Despite noise from various peanut galleries about declining ticket sales, interest and influence, the Coachella Music and Artist Festival remains arguably the biggest music festival in the world and indisputably one of the biggest global platforms for recording artists. This year’s was no exception: Here’s what went over like gangbusters, and what didn’t …
WINS:
The Blockbusters: Lady Gaga, Megan Thee Stallion, Charli xcxLike the Super Bowl, if you’re headlining Coachella, you show the fuck up. Lady Gaga and Megan Thee Stallion clearly got that memo, with the debut of a mind-melting production as the first date of a global tour (Gaga’s amazing “Mayhem”-themed set, which featured towering structures, a full band and at two-dozen-plus dancers) or a guest-star-spangled set (Megan’s cameos with Queen Latifah, Ciara and Victoria Monét). Other top-billed artists who delivered stellar if less-unprecedented performances included Green Day, Missy Elliott, and Charli xcx, who brought out a bevy of guests who’d previously joined her on tour (Billie Eilish, Lorde, Troye Sivan and Addison Rae) and seemed to say that “Brat Summer” is over but it’s not, via semi-ambiguous messages on the giant screens — not to mention the fact that she’s got multiple North American and European tour dates booked through the end of the summer. Other surprises included LL Cool J, Cynthia Erivo and a hoarse Dave Grohl joining the L.A. Philharmonic, and the appearance during weekend two of Ed Sheeran who drew a crowd larger than the Mojave tent could hold with just a loop pedal and guitar — and later joined headliner Post Malone onstage.
The Breakthroughs: Benson Boone, the Marias, ClairoBoone may be best known for his 2024 smash “Beautiful Things” but showed that he’s a world-class performer as well, and bravely tackled Queen’s are-you-crazy-trying-to-cover “Bohemian Rhapsody” and not only pulled it off but got a cosign from the band’s Brian May, who joined him for the performance. The Marías showed what all of the underground buzz has been about, delivering a vast and theatrical performance of their acclaimed “Submarine” LP; singer Maria Zardoya shows major starpower. Finally, Clairo not only led off her weekend-one performance with a speech from Senator Bernie Sanders — “This country faces some very difficult challenges, and the future of what happens to America is dependent upon your generation,” he said — but showed enormous progress as a performer, with a sultry, mid-tempo set of songs that evoked visions of an indie Christine McVie.
“Couchella” LivestreamThe Grammy Awards and VMAs are famously challenging to produce, requiring both meticulous rehearsal and directors with hair-trigger reflexes to catch surprises happening in the moment. Now imagine doing something very similar, but across three days instead of three hours, with multiple artists and seven different — and simultaneous — stages, at times on a stadium-sized scale, which was certainly the case with Lady Gaga’s and Travis Scott’s massive productions. Since 2011, YouTube has provided the best seat in the house, with world-class, musically savvy direction, production and camerawork by a stellar team that’s enduring the same heat and wind and cold as the artists and the audience. Their work is as challenging and heroic as many artists — it’s probably the best concert livestream you’ll see anywhere.
LESS WINNING…
Desert HeatDespite perennial dust and wind, April has generally been kind to Coachella — but this year’s triple-digit temperatures were excruciating for many, especially when enduring the long process of getting in and out of the festival’s 333-acre grounds. For weekend one car campers, some reported waiting in their vehicles without access to water or restrooms for up to 12 hours as temperatures in Indio soared to 106°F (41°C) on the first day of the festival, making this the hottest Coachella on record.
Strict Set TimesA festival on the scale of Coachella must run on time, and delays of longer than a few minutes, no matter the cause can have a massive domino effect that effects not only the performers and the 125,000 people attending daily, but for the people producing (and the millions watching) the livestream. Even top-billed Megan Thee Stallion had her mic cut off when she ran a few minutes overtime, and Rema’s technical difficulties brought him little mercy during weekend one, when he was onstage for just 15 minutes, although he redeemed himself with a strong — and full — set on weekend two.
Political ControversyIt’s one thing to have Bernie Sanders exhorting Gen Z to get involved, as Clairo did before her set. And it’s one thing to make a quick, humanitarian reference to the war in Gaza, as Green Day did when they altered a lyric to be “Running away from pain/ Like the kids from Palestine.” But displaying the words “Fuck Israel / Free Palestine” on the screen during a performance, as Irish rap trio Kneecap did, not only alienates a sizable percentage of the audience you’re trying to influence, but any nuance in that statement on this enormously polarizing subject — which was presumably a comment against the Netanyahu government’s militarism rather than an antisemitic one — is completely lost. Extra demerits for making such statements at a music festival.
