Coachella!

Signs near the entrance to the Coachella Music and Arts Festival warned concertgoers that a documentary was being filmed and that by entering you were agreeing that your image could be used in the movie. It seemed a pointless gesture, capturing the sixth installment of the festival for posterity's sake. Really, Woodstock this was not. But by the end of the festival's second day, I was wondering when that documentary might be available, so I might check out the footage of The Arcade Fire's -- hold on while I consult the thesaurus -- electrifying, mindblowing, astonishing, overpowering -- and ultimately indescribable set.

The Arcade Fire topped my list of acts to see at the festival, not only because I was -- hold for the thesaurus again -- enchanted, capitvated, enraptured by their debut album, Funeral, but more because I failed to bribe my way in to see them at The Great American Music Hall last time they came to San Francisco. I figured seeing them at Coachella would be a salve for that stinging wound. In actuality, it just made it sting all the worse.

Michael and I had spent the previous two days drinking and whatnot*, sleeping just a few hours the first night in a posh, but noisy West Hollywood hotel room and not much more the next in the front seats of a rented Dodge Durango, so I wasn't sure come noon on Sunday if I would even be conscious for The Arcade Fire's evening performance. But the human body is surprisingly resilient sometimes, and this, lucky for us, was one of those times. Any lethargy that remained entrenched in my body was shaken free the moment the eight-piece Montreal juggernaut took the stage and all began belting out the first measures of the tune that starts all of their shows, appropriately titled "Wake Up".

The Arcade Fire played with a feverous energy that was unrivaled at the festival. Richard Parry and Will Butler pounded away on a drum, cymbals and a motorccyle helmet on the front right side of the stage before climbing the scaffolding to test the pitch of the steel thirty feet above the stage with their drumsticks. Will cut his hand on the climb and played the rest of the show while intermittently sucking on his bleeding fingers and wiping the blood with a towel. The group's string section spend much of the show on the other side of the stage head butting each other. The band tore through most of the songs on Funeral and added "No Cars Go" from their eponymous 2003 EP. Lead singer Win Butler, though agitated by some equipment issues, was still inspired enough to dive into the crowd and then later end the set by hurling his wireless mic 150 feet into the mass of about 4000 adoring fans.

You can check out some pictures here and here.

Oh yeah, and great performances were also turned in by Wilco, Spoon, Black Star, The Secret Machines and Immortal Technique. I also quite liked Sage Francis, who strode out on stage looking like a hip-hop Fidel Castro, though Michael responded by saying I was crazy.


* Please DON'T use your imaginations here, just let it go.