Ravey Tunes
Surkin had already achieved "Download everything this guy puts out immediately" status, and now he has achieved "Ill DJs I will try to see everytime possible" status. Killed it in the afternoon.
Crookers
Y'all know me. I get loose on the reg. I got loose for Crookers. They started with a punch in the face and kept it going. When you open it with this banging Major Lazer song, and you've got a pretty dope Italian hypeman people respond to, I am able to get loose. I sprinted into the tent right then and partied the hardest of the weekend during this song. (Major Lazer, which is Diplo and Switch btw, is already my CD of the summer, after having heard 2 songs.)
AND THEY PLAYED THE TOAD SONG!(at 22 seconds)
I had downloaded this song off the Mad Decent blog (where else, right?), and thought it was retarded. I WAS WRONG! It is actually the best song of the year, and it was so sweet live. It is infectious too. It goes great with Mario Kart or trying to dance your blues away after a Laker loss.
Download: Toad's theme
Related: I noticed a strong generation gap between the DJs at Coachella. I felt so much more energy coming from Crookers and Surkin than vets like Felix or the Chemical Bros. Those old guys, and Felix is the posterboy for this, are stuck in the DJ as an idol who controls the crowd and is there to be worshipped. I saw about 30 minutes of Felix before I got fed up with waiting years for buildups to drop with Felix holding his hand up to try and get us pumped. I attribute this to the breakup of the DJ/crowd divide. Once upon a time, DJs were held up as the bridge between electronic artists and the fans. It required tons of time and money to become a DJ. What they did was a beautiful mystery to the average person and the crowd would have complete trust in their DJ to be playing the hot shit. The landscape has completely changed. Everyone's tried DJing on their own. Everyone has downloaded all these songs from hypemachine. The cover's been blown. It's not about you anymore, DJ, its about the crowd. Anyone can do this, it's not hard. Cut the weak theatrics, rock the party, and do some creative mixing. I'm not down with dudes sitting on their electronic royal chair when the young guns are more loose-friendly.
Non-ravey tunes
By Sunday evening, I was running on fumes. Sunday's lineup had dead time unlike any other Coachella I had been to. On a whim, I went to check out Devandra Barnhart's set in the small Gobi tent. All I knew about the dude was he is classified as "freak folk" and was suggested to us by pretentious people who we had little musical taste in common. When we got there, the place was rocking and it turned out to be the most pleasant surprise of the festival. Dude could be the smoothest cruise ship lounge singer ever.
By the end, I was satisfied that after 3 years, I have pretty much "done Coachella" as hard as I could. I don't know if I will be back next year (definitely not camping), but I know without the same people, it will not be nearly as great an experience. (That is the sappiest I will ever get on this blog.)
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