Last weekend I got to attend Coachella which was held in Indio, CA, about 2 hours away from LA. Now, I had enjoyed Coachella so much last year that I bought my ticket for this year during their pre-sale in June of 2012. Needless to say, I was stoked to go!
Let me back track a little. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Coachella is a 3-Day Music and Art festival featuring about 50 bands per day. The music primarily falls under the electronic/techno, alternative, rock, or hip hop genres which almost ensures that any Coachella goer can find a band that they like while they are there. It also has some intriguing art that you can check out while you’re there (this year, there was a moving giant snail sculpture that got spray painted throughout the weekend).
I left with a group of my friends Thursday night and we camped out there for the entire weekend. Our entire car was jam-packed with food, water, cooking supplies, and all of our essentials for the weekend. In retrospect, we definitely over-packed: but hey, better safe then sorry! However, even though we had all this food, we would still eat inside of the venue since we couldn’t bring in any of our own food and we didn’t want to walk all the way to our campsite because we would miss a lot of bands.
This place had the best ice cream sandwiches EVER!
Some of my favorite musicians included Vampire Weekend, Major Lazer, Vampire Weekend, C2C, the XX, Phoenix, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was especially excited to see the Chili Peppers because they are one of my favorite bands of all time and I had never seen them live. So, to get good spots, my friend and I waited through 2 bands on the main stage where they were playing (in turn sacrificing the chance to see Pretty Lights and the Wu Tang Clan), and we ended up 20-30 feet away from the stage! And, just as I expected, their performance blew me away!
Waiting for the Chili Peppers with my friend Wade. Wade is wearing the bandanna and sunglasses to protect himself from the sandstorm that was happening that night.
The Red Hot Chili Peppers. They sang all my favorite songs including Under the Bridge!
Diplo (who is part of Major Lazer) crowd surfing in a hamster wheel
Coming back from Coachella, my friends and I were dead tired. But, we had an amazing weekend and it was definitely worth it!
