Coachella 2012: The battle of the double weekend

Coachella's new dueling weekends have unwittingly started a bitter turf war between those at the festival now and those who plan to come next week.

In years past, if you were the socially adept, party-minded type, you could pretty much bank on the fact that all the cool kids in your social satellite system would be somewhere on the Empire Polo Field, in line for Spicy Pie pizza, or wearing next-to-nothing at the Ace pool party.

This year, however, a text bearing the age-old Coachella rallying cry, "Dude! VIP lounge, now. Shots!" has a 50% chance of being met with the reply, "Dude. I'm coming next weekend. Too bad for you cuz it's so cold there right now."

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It's that last part that's getting old for those in attendance during the first weekend. That little dig about it being cold, and the unsaid but pointedly implied suggestion that when the receiver of the party text shows up next weekend he or she will arrive spirited on the back of a unicorn under skies so sunny and warm that no choice will be left for next week's festival-goer but to wear a thong and gladiator sandals.

But here's the thing: Those in attendance for the first weekend -- the one with weather so freakish for the desert at this time of year that one can assume there is no precedent for it in the margins of Coachella founder Paul Tollet's festival diary -- are part of a unified tribe. Call it "Tribe Awesome."

Tribe Awesome is bound together by the knowlege that it has survived the worst the weather had to offer and came back for more. In fact, on Saturday morning with the sun peeking oh-so-mischeviously from behind freshly laundered white clouds, Tribe Awesome feels as if it has been granted a second lease on life.

Tribe Awesome will swim at an afternoon pool party or two in new swimsuits (even though the temperature is not supposed to crack 70 degrees), and Tribe Awesome will like it. Tribe Awesome has been through something. And that's not something that those fair-weather fans -- the ones arriving next weekend in their floral skivvies -- will understand.

Let them have sun and warmth and tons of scantily clad ladies to gawk at. Tribe Awesome has a brooding black sweatshirt that reads, "I survived Cold-chella," and as such Tribe Awesome's stories will be so much better in retrospect.

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--Jessica Gelt

Photo: Matt Perri and Rachel Fader brave the elements on the first day of the Coachella Valley Music and Art Festival. Credit: Michael Buckner / Getty Images