The camera adds 90 percent of the excitement to Warpaint on a hot afternoon.
What can't be seen is the heat and a palpable sense of disinterest (with boredom creeping in). For example, notice the chinks in the armor: At minute 2:40, people are walking by without looking, cars are passing, big swaths of empty lawn lay barren, and massive numbers of yellow-shirted security dudes staring at hipsters have nothing to do but sip on solar-irradiated plastic water bottles full of xenoestrogens. Love you all! Wish you were here! Yawn. No peace, no love, and very little rock 'n roll, it's all about looking for DJs in humid circus tents to get out of the sun. It gets better at night, but only if we have been sleeping all day.
Flogging Molly "Seven Deadly Sins," live at Coachella 2011
Fun is what we make of it: friends, good company, finding in the right tents, getting good phone reception, and keeping laptop batteries from overheating in the desert while trying to recharge them using a photovoltaic device hanging off a backpack. Dehydration makes one dizzy.
But the shocking thing is how well behaved everyone is. Woodstock was all about gate crashing and being so wet and muddy in the middle of August that nothing mattered. Of course, in those days, there was a war going on. Now we have three wars (not counting the secret ones). Coachella security won't let anyone within a mile of the gate without a wristband. We were born too late. We miss the myth of the 60s. Who even played Woodstock 1969?.
Techno, the real reason people drive out to Coachella