I talked to a friend today, who is really into indie music, and I showed him the website for the Coachella festival. There were a lot of bands playing that I’d never heard of and wanted his opinion of which ones were “don’t miss” bands.
He went totally nuts over a bunch of them — sadly, they were all playing on Sunday, the day I won’t be there. Unless I can convince my friend to stay for the second day.
Of the bands playing on Saturday, he liked Radiohead (but not overwhelmingly), and gave grudging respect to The Pixies for their reunion tour, but pointed to Death Cab for Cutie as the only band to seek out.
The bands he went ga-ga for on Sunday were: The Flaming Lips, Air, Belle & Sebastian, Basement Jaxx, Le Tigre, and Pretty Girls Make Graves. He said that if someone’s never seen The Cure live that would be a good show; he would see it but only if they weren’t up against one of the others (unlikely since The Cure is Sunday’s headliner). He’s kind of jaded that way. Which is one reason I asked him.
I really really want to talk my friend into staying through Sunday…