Common News

The parking lot at Coachella's opening day was reminiscent of a high school cafeteria. There were punks, goths, jocks, stoners, nerds--you name it. But instead of coming together for a plateful of cafeteria slop, these people had traveled far and wide to convene under the blue Indio sky for what promised to be more than just an earful of music.

Founded in 1999, the Southern California desert musicfest Coachella is touted as the premier concert event for the sophisticated fan--featuring, through the years, a who's-who of up, coming, and already-come modern rock artists.

This year, the festival began as eager crowds warmed up with the Section Quartet, who rocked an orchestral rendition of Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker"; the Like, teens whose frontwoman Z. Berg majestically wielded a heavy guitar, a serious pout, and sultry vocals; the body- and groundshaking beats of Hybrid; and the Walkmen, sharply-dressed East Coasters whose sound was familiar enough not to be a reinvented wheel but hooky and original enough to hold its own.

And so the day began, with sounds streaming from the two stages and three tents, and a record 60,000 music fans streaming onto the lawn.

A few hours in, incendiary Australian power trio Wolfmother took the art of performance to another level, allowing their music to infuse their every move. Anyone able to fit into the packed tent where they played will undoubtedly remember them. Meanwhile, on the main stage, Common kicked off his set with his hit single "Be" and shared messages of self-belief and the importance of being faithful. Spectators hung on his every word, enjoying his wisdom as much as his antics (which included executing near-perfect breakdancing moves and inviting a female audience member to dance with him onstage). Common's set was marked by a sense of deep mutual respect passed between artist and crowd.

However, it was Kanye West that got the crowd arm-waving in unison. Backed by a string section and DJ, West proved that he is a natural born performer and someone who just loves to be watched. He stormed through hits like "All Falls Down" and "Gold Digger," providing, as he said, the only chance for white people to say the "n-word." One of the many highlights of his appearance was a spastic hop-around to A-Ha's "Take On Me" that brought to mind Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club.

As the sky dimmed, Glasgow's Franz Ferdinand took the main stage, and their sense of fun was also contagious. As they played "Take Me Out," a fan far away from the stage, who was making his way across the back of the lawn, uncontrollably uttered the chorus as if the words were part of his own thought process.

The evening's two main headliners, Depeche Mode and Daft Punk, offered something very different to the crowds they respectively entertained. With new songs mixed in with the requisite older favorites, main-stagers the Mode did not disappoint their diehard fans, taking them on a journey backwards from recent single "A Pain That I'm Used To" to classics like "Walking In My Shoes" and "Personal Jesus." Faceless French techno duo Daft Punk, however, were all about the future: Sporting shiny metal space helmets, they opened their much-awaited set in the dance tent with "Robot Rock." But before they even began, the tent was sealed with people, all dying to escape into the ultramodern world of Daft Punk.

And so it went. At the close of the first day, everyone walked back to cars or tents, heads filled with music and bodies covered in dry sweat. Their neatly made-up facades had long melted away, along with the genre-based musical differences that once seemed so important. The magic of Coachella had taken over and the crowd had been blissfully equalized by the thing they had come to enjoy: the music.