day 3 – spoon, phoenix

Started off the day with another fantastic big breakfast, this time at the hands of Stephanie and Lieberman.
Lieberman at the stove; the boys waiting patiently to fill their plates.

Will decided to take a few pictures of the ceiling fan in the living room because it was sooooo cool.  The fan blades spin and then the whole thing rotates like a ceiling fan.  The only thing we thought that would make it cooler is if the fans also oscillated.

After getting to Indio, we caught some part (we missed the beginning because we stopped for food) of Mayer Hawthorne and the County before we headed off to snag good spots with the crew for Florence and the Machine. 

This was the first day – ok, the only day – that we decided to take our “good” camera into the festival.  The rules posted on their website defined a professional camera as one with a removable lens which our Nikon does.  But we had a nice chat with one of the “guards” on the first day only to find out that they were allowing lenses that were credit card length or less.  Ours was pushing it but for the last day, we went for it and the guys checking our bags didn’t even notice I had it.  So while we waited for Florence to come on stage, Jocelyn and I played with the camera from the ground -

Ok, but back to Miss Florence… She was pretty amazing.  She has a beautiful singing voice so even though we didn’t know her music, we enjoyed the show.

Toward the end of her set, one of the guys from Cold War Kids came out to join her. 

But one of the more heartwarming sights of the festival occurred during her show.
Yep, this guy in a wheelchair had decided to forego his special handicapped seating to stay with his friends and they, in turn, lifted him above the crowd so he could see. Very cool.

Next up – Julian Casablancas.  He was pretty good but we didn’t stay for the whole set.  And after that – Jonsi.  Now he was super chill and pretty cool so we were sad that' we’d missed some of it.

Afterward we moved on to the Coachella Main Stage for a band we’d been looking forward to – Spoon!

Jocelyn had a really good time; there were a ton of people there.

Pretty sunset from the Outdoor Theater.

We were super excited about Phoenix so we didn’t stay for all of Spoon so that we could get close to the stage.  And we got close.
 

They were so much fun and they played in the “dark” because their lighting guy had gotten stuck in France due to the volcano in Iceland.

Will really wanted to see Yann Tiersen (of Amélie soundtrack fame) so off we went.  He had quite the sparse crowd so we were able to get really close.
It didn’t hurt that he was really good in a really odd way.

The fiddle playing was awesome!

Next up, Plastikman in Sahara.  This show was recommended by some of our friends as being the potential breakout electronic act of the festival.  Here’s a shot of the set from the first “song.”

This was all we saw.  We couldn’t tell the difference between the house music and when the act began.  Basically we decided that everyone there fell into 2 camps: 1. mostly (or totally) sober and so completely confused (the camp we were in) or 2. high as kites and loving it.  Needless to say, we left after the end of this “song.”

We went off in search of our last bit of festival food.  I ended up with a bunless hotdog for a dollar off.  But while we were sitting there, we realized that we knew, and liked, the song that was coming from the next tent (Mojave) - “Dominoes” by The Big Pink so off we went.

Jocelyn and the majority of our crew were in there from the start but Ravi’s comment afterward was that “live they sounded like they'd just left their parent's garage and finally got to turn up the amps.”  We enjoyed it though it turned out to be the end of their set.

And then it was off to the grand finale – Gorillaz.  We were curious as to how the show would go given that the band “hides” behind their cartoon characters. 
As it turned out, they didn’t play anything that we knew because they played all songs from their new album.  As we walked out to go back to the house, every time they started a new song Ruben would pause and say “this is from the new CD.”

We headed back to the house to have our last night of dance party fun before we all had to leave Palm Springs.  Will, Ruben and I had a 7am flight out to SFO and I was the first to bed at about 2:45am – right about when they all started playing Rock Band.  Crazy boys.

Well, this might be the end of the chronological story but there’s a few more odds and ends before I’m truly done with the whole story.