I said “The Black Keys” and went back to my phone. When the shuttle dropped us off, I felt a tap on my shoulder. A cute, tall blond girl asked me if I crashed all three days. I don’t get recognized much (ever) so I was surprised. I told her I did and asked how she knew. She coyly pointed out that I had a Festival Crashers sticker on my back, and said she knew me as Zack, from Festival Crashers. We got to talking, shared our love of festivals and LCD Soundsystem and Arcade Fire and before I knew it, she was giving me a ride home and I was asking for her number. If it wasn’t for Festival Crashers, we may never have met. Now, we live together in that home and she’s become my festival and concert partner, for Austin. Thankfully, she and Andy get along great, so whenever possible, I have my best friend and partner both with me. I couldn’t feel more blessed. Here’s to many more leap years worth of festival adventures together.

Happy Crasherversary!

I panicked. I turned off the music entirely. A song that was supposed to be one of the most relaxing ever was having quite the adverse effect. Screw you, science!

To properly detail how tonight’s events unfolded I need to rewind a few days. Tuesday morning I saw that they had released a few extra tickets to the sold out Coldplay performance on Kimmel. I snapped up two before the rest of LA woke up. It drizzled in LA on Tuesday, so the taping was pushed to Thursday. I printed the new tickets and put them on the passenger seat of my car.

We get our cars washed inside and out on Wednesdays at my office. It’s an awesome perk. I noticed the tickets and wanted to ensure they wouldn’t get tossed (part of my mothers neurosis have worn off on me). I folded them up and stuck them in the glove compartment.

Back to today and my unfortunate violation of the 24 hour rule. It’s a hot button topic here at Festival Crashers. It is law in my book. Zack takes the exact opposite approach, throwing it in my face whenever possible. I’m slightly superstitious, but I couldn’t undo it. I proceeded with my day, excited about seeing Coldplay tonight. I even bragged to a few coworkers. I deserve what happened.

My brother got home from work and we set out to go. We hopped in his car and headed to El Capitan Theatre. Just as we were about to pull into the parking garage, it hit me. I didn’t have the tickets. Such a sinking feeling. They were still in my glove box, otherwise I would have noticed them on my seat when I got home from work today. We parked and got out of the parking garage so I could see if I could access the tickets from my iPhone. We walked all the way to the back of the ridiculously long line. Even if we had tickets, we may not have gotten in. I couldn’t get to the tickets from my phone. Since the show was supposed to be two days ago, the tickets were no longer accessible from the website. No Coldplay for this guy.

This is not a mistake I will make twice. I informed my brother that it is now a rule that we have to ask one another if we have the tickets before we depart. Failure to do so results in full blame being placed upon the person who neglected the reminder. At least next time I forget tickets, I can blame my brother.