While they may drink muscle-milk in an attempt to distinguish themselves, white Americans are most definitely some cross-breed of Anglo heritage and, for many, the desert is unfamiliar territory. Yet these music pilgrims came to the desert, Palm Springs, California last month for the festival of the year – Coachella, 2012.
A THIRST FOR MUSIC
As 50,000 tomato-coloured bodies wander deliriously, some questions seem apt: Why here? Why would you take me here? Why the desert? And where is the fucking water? Welcome to the festival in the desert – water wasn’t included in the price of your ticket. Also, what are the hydrating properties of muscle-milk and are short, weedy, ‘aliens’ (to invoke my immigration-status) allowed it? The search for sacred water: a definitive part of the festival you may have missed on YouTube.
The music starts at midday so I’ve calculated if you attempted to see all the acts on the main-stage without leaving you would, quite simply, die. It was there, in five fountains spread out across the entire festival. UK Health and Safety would have a heart attack, if they didn’t succumb to heatstroke first. “This is a disgrace, I want provisions,” I say to a steward. “Well if you recycle ten of your empty bottles, you receive a free 500ml from our tent,” she responds. I know we’re speaking the same language, but are we really?
PROHIBITION COUNTRY
Thursday evening before the festival: it’s time to get in. My group uses the convincing guise of ‘exchange students’ in the cause of our operative identities of ‘international smugglers’. “I’ve got forty beers under the seats, vodka in the glove compartment and a fake ID I hope I don’t have to use,” says Joe, expert at such matters. Moonshine, liquor, booze, call it what you will – in America, us Brits are forced into the underground to enjoy the national staple of ‘warm festival pint’. Luckily our Avis rental-car cum drugs-mule makes it through security. Having momentarily debilitated the Security Warden with our “lovely accents”, no further James Bond evasion tactics were required. A man next to me has his backpack searched.
Sticking out, quite plain to see, is an ounce of what most certainly is not oregano. “What’s this?” asks the security guard. My heart sinks for the guy. Oregano can be an essential festival ingredient for some, and no one wants theirs taken away. “It’s a hybrid [strain of Marijuana] from Humboldt County. They call it Blueberry Headband,” replies the man, who, upon second glance, could be a woman. Was he unsolent? Was he over-confident? Well, let me put it this way: this is California, where an Austrian bodybuilder and Sci-Fi Hero got elected to ‘Governate’ the state, and then proceeded to decriminalise Marijuana. “Blueberry Headband?” replies the Warden, “I love that stuff, have a great weekend.”
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Concerning the standard English festival: For those in possession of a decent pair of Wellington Boots, their utility at avoiding the muck, piss, squelch and vomit below is quite the privilege. We shudder at the thought of what could be down there, on that unloved part of the land which is used only for that convivial purpose each year.
At Coachella, there was none of that. The turf was pristine, and respected, and rented from (of all organisations!?) a polo club. In fact, I dared to walk around barefoot (before realising how painful stepping on that desert land could be). Personal space was revered in both the campsite and crowd (who were extremely polite). Not once did I get covered in piss, or find a mosh-pit. Each group was assigned their own, equal, personal square for camping. None of this tent-where-you-like malarky.
Whereas aforementioned water safety may have been a bit of a burden, there were none of those mad noise level regulations we have in England. The music was loud and glorious. As for the potential health hazards, (the tinnitus, deafness, and such) let’s just say it was worthwhile. Not once did I feel the urge to actually hear the song on my iPod as opposed to the banal chatter, louder than the music, between Kelly and Frankie from Essex and their holiday in Kavos that summer (The Killers, Reading Festival, August 2009). There was a monolithic ferris wheel in the middle of the festival’s vast grounds. I can’t think of a music festival in England with such a fun and bewitching icon.
THE LAND OF 3D…
In the land of dreams, a man, truly back from the dead is standing before me. He is a God of hip-hop and we thought he was gone – but this resurrection is a miracle before my eyes. The phantom in front of me is Tupac Shakur, and he is preaching his sermon to the very crowd I’m standing in. “WHADDUP COACHELLA?” – Yes, I am at Coachella. Yes, you’re dead. As skeptical as I was at first, it’s impossible to deny the presence of the holy ghost of Hip-Hop – Tupac Shakur at Coachella, 2012 – and the rippling effect it had on the world of music. Everyone was in awe for good reason. 3D had, the week previously, transported me to the world of the Titanic via James Cameron; now 3D was showing me the way of Tupac Shakur. I came to America a sceptic. But this is the land of 3D. Tupac’s disciple, St. Snoop Doggy Dogg, kept his distance due to the risk, I suppose, of walking through the hologram, making for what can only be described as a slightly awkward on-stage relationship. Did Snoop Dogg want to throw a casual arm over Tupac’s shoulder? Did Tupac actually want to be alive?
As both Snoop Dogg and Tupac gave all the passion they had (whether that be human passion or computerised passion), something slightly uneasy overrode the performance. Of course, our Lord and Saviour Tupac Shakur would have to be about two times his real-life size. Resurrection does that to you. History, having already proven the resurrection gig as a pretty good PR stunt, as was predictable, Tupac’s appearance would be known the world over via YouTube. To be honest, the whole thing seemed just a bit freaky. This hip-hop séance, led by Snoop Dogg, had to be seen to be believed. Only in America could this happen. 3D bless America.
CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
“Bex, you’re driving on the wrong side of the road!” Rebecca’s from Bromley, London. She’s been in the US for 8 months and yet, some habits die hard. It’s 3am on Sunday morning, it’s over and we’ve finally left the festival. If the risk of severe dehydration was not enough, she just added car-crash to the list of distinctly American hazards. English people, I think, are just not very good at adapting. In our cultural pomposity, we just assumed that water would be plentiful in the desert, just as we assumed that the left side was the right side.
HONK HONK: Right, so, another thing about America is there is an abundance of ten-ton trucks, transporting the consumerist life-blood of the nation. It seems – in Rebecca’s English delirium – that we’re set for a head on collision.
HONK HONK: I cannot believe it took two pairs of honking before Rebecca realised we had left the Disneyland of music and were re-entering the tangibly Real World. That thing in front of us was real. A ten-ton truck, which our driver definitely needed to become conscious of. She swerves and we miss a bullet. She squeals something about not remembering, or driving in a foreign country being a nuisance. We live, and the need to edify this group of exhausted Brits in a hologram for their adoring friends and family disappears, for the time being anyway.