The second iteration of Coachella 2012 just wrapped up, and while I didn’t attend Round II, I do feel like I’m still getting out of a state of recuperation with the rest of them.
Here, some thoughts on how to survive three days in the desert with the first Festival rain since 1999:
Carpoolchella
Not to be confused with the well-intentioned group transit campaign officially organized by Coachella and Golden Voice. I stayed in a house with about fifteen other people (You’ll notice I don’t know the exact number because I was a hanger-on, happy to be largely uninvolved in formal acts of responsibility like keeping a headcount.), so getting to the grounds wasn’t as simple as hopping in one car, or even calling same seats for the trips back and forth.
No, for the weekend of Coachella (as with Stagecoach and golf-y things, I’m sure), the entire vicinity of Palm Springs turns out in keenly resourceful ways. To make a buck. We took our first few rides with “Jane,” ten of us squeezing into the back of her van at a time.
I know the answer to “How many clowns can you fit in a car?” because we paid (cash) to be those clowns. Strewn across what would be the back seats if there were back seats. And seat belts.
We’d hear “Duck, please!” whenever Jane drove by a cop car. It seems the police in the area know their locals, what with their get-rich-quick schemes of charging upwards of $10 a head for a one-way trip to the show and back.
Sea of Knees, please.
Alternatively, you could take a cab from IHOP back to your weekend lodging at two in the morning, but you might get the driver with a voice box from decades of chain smoking like Navi and I did but were too tired to be frightened by.
Aside from the economic stimulus that these weekends of entertainment bring to the town, in addition I’ve been observing how much a two-weekend sandwich of the same lineup completely saturates California music venues with derivative concerts and shows. It’s like Coachella is Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Miike Snow check-ins popping up in your home feed are the spinoffs of Angel. (I actively dislike Joss Whedon so it took me a while to write that.)
Charge your phone.
Y’know how I’m OCD and can’t leave the house for more than four hours without just my phone, but also my mobile USB charger? This is why I can’t fathom being without 100% battery. Go to a convention and you get familiar with the harried state of meeting up and texting urgently and catching time-sensitive messages thwarted by impacted signals. Coachella is like that, except 75% of the convention goers are also on drugs. Continue reading »
