Can someone explain to me Coachella?

[Saul Goodman]

Never heard of it until this year. Everything I've seen makes it look really stupid. "Influencers" seem to be a big factor. I hate "influencers" by the by. One "influencer" said she spent 900k for her and her crew to attend the "music" event.

Everything I've seen looks like a suck time and a suck lineup.

/rant

[Dave Scepter]

17 minutes ago, Saul Goodman said:

Everything I've seen looks like a suck time and a suck lineup

Too easy 🤣

[LucSulla]

Coachella started in 1993 when Pearl Jam was boycotting Ticketmaster. They booked Empire Polo Club in Indio, and thus Coachella was born. 

Kinda.

The notion to make it a festival didn't roll around until 1997 when the promoter who did the original show was inspired by the success of Glastonbury despite the shitty weather that festival often dealt with. 

The first actual festival was in 1999.  Good lineup (at least as far as being representative of alt rock and electronic music at the time), but it didn't make money. The original owners got involved with AEG after another year off and brought it back in 2001. It stayed relatively true to its roots initially but gradually became the influencer, overpriced* shitshow it is today over the course of 2010s. Starting in 2010 I think, single day tickets were eliminated, and enshitification commenced. 

Here are the line-ups up to 2019.

*I swore off festivals after Ozzfest 2000, so, in my opinion, they are never worth it. However, I can see how, if you liked festivals and a broad swath of indie, alt, electronica, and harder stuff, this would have been very appealing. At $65 a day, I'm sure it would have been a pretty cool scene. 

I'm not exactly defending it as much as saying there was a time where I would look at it and think, "That seems an all right thing if you're in that audience. I shan't yuck someone's yum."

However, for much of the last ten years, I've come to think nuking it would objectively be a net win for humanity by most any metric. 

Edited April 23 by LucSulla

[stobro]

All I know is that if you want to get to the Coachella Valley and the big carrot festival therein, you have to make a left turn at Albuquerque.

[Disturber]

The Nine Inch Noize gig looks epic on Youtube. Wish I could have seen it.

I've seen NIN three, four times and evertime has been killer. 

I used to go to festivals every summer for over 15 years. Back then there was no smartphones. We lived in the moment.

It was great when I was young and could kill a hangover with a new beer - and a three day binge was something you anticipated. These days one festival night would keep me in bed for three days after, recouping and rehydrating.

 

[Saul Goodman]

12 hours ago, LucSulla said:

Coachella started in 1993 when Pearl Jam was boycotting Ticketmaster. They booked Empire Polo Club in Indio, and thus Coachella was born. 

Kinda.

The notion to make it a festival didn't roll around until 1997 when the promoter who did the original show was inspired by the success of Glastonbury despite the shitty weather that festival often dealt with. 

The first actual festival was in 1999.  Good lineup (at least as far as being representative of alt rock and electronic music at the time), but it didn't make money. The original owners got involved with AEG after another year off and brought it back in 2001. It stayed relatively true to its roots initially but gradually became the influencer, overpriced* shitshow it is today over the course of 2010s. Starting in 2010 I think, single day tickets were eliminated, and enshitification commenced. 

Here are the line-ups up to 2019.

*I swore off festivals after Ozzfest 2000, so, in my opinion, they are never worth it. However, I can see how, if you liked festivals and a broad swath of indie, alt, electronica, and harder stuff, this would have been very appealing. At $65 a day, I'm sure it would have been a pretty cool scene. 

I'm not exactly defending it as much as saying there was a time where I would look at it and think, "That seems an all right thing if you're in that audience. I shan't yuck someone's yum."

However, for much of the last ten years, I've come to think nuking it would objectively be a net win for humanity by most any metric. 

And this is the first year I've heard of it. "Enshitification," a new word for me. Thanks for the enshitification history.

 

7 hours ago, Disturber said:

The Nine Inch Noize gig looks epic on Youtube. Wish I could have seen it.

I've seen NIN three, four times and evertime has been killer. 

I used to go to festivals every summer for over 15 years. Back then there was no smartphones. We lived in the moment.

It was great when I was young and could kill a hangover with a new beer - and a three day binge was something you anticipated. These days one festival night would keep me in bed for three days after, recouping and rehydrating.

 

I've seen them a few times myself. Back around 2000 they had a "state-of-the-art" LCD backdrop made up of many panels. It was "The Fragile" tour. I got busted for an open container while in line to get in. $75 ticket and mandatory court appearance. Put a real damper on the show. A Perfect Circle opened for them. No one, except me, had heard of them except for their hit, "Judith," which they saved until the end. People swarmed into the arena like ants when they played that song. First time I saw them was, "The Downward Spiral," tour. Strange show with Marilyn Manson opening and The Jim Rose Sideshow (shitshow) in the middle. I may have seen them another time but maybe not.

[Disturber]

2 hours ago, Saul Goodman said:

And this is the first year I've heard of it. "Enshitification," a new word for me. Thanks for the enshitification history.

 

I've seen them a few times myself. Back around 2000 they had a "state-of-the-art" LCD backdrop made up of many panels. It was "The Fragile" tour. I got busted for an open container while in line to get in. $75 ticket and mandatory court appearance. Put a real damper on the show. A Perfect Circle opened for them. No one, except me, had heard of them except for their hit, "Judith," which they saved until the end. People swarmed into the arena like ants when they played that song. First time I saw them was, "The Downward Spiral," tour. Strange show with Marilyn Manson opening and The Jim Rose Sideshow (shitshow) in the middle. I may have seen them another time but maybe not.

I saw both Marilyn Manson and NIN on a fastival in the summer of 2005. Apparently it was not easy for the promotor to have them both at the same festival, as Trent hated Manson. But they played different nights. NIN was the top of the bill.

And I had tickets for the Nine Inch Nails concert scheduled for June 5, 1994, at Gino's in Stockholm, Sweden, during the Self Destruct Tour. I came up to the door and found out the show was cancelled. Trent had OD or something similar in Amsterdam. That is a show that still bums me to this day that I did not get to see.

[Biz Prof]

I equate such festivals with extremely low yield musical performance quality and high incidences of low hygiene. Caveat emptor.