Coachella: sun, heat, hot, music, water, girls, stuff, pic's

[tysonK]

Well while everyone else was at home or atwater I was living it up down in Indio, Cali. I was at the concert(coachella) I posted about a while ago.

First off, it was HOT AS HELL.

Highs of 100-102 lows in the 80’s. Plus combine this heat with standing literally an inch away from other people in a crowd. I have never sweat so much in my life, period.

The fun starts at 10:30 when the gates open and you get to wait in a 45 minute to one our line just to get in. When you do finally make it to the ticket “tearer” you are told about the rules:

No beverage of any kind let into grounds!

No umbrellas or easy up chairs.

Those are the 2 most punishing rules. The water/beverage rule in the most heartbreaking. When you walk in you are greeted with small 20oz bottles of water for $2.00 each! Of course the rule is just a big money making scheme as you might have already guessed. They made plenty of money in other ways also. The tickets were $172.00 for the 2 days, and actually I felt this was fair price for the number of bands you get to see. So I had no problem with that. It’s the food and water that were outrageous.

The suppose number of people at the event was around 50,000 on each day 15% more than last year and last year was crowded. Upon observation most people came to the grounds after 5:00 pm. These people still had to pay full price but were missing half the acts. These people did not want to Brave the heat like me and my brother and roommate. And after getting out the first day and seeing the parking lot and where the later people parked it’s easy to see why they came late and did not care about getting their money’s worth. The area near the back was filled with newer BMWs, Lexus, Porsche, and other not very cheap vehicles. So $172.00 did not mean much to them.

The absolute worst part of the trip was after the shows on Saturday. You park in a giant grass polo field. We got there early sat so we parked near the front. The last show ended at 11:50 so we walked out to the car. The field you park in is so immense you cannot see where exits are supposed to be or where the lines are or where ANYTHING is! Basically there are cars for as far as the eye can see. We got in line to what we thought was an exit and after 45 minutes of not moving at ALL I got out to survey the situation. The situation was this” Complete Parking Lot Traffic Chaos”.

The line we got in was actually only a line to get to a line for an exit. And this line that we where in soon became 3 wide with cars trying to merge where there is no merge. People would literally put their fender into you as far as they can from an angle so you either hit them or let them go! You cannot back up at all to go around them because there is a car directly 3 inches off you back bumper. After a couple of minutes of studying I told my brother to inch forward and towards to cars trying to merge to stunt them from actually being able to turn at all. This little maneuver actually worked out pretty well for us. When I say work out I mean the people in the other cars were really pissed off that they could not pull the “fender merge” thing on us. When we did pull enough the stunt someone from merging I told my brother to rev in m3 inline six with a cat-back just so the people got the point! That part was great. Of course in the end it took a grand total of 4 hours to move 300 feet towards exit.

Besides the parking lot situation and the horrifying heat is was a fun time. I got to watch several of my favorite bands perform in 2 day period.

[tysonK]

pictures:

files names describe band or pictures

I was very close to the stage for AIR and Belle and Sebastian. Matt the Broken Social Scene show was freaking awesome! I enjoyed them the most out of all the bands I saw!

[tysonK]

continue

[tysonK]

more

[tysonK]

more again

[tysonK]

just a sample, I mean I took like 200 pictures plus of few avi's that I need Scott to host because they are kind cool.

[AtomicLabMonkey]

Originally Posted by tysonK

The absolute worst part of the trip was after the shows on Saturday. You park in a giant grass polo field. We got there early sat so we parked near the front. The last show ended at 11:50 so we walked out to the car. The field you park in is so immense you cannot see where exits are supposed to be or where the lines are or where ANYTHING is! Basically there are cars for as far as the eye can see. We got in line to what we thought was an exit and after 45 minutes of not moving at ALL I got out to survey the situation. The situation was this” Complete Parking Lot Traffic Chaos”.

The line we got in was actually only a line to get to a line for an exit. And this line that we where in soon became 3 wide with cars trying to merge where there is no merge. People would literally put their fender into you as far as they can from an angle so you either hit them or let them go! You cannot back up at all to go around them because there is a car directly 3 inches off you back bumper. After a couple of minutes of studying I told my brother to inch forward and towards to cars trying to merge to stunt them from actually being able to turn at all. This little maneuver actually worked out pretty well for us. When I say work out I mean the people in the other cars were really pissed off that they could not pull the “fender merge” thing on us. When we did pull enough the stunt someone from merging I told my brother to rev in m3 inline six with a cat-back just so the people got the point! That part was great. Of course in the end it took a grand total of 4 hours to move 300 feet towards exit.

That sounds remarkably similar to trying to get out of Sears Point after a Winston Cup race... except you spend those 4 hours moving about 10 feet instead of 300.

[ArthurS]

Looks like fun!!

[sperry]

Originally Posted by AtomicLabMonkey

That sounds remarkably similar to trying to get out of Sears Point after a Winston Cup race... except you spend those 4 hours moving about 10 feet instead of 300.

That's just what I was thinking about. Except, Tyson didn't have to sit there with the heater on trying to keep the Jeep from overheating.

Tyson, those pics from the Kraftwerk show look awesome! Were the guy's wired to the computer generated images behind them?

[tysonK]

The Kraftwerk show was extremely cool. The guys were not directly wired to the images behind them but they could control them at their whim. The projector screen was large and the images were very high quality if you can tell from the pictures The Kraftwerk show went as follows:

1. Them in suits behind their synthesizers(song played: machine, tour de france, trans europe express)

2. Then they were replaced by robots that look like them and moved like them(radioactivity, computerworld)

3. Then they came back in the glowing tron suits(music non-stop)

Here are some more kraftwerk pictures sometimes the lighting was good sometimes it was bad. You can make out the robots though.

[sperry]

Originally Posted by tysonK

The Kraftwerk show was extremely cool. The guys were not directly wired to the images behind them but they could control them at their whim. The projector screen was large and the images were very high quality if you can tell from the pictures The Kraftwerk show went as follows:

1. Them in suits behind their synthesizers(song played: machine, tour de france, trans europe express)

2. Then they were replaced by robots that look like them and moved like them(radioactivity, computerworld)

3. Then they came back in the glowing tron suits(music non-stop)

Hahahha! That's sick! You shoulda bootlegged it for us!

[tysonK]

They did not allow video cameras but yah I could have recorded the audio with something.

new pictures above scott

[sybir]

Kraftwerk looks dope, I've always wanted to hear them in person.

My GF was from Palm Springs, very few things are worth going outside for in the Coachella Valley during summer. 100 is a godsend when you're outside in 120+ weather.

Note. Black Subaru station wagon + black tint + black leather in Palm Springs = 2nd degree burns

[Nick Koan]

The Kraftwerk pics look awesome. I'm jealous. They're one of my all time favorite bands.