7-28-04

If I had to sum up the 2004 Coachella Music and Arts Festival in one word, it’d be “hyper expansive mind tripping heat wave of rock.” If you don’t know what Coachella is, I’ll explain. Every May, in the little desert town of Indio, California, a bunch of bands show up and rock the socks off of the town and consequentially split like a contradictory two-day one night stand. This was my first festival experience and the following is not intended to be a review as much as a recount of my lucid journey into a weekend of drugs and rock n’ roll.

Accompanying me at the festival was my roommate who, for reasons of privacy and pure entertainment value, I will refer to as Ms. Stankleberry. Also along for the ride was a soon to be good friend of mine by the name of Jason. Jason was our resident hippy and for his uncanny ability to fill our herbal prescriptions, I shall call him Dr. J from here on out.

Another appropriate nickname for Dr. J would have been “Jesus” for his chin-length reddish-brown hair, his savior-esque beard, and his knack for performing miracles with drugs. I’m from a state that arrests you for smoking pot and probably shoots and quarters you for selling it, so I had never entertained the thought of smoking in public. I was holding a flyer explaining the rules and it clearly stated, “No drugs allowed.” I accepted the statement and assumed that there would be no drugs. Dr J, being much wiser, threw caution to the wind and performed a Statue of Liberty play with his drugs - placing them soundly in his pocket. He entered the grounds without a hitch. I was bewildered and taken aback by the magic this obvious magician could wield. I’d like to believe that Dr. J used some sort of mind manipulation to blind the guards whilst we snuck past, but I’m pretty sure it was all due to California’s general apathy toward drug use.

We showed up around 2 pm and when we got to the main stage, International Noise Conspiracy was playing. Now is a good time to explain my personal pros and cons of pot at a festival. Pot Pro: Abundance. I would not have been as impressed with Dr. J if I had known that pot at a concert is like popcorn at a movie theater. At one point I remember sitting in our group and saying, “Man, where are we gonna find more pot?” Just then a man came by.

“I’ll trade you guys some grass for a cigarette,” he says.

It sounded like a ludicrous proposition, but I’m not stingy with cigarettes so I gave him one expecting him to give me a handful of polo turf. Boy was I surprised when he pulled out a lovely bag o’ weed. (Grass = Weed, duh) Pot Pro 2: Longevity. Due to lack of nutrition and the scorching heat, I was more or less high the entire two days of the festival. Pot Con: Memory Loss. Being the uptight person I can be in social situations, I don’t think I could have enjoyed the music without a little herbal therapy. Consequentially, there are details of certain shows that I was forced to leave in the desert. For instance, the band after International Noise Conspiracy, Sparta, I don’t remember a damn thing about. Did they fly in on a helicopter and spray blood all over the crowd? I couldn’t tell you.

The band I remember best, one that sealed my love of live music in concrete, was Radiohead. They were incredible. The band played in front of several rows of bar lights set to light up like an LED Audio VU meter. That’s dorky sound-guy talk for lights that light up when sound is played. Whenever a song would climax, the lights go crazy bright. I don’t know if it was the pot (yes, it was the pot), but I was in awe of them and their flashing lights. After that experience, I consider myself a huge Radiohead fan and place them at the top of all my “Favorite Music” lists. Yes, I know, everyone’s a big Radiohead fan. Well it’s really cool for me, so BACK OFF!

That night we crashed on the nearest piece of grass and awoke to the 6 AM desert sun in our face. A little known fact about the desert is that it’s really quite hot. I’m serious, you don’t even need a jacket or anything cause it’s very warm.

Day two, for the most part, was a little on the awful side. We had run out of most all of our drugs save a quarter ounce or so of shrooms that Dr. J had left over. So we were left with the age-old question, “Man, where are we going to find more drugs?” Just then a man walked buy.

“You guys wanna buy some shrooms?”

“Of course I want shrooms!” I thought, “What a great idea to do shrooms at a concert!” You see, I’d done shrooms once before and it was pretty great, but at Coachella I had chosen to ignore the sound advice from friends that strictly forbade doing shrooms in uncomfortable places with lots of people. The only thing I was thinking was that Dr. J was doing them the day before and he’s fine! Well, Dr. J failed to mention that he had a pretty bad trip the first day. I don’t know why he didn’t mention this or, even more, why he decided to do them again with us on the second day.

Half way through the first day after standing in a very uncomfortable crowd and guzzling two-dollar waters for 5 hours, we decided to take the shrooms. What followed was a face melting trip that drove Dr. J, Ms. Stankleberry, and I to near insanity. Within 15 minutes or so I had started to feel the swimmy effects, quickly excelling me into an incredibly agitated state. I excused myself from Ms. Stankleberry and Dr. J and spent the next 5 hours wandering the concert area trying not to look at anyone for fear that they would mutate and eat my brain. I was terrified that some police officer was going to see me tripping balls, come talk to me, and assume a snarling evil pig-face sending me off the edge. I honestly can’t remember any details about the bands that I saw after I took the shrooms except for generalized emotions that don’t really translate into entertainment criticism. I know that Belle and Sebastian got on my nerves. Air kind of freaked me out. Bright Eyes really freaked me. Somehow I found enough comfort in chain smoking and going to the bathroom that I was able to make it through the first part of the trip. Both Ms. Stankleberry and Dr. J’s trips were going equally bad. We had all become separated and the one thing that brought us out of our respective purgatories was the Flaming Lips. When they played, all three of us individually experienced an extreme sense of euphoria and we were overcome with child-like joy at Wayne and his big inflatable ball.

Luckily things got better because they couldn’t have gotten any worse without my eyes bleeding. After I was coming down from the trip I met up with a beautiful friend of mine who was also attending the concert and we watched a little bit of The Cure. Did you know that Robert Smith is fat?

Looking back at the two days, I have several memories - most of them blurry. But I do remember the best performance I’ve ever seen, as well as the worst 6 hours of my life. I’ll probably never go to another festival due primarily to the amount of discomfort that one is forced to endure for $80 a day. However, Coachella did teach me many valuable lessons, including, but not limited to: Radiohead is the best band alive, live music rocks, pot is pretty cool, and never ever do shrooms at a concert unless you want to experience hell. With that knowledge in hand, I progress.

Paul Teagan