A little battered and certainly bruised from the outrageous fun of Day One at Coachella 2015, we hit the polo fields on Saturday to kick off round two with an adrenaline jolt from Royal Blood, before popping over to the main stage for Bad Religion. But you know what they say about best laid plans…
Coachella Day One: Action Bronson, AC/DC Rule The Day
We couldn’t get away from Royal Blood. They were just too damn good. Blasting through the majority of last year’s eponymous crusher LP, the UK rockspaz duo made “Out of The Black” as ferociously seductive as the lustchild of Refused and Japandroids.
“Come On Over” and “Figure It Out” took the early-day crowd from a headcount of roughly 200 to roughly ten times as many. Within just a few songs, the most glorious pit of the day was well on its way to some hospital bills.
We backed away from our favorite UK band since Arctic Monkeys with deep reluctance, finding responsibility-sanctuary in the rising sonic crossfire from the main stage as we walked. As the chaotic guitar conflict bled into a terrible neutral zone (conveniently located right at the Heineken beer garden entrance), we caught the first sight of Bad Religion and shifted focus. The title track from Recipe For Hate came off clean and mean upon our arrival, and the guys have a timeless essence that defies the intensity of their sound.
Time, however, is rarely on one’s side when shooting Coachella. So before settling too deep into dad-rock territory we scooted over to the Mojave tent to catch Childish Gambino’s little brother Toro y Moi pushing deep indie-sigh chillwave goodness to the sweaty masses. It felt good, but after the 1-2 rock blast a few minutes earlier we needed a little more punch.
Enter Run The Jewels. Killer Mike and El-P are the hottest dynamic duo in rap these days, a furiously good tag-team with an ocean of gratitude for the desert love they received on Saturday – but not without a cocky grin, having arrived onstage to Queen’s “We Are The Champions”. After “Blockbuster Night Part 1,” both rappers leaned far into the crowd and hugged members of the crowd. “This is a dream come true,” said El-P. They returned the good vibes with depictions of realtime-issue nightmare scenarios, from Ferguson to media depictions of ghetto culture, to Chinese sweatshops and beyond. Rage Against the Machine frontman Zack De La Rocha stepped up to the mic for “Close Your Eyes (And Count to …),” overcoming deafening cheers to deliver his first high-profile guest appearance in years. Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and rapper Gangsta Boo also made appearances.
Father John Misty is one of the most seductively bizarre mother effers to ever play the game. With a neon “no photography” set, the Honeybear crooner operated in low light and reds as he delivered romantically sardonic goodness, building erotic constellations around us in the darkness.
Before a celebrated “Bored In The USA,” Josh Tillman mused, “I’m so honored to have all the depressive sad bastards here. We need some representation, people who don’t really like going out in the sun.” He then proceeded to “make a very weird dream come true,” pulling a girl named Amy from the crowd and serenading her with a cover Leonard Cohen’s classic ballad “I’m Your Man” on one knee. Teddy bears, girls in robes with pasties & masks, balloons and flowers… all par for the Misty Seduction course.
“Sorry about the nightmares you’re gonna have tonight,” he offered up afterward.
Positioning ourselves for what was to come, we were on hand as Alt-J played to one of the biggest crowds of their career. Bathed in psychedelic lights and fog, the band seamlessly wove fan-favorite material from both their LPs into a celebrated set. A massive singalong stretched through “Matilda,” and the “please don’t go please don’t go, I love you so I love you soooo” part of “Breezeblocks” was celebrated like “Freebird”.
Then along came Jack, suited with pinstripes and bathed in blue and backed by the finest Nashville imports a rock/country maestro and new-retro entrepreneurial architect could ever ask for. We knew he would deliver the goods – when has he not? But the angles and avenues were surprises, to say the least.
From the moment he blasted onto the stage, Jack looked angrily focused, his brow furrowed and eyes determined. Nearly every song featured a stylistic shift, if not a new arrangement entirely, and White worked very closely with the pounding percussion of Daru Jones to shape a blizzard of shifting beats and cadences. The flourishes and fills in “Lazaretto” and beyond were stupefying. Many beloved tracks including “Love Interruption” and “We’re Going To Be Friends” possessed a distinct country flare, reminding us once again that if he were to ever place the focus of his Third Man machine directly on the world of that bored sack of redneck-pandering radiobait, for even just a year, country music wouldn’t have any idea what hit it – nor would it ever be the same.
The aforementioned song was evidence of a highlight moment that makes a Jack White show so special: at the onset of “We’re Going to Be Friends” White brought his friends close to center, including theremin-slinging multi-instrumentalist and Old West saloon fixture Fats Kaplin, and violin player Lillie Mae Rische (who is a far more confident stage presence now than her Bonnaroo ’14 appearance). The true connective energy between them radiated with tear-welling force on some level barely perceived by our thick primate senses, but those in the moment felt the power of such beauty in musical honesty.
Honesty and connective spirit matter, despite the hype and banner ads, despite the sponsor jargon and culture-profiteers. This is why it’s far more than a Kanye-level rant when Jack, looking out at the sea of iPhones (but no selfie-sticks, thank you very much), roared: “Come on L.A. put your f*cking phones down for five seconds!”
This was no effort to send us back to the olden days directly, so much as demanding that sacred, connective intercourse of energy so many of us have forgotten how to feel, let alone value. ”The gold rush is over,” he announced at one point. “This is the new world, is it not?” True, but to what end?
Pearl Jam’s mastery of the art of the encore has one rival, and the White Stripes alum knows damn well how to play a crowd like the Devil’s fiddle. “Ball and Biscuit,” was a lusty, funky, skittering & squealing mess of greatness, followed by a blazing “Sixteen Saltines,” and a laughably-funktastic and awesome “That Black Bat Licorice”. A high-drama “Would You Fight for My Love?” followed, but it was the closer that did us in, as we all knew and expected. The song that elicits sports-stadium singalongs on every continent and has taken on a full cultural identity of its own, “Seven Nation Army,” is a show-closer festival jam if ever there was one.
Halfway through the song, we went ahead and took over for White, hijacking the riff and making it a roaring vocal chant.
Jack wasn’t in total command of the energy so much as riding the current crackling between audience and stage players. “Shoutout to FKA Twigs, Tyler The Creator, Run The Jewels and everyone else who played,” White offered near the end, a reminder of how much prime-talent real estate he was claiming as a two-hour headliner on Saturday. He then asked us to remember to take a few seconds each day, each and every day to remember “that music is sacred! That music is sacred! That music is sacred! That music is sacred!”
Oh, we know, alright. We were feeling that sacred buzz well into the night, even through a surreal encounter with Tyler the Creator at Five Guys at one in the morning, miles offsite. But that’s a story for another day. Onward to Day 3 of Coachella 2015!!
