Coachella is a lot of things. Similar to Los Angeles, people who have never experienced it have serious opinions about it. And while a lot of these perceptions are often true (bad traffic, expensive food, big crowds), there is something about Coachella that makes it one of the best value musical experiences you can have in this world.
If you make a point to watch even just a little bit of Justin Bieber or Sabrina Carpenter, you’ve already made your money back. From a simple numbers perspective, the production value that goes into each set is exorbitant, and it’s all for you to enjoy. When there is a pool of 125,000 attendees (as well as a Global audience on YouTube), artists are incentivized to throw everything they have at you. And looking at the cost of an average concert these days, the math starts mathing pretty quickly when you realize you are going to see 30+ artists from a variety of genres over the course of three days. On top of that, any tent or stage you walk up to is filled with infectious super fans from all parts of the world. Trust me, you’ll get into it.
On that note, Coachella is also full of music listeners with highly elevated and curated taste. As such, they are unforgiving in a way that forces artists to step up their game. Late start? Bad sound quality? Telling us how to dance? You’ve lost some fans. This year’s Sunday closing act, Kaskade, mentioned in an interview that Coachella is a make-or-break for many artists. The pressure comes to a head, and we see what they’re made of. He himself rented out an arena in the Los Angeles area and practiced his set for several weeks prior to opening weekend (btw, it was bangin’).
Additionally, a lot of the artists use their platform to showcase smaller, unknown artists with tremendous talent, or bring out old stars from yesteryear to give them their flowers. This year, Teddy Swims brought out Vanessa Carlton to reprise her famous “Thousand Miles” and David Lee Roth of Van Halen for “Jump.” Moby, who performed at the first Coachella in 1999, played again this year and offered up a slew of singers and musicians, including singer Jacob Lusk draped in a red silk gown, belting a vibrato that brought the crowd to tears. FKA Twigs brought out top-tier vogue battlers, acrobats hanging from chains, and dancers dressed in nude thongs with bullwhips. Even Iggy Pop (who is now 78 years old) had a prime time set at the Mojave on Sunday. You’ll be exposed to a lot of things that were not on your bingo card.
And speaking about exposure, the diversity of Coachella is another thing we should praise it for. Music has a way of bringing people together from different walks of life and backgrounds. You might find yourself bonding with a stranger over a Sade T-shirt while waiting for Sean Paul to start his set. I have clear memories of dancing with smiling strangers at the DoLab, and thinking to myself, I would never in my life have exchanged energy with this person if it weren’t for Coachella.
And the people watching… my God! The style, the weirdness, and the humans are all there. Prior to Coachella, the most people I’d ever seen in one place was at Waterloo Station in London. And even since visiting Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo, I still have to say that Coachella takes it. From the top of the Ferris Wheel, the attendees look like little ants wandering about the polo field. Moving from the Sahara to the Gobi in the darkening twilight is not for the weak. It feels like a darkened Moroccan Medina, a storm of humans going every which way. Wrap your pashmina around your shoulders, keep your eyes forward, and find the open veins. And of course, you’ll bump into people, but that’s a good thing. And what’s more is you’ll bump into people you know. In the mix, you’ll see friends you didn’t expect to, and maybe they’ll take you by the hand and bring you to an artist you’ve never heard of. With so many souls in one place, the randomization of the universe zooms out pretty quickly, and we see that we are all right where we are meant to be.
Coachella is also putting a more solid effort into its art. This year, they built an underground bunker with a Radiohead installation and film. They had giant sculptures in the fields that provided much needed shade during the hottest parts of the day. As per the weather, we were mostly blessed with mid-seventies and big, puffy clouds. The hottest part of it was Friday afternoon, which peaked in the mid-80s. Some years, the festival can be hotter than 100 degrees during the day and drop into the 50s at night. You’ll see teeny-boppers wrapped up in crinkly space blankets when the night falls, and the winds pick up. Brr!
The whole thing really unlocks when you learn some patience, take time to prioritize your day (so you don’t needlessly walk an extra 20,000 steps), and time your exits and arrivals to beat the rush. You can really tap into the human collective groupthink and outpace it. You can make Coachella serve you, and it really, really does.
Highlights this year were The XX, who performed together for the first time since their 2017 Album tour for I See You. I arrived at the front of the stage 20 minutes early with my yakisoba and was able to have a nice meal before their sunset show came on. The smooth sliding guitars and male-female mixing vocals backed by Jamie XX’s production make for a dreamy dance set that brought the millennials back to their late-night off-campus houses.
Moby was a party. He banged on the bongos and offered up his talented team. At one point, he made a joke that he was bringing out a celebrity. He then put Eminem’s picture on the screen and looped the famous lyric, “Moby, nobody listens to Techno,” turning his own diss into a dance track. You can tell Moby is very thoughtful and intentional about his performances; he interacts with the crowd like a true showman and presents his work like an art piece.
Nine Inch Noize (Boys Noise and Nine Inch Nails) brought together the worlds of hard metal and hard techno. Their stage was crawling (no, literally crawling) with dancers in lacquered red suits, moving like spider zombies around the stage. The sound was superb, and the screen effects transportive. Like Moby, this was a piece of art/theater that you could move your body to.
And let’s not forget the vocalist Giveon, who had a gorgeous moment during his song “Mia”, with a lithe ballerina dancing silhouetted around him. He wears black leather gloves and is dressed like James Bond. His voice is a bubble bath of masculinity, and when he takes off his suit coat, we all feel it. Labrinth, made famous for his featured tracks on Euphoria, brought in a level of production that might be my favorite moment of the festival—Him standing on a rising tower singing and riffing on the electric guitar. Fat Boy Slim, who has been around since American Pie, curated a playful and unrelentingly joyful set at the Quasar stage. And one of my personal faves for dancing in the dark, Adriatique.
There are some tricks to the fest. Accept the fact that you’ll be paying $25-30 per evening for dinner. And if you’re with friends, make sure you take time for yourself to see the acts you want to see. Texting is a fool’s errand, but sometimes does work. Self-parking is free and generally pretty easy if you arrive before 5:00 PM. I don’t drink, so driving is never an issue. Similarly, if you’re trying to get out before the rush, you can leave 10 minutes before the final show ends and not have any problems leaving. If you do stay, the campgrounds offer some late-night parties to enjoy while you wait for the traffic to subside. On the last night, we stayed late, and a friend took us to do a cold plunge, and then we made zucchini in his camper. By the time I got back to my car, there was no friction to get back to my place in Cathedral City.
On the Monday drive back from the desert, I see the empty coconut waters on the floor of my Subaru. The dusty bandanas spill out from my TJ Maxx bag of outfits. There is a rare light sprinkle of rain in the desert. And as I drive, the traffic dissipates as people branch off from the 10 to the 60, the 210, and the 215.
In 2022, I worked as press for my first Coachella. In 2023, I decided to skip it, but ended up regretting it, and have not missed one since. The magic that happens there is too wonderful, and I hope to go back as often as the world allows me to. And now, the FOMO is setting in for the masses, as the social media posts fill their feeds. The Weekend 2 tickets that were once $650 on Facebook Marketplace are now going for $950 on the low end. Should have gotten there sooner and beaten the crowd… but I swear, it’s worth every penny.
Check out this Coachella 2026 Playlist to get hyped:
The Indy Review 