Coachella: 20 Years in the Desert

Since I left Coachella last year, I hoped to spend today checking in guests who stay at the campground where I work at the festival. I even expected it from mid-July until the beginning of March. Then, life changed unexpectedly. Even now with Coachella rescheduled for October, everything is uncertain. It’s crazy because life is always uncertain. Anything can happen at any moment to change the course of the expected. Sometimes it could incredible, great, or good. Sometimes it could be terrible, awful, or bad. Sometimes it could be crazy, wild, or unthinkable. Regardless of what it is, it could happen because nothing is ever a guarantee. With that being said, most times we can rely on things. We can make plans and look forward to them. Right now though, everything is predictably uncertain, when usually it’s just predictable. It’s hard to tell where we’ll be in a few weeks let alone a few months given the state of the world. So, I think the best we can do right now is take it one day at a time and remain hopeful, but also keep expectations low. With that advice it’s safe to say I’m still looking forward to this weekend, specifically tomorrow for reasons involving Coachella.

In January, Coachella announced a documentary premiering on Youtube on March 30th that would commemorate 20 years of the festival. Over the last month sometime though, they announced that the premiere would happen April 10th at Noon PST, the exact time gates were supposed to open for Weekend 1 (big sigh). Over the last week the festival has been promoting the documentary, calling the circumstances surrounding the premiere “Couchella.” They even released a preview for it that features many acts who took to the Coachella stages over the last 20 years like Beyoncé, Madonna, Paul McCartney, Post Malone, and the famous Tupac hologram. The preview also included commentary from Billie Eilish, Moby, Ice Cube, and Perry Farrell. In addition to that, they’ve been teasing a few acts in the documentary throughout the week.

The other day I checked the Coachella website and it has since been updated with a whole page about the documentary. It gives a timeline of each year and mentions an artist for each one. They’ve also added 4 playlists featuring those artists and more. I’m expecting the artists mentioned on the page to be featured in the documentary. If it’s anything like the 2006 documentary, I’ll probably love it. My heart will also probably ache for Coachella. I’ll wish I was there instead of here. I’ll wish everything was predictable instead of predictably uncertain. Honestly over the next 2-3 weeks, I’ll wish I was in Indio. I already do. That’s where I was supposed to be. Nothing is going to change that feeling for me, so I might as well embrace it and just let myself feel it. I waited long enough and I deserve to feel it.

So I decided, for the next two weekends, which were supposed to be Coachella 2020, I’m going to try to live my best Coachella life and Couchella. I’m going to watch the documentary every day. Maybe I’ll mix in the 2006 documentary as well. I’m also going to try to find a video of last year’s Sunday Service from Coacheaster. I plan to attempt to make my favorite dish from catering too, Orzo pasta with cream sauce. I’ll probably look at old pictures and videos I took from 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2019 too. It won’t be Coachella but I’m making Coachella a part of my life over the next two weeks regardless of the fact that it’s not actually happening. I have nothing better to do anyway so why not?!

I encourage you to do the same. There’s no reason you can’t live the greatest party in the desert in your own head and dream about the next Coachella whenever it happens to come. It will come too! If I can wait 4 years from knowing about Coachella to actually attending, we’ll be able to get through this wait. See you on Youtube when the gates open! Happy Couchella!

 

25 Years of Lollapalooza

For the last two years since this blog’s inception, Coachella has been a primary subject from January through April. It started because I attended Coachella last year and I had an overwhelming excitement for my trip to Indio that I wanted to preview all of my favorite bands who were playing the festival. I decided to preview bands again this year because of the solid response to last year’s posts. Coachella has become this blog’s sole music festival focus. It’s also one of the most popular and well-known festivals in the world, but especially in the U.S. The United States has plenty of other big, well-known festivals as well. One of those festivals is coming up this weekend and is celebrating its 25th year. It’s called Lollapalooza and its home base is at Grant Park in Chicago, IL. I’m lucky enough to be working at the festival this weekend and I’m excited to also be able to experience all that Lolla has to offer.

The first Lollapalooza happened in 1991. It began as a touring festival created by Perry Farrell who came up with it as a farewell tour of sorts for his band, Jane’s Addiction. The festival grew in the 90’s as an alternative rock, grunge festival, which were two popular music genres during that decade.The festival toured from 1991-1997 but ceased to exist in 1998 as the tour failed to find a headliner. The decline of alternative rock is also credited for the festival’s cancellation that year.

In 2003, Jane’s Addiction got back together. Farrell decided to revive the tour. It planned to go through 30 cities in July and August that year, but ultimately had to cancel some dates due to poor ticket sales. The tour again was planned for 2004 but low ticket sales due to high ticket prices caused its cancellation. In 2005, Farrell teamed with Capital Sports & Entertainment (now known as C3 Presents) to produce the festival. It was that year that Lollapalooza became a destination festival in Grant Park. Lollapalooza 2005 spanned over two days and featured 70 acts on 5 different stages which generated a crowd of 65,000+. After returning to much success in 2006, Chicago Park District and Capital Sports & Entertainment signed a 5 year deal that would keep Lollapalooza in Chicago through 2011. After the 2008 festival, the parties again agreed on another deal that would keep the festival in Chicago through 2018. This year’s festival will be the first time that the event spans over 4 days. The 4th day was added in celebration of the festival’s 25th anniversary this year.

Since 2011, the festival has expanded beyond Grant Park to countries in South America. Lollapalooza festivals started up in Chile, Brazil, and Argentina in recent years. Last year the festival even made its way to Europe with an appearance in Berlin, Germany. Many up and coming artists have graced a stage at Lollapalooza before their popularity increased such as The Black Keys, Passion Pit, Manchester Orchestra, Haim, Foals, Frank Ocean, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Fun., Tame Impala, and MGMT. As one of the most well known festivals in America in recent years, along with Coachella, Bonnaroo, and Austin City Limits, Lollapalooza has consistently attracted solid lineups and high-billed performers. This year’s headliners include Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and LCD Soundsystem. While not the most incredible set of headliners Grant Park has ever seen (but to each their own of course!), this year’s performances will surely be memorable since each headliner knows how to put on an incredible show.

When it comes to my history with the festival, it actually goes further back than Coachella. Lollapalooza was one of the first music festivals I had ever heard of. During the 2nd semester of my freshman year of college in a Music 101 class, one of my friends mentioned the festival. He was also the first to introduce me to the band Vampire Weekend, who played the festival a year earlier. I remember him saying that he would love to attend Lollapalooza that following summer. Up until then, all I knew of festivals were the Vans Warped Tour and the now non-existent, Bamboozle, so later that day I looked up Lollapalooza to find out who was playing and what kind of festival it was. At that time in my life, I didn’t know many of the bands playing. Now I can look back at the 2008 lineup and shake my head over what I didn’t know in the spring of 2008.

Since my love for indie/alternative music grew in 2011, I’ve always considered Lollapalooza as a prominent music festival in the United States, making the opportunity to be a part of this year’s festival that much greater. The festival weekend begins in 2 days and I head to Chicago in less than 24 hours. I can’t wait to experience this festival and see what Chicago has to offer. Hopefully this 25th anniversary will be legendary!