You can pretty much throw the thesaurus at Coachella.

Massive. Enormous. Awesome. Timeless. Insane. Excessive.

Okay so I planned for that to spell Meatie. I don't know why, I was bored.

Click read more, there'll be text and pictures and things..



Coachella, for those not in the know, is a big music festival in the middle of the desert, about three hours east of LA. It's awesome for a number of reasons, but partially because of the number of people who migrate south for the festival, escaping a long winter and showing their pasty bodies off in the burning heat.

Coachella is this amazing place. You're in the desert, watching these amazing artists, surrounded by people just everywhere, swarming like locusts, at this place that is ringed by snow-capped mountains. Then you look up, there's a mile-long chain of helium balloons, planes flying ads across the sky, circus acts, water stages, a fire spiral, a roller-skating rink, bike-taxis cruising around, marshalls on horseback, just everything you can imagine.

Oh and there were these amazing art installations all around, including these walls where anyone could add their graffiti to it:





And this thing. I don't know what it is but it glows blue at night, and I saw a dude lying underneath it for a good 20 mins, smiling his brains out the whole time.. Mushrooms much?



To compare Coachella to an Australian festival would be unfair because it's on a different scale entirely, but think (Falls + Pyramid + Splendour) x5. I.E biiiiiiig.

I met up with a bunch of kids in Sacramento and we made the epic journey south on Thursday, which took about 14 hours door-to-campsite, and then the beers began.

Before the festival rundown, I should add that one of the coolest things about the festival was being adopted into the Sacramento family-gang-hybrid-thing, who were so awesome letting me stay with them and being legends and cooking me food and stuff.

The gang:


(L-R) Kevin, Jenna, Stu, Kari, Jalal, Brendan, Omar.

We woke up in the morning sweating our various parts off, revelling in the burning heat (low 30s.. shut up) of the desert sun - a nice contrast after being in -22 at the top of the hill at Revelstoke six days earlier.

You'll notice I don't have lots of pics to accompany this post - that's because I'm lazy.

Here's the lineup by the way:



So Friday was only a half day in the music sense, and a half day bumming around..

Highs: Vampire Weekend, She & Him (damn she's awesome)

Lows: Dun dun dun dunnnn... Jay Z. Was expecting an epic show from him, but after a bit his voice was too much to handle, so we left. Apparently Beyonce came on for a guest spot later, but too little too late.

Saturday was what I was thinking would be THE day - the lineup looked fantastic, and it was. Same deal as earlier, smoking hot, shade = awesome, the water spray stage = even better.

Highs: Muse - I had big expectations for Muse, they've got that BIG sound that I thought would just go nuts, and they did. Lasers, light show, smoke machines.. and just big music. So cool.

Faith No More - Man for an older band they knew how to rock a younger audience, was so cool with all those songs you have heard for years but never really put a face to.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes - their music was just perfect for the day.. so folky!

Temper Trap - 'This one's for the Australians in the crowd' 'woooooooooooooo'

Lows: MGMT - maybe I wasn't close enough or something, but they played a whole bunch of new stuff and mixed some old stuff in, just didn't get into it.

Sunday.. Holy crap, Sunday already? That was my waking thought anyway. Time flies. Sunday was the best day, hands down. The bands were so incredible, Kari & Stu's gourmet breakfast was almost as good, everything was wicked.

Highs: THOM FREAKIN YORKE - damn, he was amazing. Played almost all of Eraser, then a few solo acoustic songs, then the band (with Flea, i might add) came back on and they killed it with new stuff and some Radiohead songs too. Man.. mind-blowing stuff.

Jonsi - the dude from Sigur Ros. I knew the Sigur Ros style of music but had never heard his stuff. Oh man, he gave the whole crowd goosebumps. The amazing headdress didn't hurt either.

Phoenix - Who couldn't like these guys? Their lights guy couldn't fly out of Europe so they played pretty much the whole set without a light show, which at sunset was an awesome turn of events, and the whole crowd was into it, so good.

The Middle East - first band of the day, amazing and Aussies to boot. I now have a highly developed crush on the girl in the band.

Florence and the Machine - I only caught her last two songs but she turned Rabbit Heart into a 10-15 minute wig out on stage and it was truly something that had to be seen to be believed. She was epic, wish I'd seen the whole set.

Lows: That it was the last day of the festival.

Stu's Musical Top Five (with number one being the most radical of radical):

5. Phoenix
4. Muse
3. The Middle East
2. Jonsi
1. Thom Yorke

Ahh yeah, so not many pics. Here's a few for kicks though, I took a couple of sunset shots: