First off, this is only a day 1 review according to the youtube live stream so I couldn't really watch everything obviously. So this isn't a full coverage type of article. But however, what I did catch I will try to summarize briefly. Lastly, this is not to be taken seriously but only for humorous effect so don't get your panties tied up in a bunch.
First three acts - Givers, Honey Honey and James all sounded almost the same in their whimsical fashion. I don't know which band, but I believe that Honey Honey was the one that sounded like a type of country indie rock act of some sort, that was the weakest one I thought. I assume that James was the band with the bald guys who look like they are some legit veteran rockers or something. They were the better of the bunch since the song writing was more concentrative and melodies more focused. Strangely enough they were the most intense too even though they were an older band, I guess that just explains why the other bands are so weak in my opinion. The Givers fell under the long line of indie rock bands that just sound too damn playful and redundant. It's the sound that I call the "white kids got bored and made a band" sound.
Gary Clark Jr. - This guy was pretty impressive. Nothing original or anything, but damn he could sing. He had a great smooth voice and his guitar work was intense. He had these really intense solos and he even covered Third Stone from the Sun which is a Hendrix jam. There were some moments when he would experiment with his guitar too. Like I told myself before, this guy is the absolute superior form of John Mayor. If John Mayor didn't do that whispering in the year crap where he is just trying to get you in bed with him and instead concentrated on guitar techniques and then all of a sudden he wasn't a Jewish upscale white boy? Ok never mind this guy is nothing like John Mayor but the reason I make the connection is because he does fall a little bit into the generic rock realm. But he is as good as generic rock singer/songwriter types get in my opinion. He gets my full respect and I am officially a small fan.
Grouplove- Don't see that much difference between this band and the Givers. They just sound like more really lame white people rock. I just don't understand it. It makes me feel like I am skipping through a field with skittles in my hand.........and I don't like that feeling.
Jimmy Cliff & Tim Armstrong - They did their thing. Jimmy Cliff is an indisputable legend of course and I must admit that for his age the guy still has some soul. The music was pretty lively and respectable. Did not see much of it though, but what I saw wasn't bad.
Yuck- wish I would have caught more of this. I only saw the ending song and very much liked it. Thought it ended on a cool shoe gazer note.
Dawes - Totally missed this band, no comment.
Arctic Monkeys - First of all, I remember when this band tried to blow up like seven years ago.... well they did sort of. I remember hearing "You look good on the dance floor" song and I thought that song was cool. Some of their stuff was alright, I won't deny that. But man, I can't tell you how over this band I am. I remember playing a show in Pomona and my band couldn't find parking because the parking lot was completely packed. It was packed because of these guys? I couldn't believe that people were still into them. Which leads to my analysis of their performance. They have little moments where they might sound good every now and then but damn.......these guys are extremely overrated. I cannot stand how the singer just talks throughout every song hardly letting any melody peek through. To me, it just sounds like some English arrogant bloke chattering away into oblivion over some mediocre new wave type of rock music. That song that mentions the Macarena and other dances was so corny and awful. Not to mention how lame as hell they look now, the drummer (pretty impressive drumming though) looks like some kind of English mob goon with his gym pants, and the rest of the band looks like they are going for some kind of rockabilly look or something. Terrible.
Wu Lyf - Not much could be said. The singer is pretty awful. He sounds like a wannabe Tom Waits or something and not in a good way.
Madness - Didn't catch them sorry.
Pulp - They have some classic dance tunes. They are not my cup of tea or anything, but I'm not going to dis them or anything. They did what they did in the 90's and the singer's voice aged a bit, nuff said.
Frank Ocean - Not bad, pretty impressive actually. The guy has a great voice and his music isn't totally corny. For an RnB act he is actually pretty damn entertaining and Tyler the Creator came out for a song. The girls would not shut up with their screaming for this guy either, that was kind of refreshing in a weird way, since it didn't happen in any other moment in the festival up till that point. He actually had a live band playing with live instruments too. I'll say that this was a surprisingly respectable performance.
Ximena Sarinana - Kind of sucks that she is a Mexican artist who sadly falls into the wave of playful indie nonsense. There are some songs of hers that sound like they could be in one of those cheesy as hell ipad commercials, which I hate with a passion. Those damn playful piano chords that try to sound magical while Apple tries to tell you what life is about. Yeah that shit. It's too bad too because she is really adorable. It also seems like she is one of those girls trying to be a pop star but fails to go beyond this playful indie crowd.
M83 - Another electronic indie darling. I did not catch very much, but from what I did see I could only say they were just a slightly better version of Neon Indian?
Mazzy Star - never heard of this band before. I was sort of impressed by them. The singer especially was the most impressive aspect. Overall they have a really chill sound. There are moments where they sound like a knock off of The Doors with a girl singer instead. However I really enjoyed their sound more than most of the bands on the festival and Hope Sandoval has become a new found favorite singer for me. I know that they are old and from the '80s and '90s but hearing them for the first time in Coachella was a good experience for me. Much respect.
Refused- This band I have a little bit of personal respect for. I kind of grew up with The Shape of Punk to Come album and remember being blown away by the New Noise song and music video. Later I got into The Hives (similar swedes) and then the revival rock era was born leaving the broken up Refused a distant memory. Dennis Lyxzen is of course an underground legend and I personally met him once at the Amoeba store in Hollywood. He is a totally cool guy. I had to refresh my memory of this band and catch the first song. It was a pretty cool jam but I knew by memory from listening to their two albums that they would pretty much sound the same through out. I got my fix but I also forgot how boring hardcore punk gets at times.
Explosions in the Sky- Another very respectable band and they are '90s guitar heros in my opinion. They brought what they do well to the table which is that cerebral noise rock. Must say though, at times it was almost too much guitar for me to handle. It was like a buffet of guitar and they even had some metal guy jamming out in the back with them, what was that about? I thought only big '90s bands like Nirvana do that to cover up the front man's mistake. Why are you going to have some extra guitarist in the back and jamming outside of the spotlight in the back of the amps not to be seen? You have three guitarist and need yet another one? I can't tell you how much I hate how big acts do that to make you know who the "real" show is. Let that guy get some spot light too, he is the only one with cool long ass hair making that ten minute jam seem intense instead of boring.
The Black Keys - The last of the revival rock era. They have survived this long and for good reason, cause they are not that bad. Yes, that is all it takes to survive in the music scene, well that and a crap load of connections with millions of dollars. I kind of hyped myself up for this because I never truly got knee deep into the Keys but after seeing this show I remembered why. If there is anything that the consumer wants more is to get what they expect. Black Keys delivered some of that ultra generic rock shit that is commercial friendly in all standards. After a while I of course got bored. Gold on the Ceiling and Howling for You are practically the same song. And the most boring thing about the Keys live is Dan Auerbach's vocals. Well actually the music in itself is very repetitive. He seems to sing the same notes in every single song, I swear it's almost like he sings the same song over and over again. I also wanted to ask, did Patrick Carney put on some weight? I could swear less than month ago he did not look like that. Well anyway, to analyze this rock giant a little bit more, I noticed that Auerbach decided to abandon his Creedence look and go for the cartoonish motorcycle driving rock star look. His jacket looked like something from a Tarantino/Rodriguez movie. His hysterical jacket made it seem like he had a bunch of knives inside of it. How much metal wear could a leather jacket have? And then his jeans...... oh man, I cannot believe he thinks those are cool. His jeans had the tears to his upper thighs, you know those ones that girls wear to be sexy..... yeah those. Okay but of course it's not about what the performer is wearing; the only reason I criticize is because it's what the Keys are trying sell. They want you to believe that they drank a pint of whiskey in the morning and killed a rattlesnake and ate it before they came on stage, evidently that's what Coachella thinks with their grainy rugged road clips on the screen as Auerbach rips through another Zeppelin style plastic blues rift. Now listen, I am not saying the Keys are bad at all, if anything they are pretty good. It's just that the music they play I've seen played a hundred times better since the 1960's and I'm already bored to death with it. They also don't try to hide their desire to be this soulful 60's style band. Ultimately I am saying they are obviously overrated, however I wouldn't consider them a threat in anyway to the music world. Carney said that their mission is to save the mainstream masses from thinking that rock music sounds like Nickelback, and all power to you on that mission, but the mainstream has already seen great rock bands on top of the world. Getting huge in the mainstream does not save rock music, it only helps you buy a bigger house.
The Black Angels - I had in mind two bands to be hyped up for tonight, The Black Keys and The Black Angels. One sort of disappointed me and the other blew me away. It took this long for my blood to finally start circulating. This is a band in their rising peak. After seeing a bunch of bands that are in a downward slope or see bands just to remember them, I finally saw a band that is in their best form. No bullshit, no backup guitarists in the back of the amps or no members that are not official (with no names) but instead they came in full form with all members playing an important role. This is the reason why our garage rock era is important and people need to start paying more attention. They started with one of my favorite songs of theirs Bad Vibrations. I came in just as the vocalist sang "we made love in June, I heard it from you" which always sends good vibrations down my spine. Then they followed up with Young Men Dead which is a bad ass song you might of heard on the Broc Lesnar vs Alistair Overeem promo. They dished out their two popular numbers and continued to rock throughout the night. The Black Angles sound like what The Warlocks could have been if they weren't based solely on an arrogant douche bag. The guitarist is hilarious, he looks like a dead hippie zombie or something. The singer of course kept his mystique going with his trademark hat and did pull some exaggerated unnecessary vibratos. The girl drummer kept it real throughout by keeping the heavy drone beats alive with some help at times by an extra tomb player. They ended on a great sitar jam to close the night, I haven't seen a sick ass sitar solo in a long while. They were easily the best performance of day 1 in my opinion and brought some organic shit to eat on the table. You should enjoy this band while they last, because these big psych bands don't last long together. Usually some crap happens and members drop out or the whole order changes, hopefully not but you never know. Now I am not totally on my knees over them or anything, I think they are a little repetitive too. The singer is also one of many in a long line of Jim Morrison wannabe voices. But what are you going to do? it's insanely hard to try to be original and good at the same time. Which might explain why there is so much crap in the indie world now.
That was my review of day 1 and will also review bits of the next two days. This task was a bit too much screen watching and left my eyes feeling sore, so the next two reviews will not be nearly as long.
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