All the titles of the bands have links to Live performances some of them from Coachella... enjoy!
To kick off the music was Black Joe Lewis… We thought the name sounded cool and expected an old country/bluesy band… which it kinda was however instead of Black Joe Lewis being an old white guy with a beard it was this young black guy who should have been rapping. It was fun music though they had a great horn section and were able to rock out the solos.
Everybody loves the hit Fuck You performed by Cee Lo Green… I thought hey this should be awesome live. Had watched the performance at the Grammys with Gwyneth Paltro and it totally rock out and then listened to some of the other tracks online and found out that Cee Lo Green was also ½ of the brain behind Narls Barkley (think crazy…) so I was quite excited to hear him live… expecting a big band solid sound and an awesome time… firstly he went on about 25 mins late (not the thing to do at Coachella) and was onstage with a high school chick band. The girls seemed so fake and like they had been taught to shake their hair and rock the stage… it was quite a joke to be honest. The music was terrible and as for Cee Lo Green man that guy what a disappointment. He just swaggered across the stage mouthing off. But wait theres more. He came across quite pissed off and after playing 2 songs said he only had time for one more… he said F*** this… are you all F***ing pissed off at this f***ing S***… if you are then hold your middle fingers in the air (seriously I was in fits during this time) and proceeded to play the hit… with an audience of fist pumpers… giving the stage the fingers.
The song was pretty bad, there was a whole lot of fake instrumentation, I don’t even know if the girls were playing? The song ended and it was clear he wasn’t leaving the stage… next thing we know the keyboard starts playing… the intro to… Don’t stop believing… NO KIDDING. Cee Lo gets through the first line and BAM sound gets cut… he looks super angry as the girls continue to play but you cant hear anything and he is escorted off stage… so the audience… immediately reacts with a disappointed and affectionate boo towards the sound desk… and we are left wondering how much was a set up?
So I don’t really know any of Lauryn Hill’s music but Sam convinced me to stick around for it and lets say she was everything Cee Lo Green wasn’t! What a performer. She had a full brass band on stage (sousaphones included) as well as a supportive group of back up vocalists. Even though I didn’t know any of the songs I felt I had loved her for years and was able to dance the evening away! What a treat. Soul singing at its best!
We then headed over to the smaller stage for Cold War Kids. I discovered these guys about a year ago (Thanks Jess Armstrong) and while I didn’t love them immediately there was something that kept drawing me back. I think the music is quite intelligent with clever time, key and tempo changes. I thought hey yea lets check them out… and WOW I was pleasantly surprised by their awesomeness live. The band also came across really well which I liked, seemed like nice guys. Sam also thought that one of the guitarists went to his school? They played a bit of new stuff which I am not usually up for but I really enjoyed it, it seemed a bit more mellow but still upbeat. He played a couple of songs at the piano which were quite cool. I think I also really appreciated the lyrics, they were so deep and insightful. The other winning factor for this set was that it was at sunset… which was breathtaking.
I wanted to hear the aquabats and ended up catching the back end of Cut Copy’s set. What a great time. These guys were really solid and seemed really tight.
The aquabats… takes me back to my days of ska and the good times it brings. These guys are a total fun band but they pulled out all the stops that makes Ska the funnest music out! They all dress up as aqua super heros… wearing lycra wet suits, swimming caps and goggles. They had a full visual show which was made up of movie clips from all over the place, with cartoon batman style POW WAM BAMs included. They also utilised props on stage which were so lame but awesomely lame. One of my favourite songs was BFF Big Friends Forever and they had a bunch of blow up people onstage. They also bought a huge blow up dinosaur as well as Cave men onstage which they managed to save the world from. Just a fun time! Got my skank on!
Im going to be honest… I like to hate on Kings of Leon. I think it’s the rockstar music that just goes nowhere and doesn’t do anything amazing for me… but I thought hey ive got nothing better to do I am going to humble myself and sit in the back… and man was I wrong to doubt their ability to perform. They were amazing. Huge sound, so tight and you could just hear that they had been performing live for a while and knew what they were doing. A lot can be said for a well experienced band. I really really liked their old stuff had a real country blues feel to it. What was also cool about the crowd was that there was room to just sit back lie down and watch the stars. No one can underestimate how life changing live music is under the stars… awesome! and ive never screamed the word SEX so loud!We stuck around for these guys who came on about an hour late, we ended up staying for about 4 songs which I really enjoyed. Again such a solid experienced sound. They also had a really cool visual show – which was actually kinda creepy with a weird clown and then a horse that kept running at you.
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