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Dave Noisy
Minister of Chaos
Canada
4496 Posts |
 Posted - 05/03/2004 : 11:05:51
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NME.com (Pomona):
http://www.nme.com/news/108377.htm
New York Times (Coachella):
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/03/arts/music/03COAC.html?ex=1084571201&ei=1&en=45eccbf975ebda09
Boston Globe (Coachella):
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2004/05/03/coachella_festival_is_a_hot_ticket/
Billboard.com (Coachella):
http://www.billboard.com/bb/daily/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000501810
NapaNews.com:
http://www.napanews.com/templates/index.cfm?template=story_full&id=7B34B8EC-5975-4A34-99D2-B302C5C99100
The Desert Sun (Coachella):
http://www.thedesertsun.com/news/stories2004/entertainment/20040502013328.shtml
California Aggie (Davis):
http://www.californiaaggie.com/article/?id=4013
E!Online:
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,14004,00.html
Chicago Tribune (Coachella; subscription only, so text is as follows):
ROCK REVIEW
Coachella music festival joins ranks of the world's best
By Greg Kot
Tribune music critic
Published May 3, 2004
INDIO, Calif. -- Kraftwerk, the German quartet who are electronic music's
answer to the Beatles, left the stage one by one in their fluorescent robot
suits as the first night of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival
came to a close over the weekend.
But the speakers still quaked and tens of thousands of fans weren't ready to
go home quite yet, their bodies bobbing to the pulsing grid of computer
rhythms. "Music non-stop," a disembodied voice repeated, and as the midnight
hour came and went, signaling the halfway point of the weekend, it did
indeed feel that way.
For many of the 100,000 fans who sat for hours in traffic and baked in
100-degree heat to get here, it was an idyllic oasis of sight and sound. By
the time Coachella was scheduled to conclude late Sunday with a headlining
performance by the Cure, 89 bands and artists will have performed in 24
hours spread over two days and five stages on a palm-tree-lined polo field.
The fifth annual festival staked its claim as America's answer to massive
European festivals such as Glastonbury and Reading, tribal gatherings that
bring together the cream of cutting-edge rock, rap and electronic music from
around the world.
That Coachella has joined their rank was affirmed by Saturday's bill, which
included Radiohead for its only North American appearance this year; the
tour-shy Kraftwerk, lured from its German studio for one of its few
Stateside appearances in the last 20 years; and the reunited Pixies, who
chose the festival as its big-stage coming-out party after a handful of club
shows in recent weeks. The Boston quartet laid the groundwork for '90s
alternative rock with its potent mix of melody and mayhem, only to implode
before reaching a mainstream audience on par with the bands they influenced,
including Nirvana and Radiohead ("they changed my life," Radiohead singer
Thom Yorke told the Coachella audience.)
The reunion casts the Pixies as a nostalgia band, trying to cash in on their
due by playing the old should-have-been hits. But all quibbles were set
aside once the band reeled off 19 indelible tunes -- from the crushing
loveliness of "Velouria" to the compressed violence of "Debaser" -- in an
hour. When Kim Deal sang the ghostly wordless backing harmonies to "Where is
My Mind?" they rang out as if in a cathedral of mountains and palm trees, a
dozen skylights creating a luminous canopy in the sky. It was the kind of
moment big outdoor festivals in exotic settings deserve, and fortunately it
was not the only one.
Perry Farrell, the Jane's Addiction singer who founded Lollapalooza, got
things rolling with some thundering Latin-flavored electro beats in his
guise as deejay Peretz. Raising a filled cup in toast and swatting at a
green balloon, he accompanied his turntable spinning with chanted vocals.
Fragile, with muscle
Speaking just as loudly but at much quieter volume levels was Fugazi singer
Ian MacKaye, who debuted his new coffeehouse-punk duo the Evens with drummer
Amy Farina. The Evens had a fragile, almost twee charm, but the muscle in
their songs soon was revealed.
MacKaye has never sounded angrier as he lashed out at everything from police
brutality to American foreign policy, even as his songs trafficked in
subtlety.
MacKaye benefited from an early performance in a breezy, shaded location
that helped set the intimate mood. Only a couple of hours later, Beck played
a solo acoustic set there to an overflow crowd, but he had to compete with
louder nearby sets by a rock band and a deejay. As a result, Beck's eagerly
anticipated appearance was a bust.
In contrast, Danish sextet Junior Senior provided the perfect antidote to
the mid-afternoon heat with an exuberant set that owed as much to the
Archies as it did to Motown, with an added lift from B-52's singer Fred
Schneider. Savath and Savalas provided an electro-trance bubble bath that
suited the sultry mood, while the Black Keys floored the blues-boogie pedal,
with a high-octane cover of the Stooges' "No Fun."
British deejay Seb Fontaine sent the rave tent into a dancing frenzy by
turning the six-note guitar line in the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army"
into a tension-building break beat.
Josh Homme, singer-guitarist in Queens of the Stone Age, led his Desert
Sessions side project band through a set of ramshackle pop tunes, with guest
shots from the Distillers' Brody Daile and ex-Screaming Trees vocalist Mark
Lanegan.
No surprises
Showing no ill effects from a throat ailment that forced Radiohead to cancel
an Australian concert appearance last week, singer Thom Yorke impersonated
an exuberant dervish. The set held no surprises, an extension of the British
quintet's acclaimed 2003 summer tour, but it was ideal for riveting the
attention of an audience that had spent the day immersed in sun and music.
Radiohead seized the night with Colin Greenwood's fuzz-tone bass intro to
"The National Anthem," a sound that reverberated through the valley like a
call to arms. Later, Yorke even pulled out the band's oft-shunned first hit,
"Creep," in which he declares, "I don't belong here."
But the enduring impression of Coachella Day One was that everyone who
weathered the long trip to the middle of the desert, belonged. As dusk fell
and the day cooled, the man-made lights sharing space with the moon and
stars, the music became a celebration of diversity and defiance, oddballs
creating their own soundtrack, fashion code and lifestyle in remote
splendor: Del tha Funkee Homosapien's rhymes gushing like the sweat down his
face, Deathcab for Cutie's matching ice-cream-man suits, the homemade "Bush
lied to us" T-shirt worn by one fan, the robot alter-egos who "performed"
one of the encores for those cut-ups in Kraftwerk.
As the fans drifted away in the gloaming, the big neon letters scrolling
across Radiohead's stage screen summed up the memories that were made this
long weekend: "Forever."
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune
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Yet More Pixies Media Stories
All your links helped me to feel like I was there. My fave article was by Jon Parles...I have always enjoyed his reviews... he is right-on and knows his music.