All the rage for all the right reasons

[Guest blogger August Brown rallies 'round the family, with a pocket full of shells.]

It’s hard to think about Rage Against The Machine in 2007 without remembering 1992. Clinton was in office, on his way to Oval Office, the economy was about to start sailing, and yet they still found plenty of reasons to be furious at The System. The group's headlining set on Sunday was probably the most anticipated set in Coachella history; everything from riots to bona fide revolution seemed possible, judging from the hyperbole about their reunion. How would their serrated funk-metal play in a decade where there’s more legitimate reasons to take to the streets, and when few musicians seems to know how to talk about them?

For the first three songs at least, it played awfully sedate. Nearly every weary body on the grounds champed at the bit for the band to come out (sorry, Evan Dando and Spank Rock). But in one of the year’s biggest anti-climaxes, Rage emerged to a muddy and anemic mix that knocked the wind out of Tim Commerford’s basslines. For a minute there, it seemed that the Machine would win out by cutting off Rage from their best weapon- their skull-cracking riffs.

But the soundboard pulled it together, turning up the master mix three songs in, and the band scorched. As did a few small bonfires near the right guardrails, but outside of a few rogue lighting rig climbers, the only really dangerous explosions were happening onstage. Zack de la Rocha spat venom at consumers, Christians and the shoppers on Rodeo Drive (one his better metaphorical punching bags) but kept the stage banter non-existent. Tom Morello, one of the last real guitar heroes left in America, conjured Hendrix’s solos, Public Enemy’s brittle DJ scratching and squeals of feedback in between Sly Stone-via-Dante’s Inferno funk licks. Commerford and drummer Brad Wilk were as martial as ever, and era-defining hits like “Bulls On Parade” and “Bombtrack” have held up astonishingly well.

The only time de la Rocha broke the fourth wall was to give everyone what they wanted- a deliberate and forthright rebuttal to the last six years of neocon politics.

“This administration should be tried, hung and shot,” he said, as if one form of execution wasn't enough. It may have been ham-fisted, but to hear it from the mouth of a rock singer today, de la Rocha may well have set the dam loose for political music at the tail end of the Bush era. Even if he didn’t though, the spectacle of 60,000 fans pounding their fists in unison closer “Killing In The Name Of" "Killing in the Name" was a reminder of better times for openly political music, or at least more hopeful ones from years past.

Corrected post; thanks to readers for keeping us on the ball.

Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler admits that she's annoyed with Rage for spawning the Korns of the world even though that's not really fair.]

You want to know how to fill up the Gobi tent when you're one of Coachella's sacrificial lambs? Start off by looking like Pharrell if reared by Kurtis Blow in Jamaica. Then add in some potty talk about the bathing suit areas of both genders. Oh, and some bongo players and ladies in braids who will pop and lock with big grins on their faces. And let's not forget the secret sauce: some mostly empty talk about the races rioting on the dance floor that will make you sound intelligent but is pretty much a ruse. But hey, whatever. Spank Rock isn't trying to gather the intelligentsia for a poetry reading.

Some of us like our festival closers blissfully stoopid, thank you very much.

Buzz emanated from several sets that we didn't have time to take in fully --especially the remarkable stylings of beatboxer Kid Beyond, who packed an afternoon set in the Gobi Tent.

The Kaiser Chiefs did all they could to prove they belonged, too, promoting their sophomore album -- as well as spontaneous athletic endeavors -- when frontman Ricky Wilson climbed the rigging at the Outdoor Theatre.

Rodrigo y Gabriela turned in another in a growing line of stunning Southern California appearances when they unleashed their flamenco metal on the Gobi Tent crowd. "Almost evil," somebody called it. And almost instrumental, too -- except when they executed their cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here." The crowd sang. Hearing that, we wish we were there.

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Then there was the requisite end-of-the-night crush to exit the Empire Polo Field. At the "back door" to the VIP area, a wristband-toting crowd had assembled, hoping the leave through the very same gate they left the night before. But things always change from day to day at Coachella. Always.

Beefy but friendly security blocked the gate, until a dude with an entourage made his way through (tapping a man wearing a vintage Motley Crue T-shirt on the shoulder and saying, "Nice shirt"). The dude cracked the gate and yelled, "I'm Tommy Lee, let me the ---- out."

The guards obliged. And Mr. Vintage Motley Crue tried the blend in with Lee's entourage, but that didn't work. "I'm never wearing this damn T-shirt again," he said as he was exiled back to the land of the lesser VIPs.

Thankfully, more exits were open at the end of Coachella 2007 than were open last year, when the crowded was herded into a single walkway.

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Overheard in the Mojave Tent while the Klaxons plied their Nu-Rave:

"I don't want to be here! I want to be at Willie (Nelson)!"

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Final thought: 2007 was the year Coachella bashed Bush. Could 2008 be the year Coachella feeds the world?

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler is pretty sure Ibiza was made up by a group of really savvy publicists. Or reality TV producers.]

On Day 3 of this behemoth that's going to close with a whole lotta Rage, the Outdoor Theatre crowd was ready to make out on grass-stained towels to Air's glittery sunset electronica. But the sexy boys of Air delayed their set by 30 minutes before finally taking the stage under hot pink lights. Good thing too because the crowd was about to riot. Ha, not really. A riot before Air? Avant-pop fans don't do that.

The French duo turned it out well enough, getting airport-lounge sedate in the right moments and cranking up the glitchy stadium rock to keep the fabulous quotient high. "Sexy Boy" was trotted out, as well as some bubbly "Virgin Suicides" score material.

But honestly? Coming out that late at some yacht party off of Ibiza is one thing but at Coachella, it's just kind of obnoxious. So I turned in my visa and headed for Teddybears.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler isn't happy that the VIP tent was barren of Gatorade today. What's up with that?]

Finally, a Coachella dance band put the video screens to good use. The stepchild of the fest isn't Evan Dando but the video screens that have been mostly abused with cheeseball psychedelic twiddle ripped off from some one-shot rave in Indianapolis. Kudos to these Swedish freaks in the Teddybears who will roam the VIP tent in heat-stroking temps in bear heads just to make some seventeen-degrees-from-Paris-Hilton ladies scream and point.

They photoshopped their Teddybears heads into several Criterion Collection movies, including "The Godfather," "Taxi Driver" and "A Clockwork Orange." Alex and the droogs will never be the same.

Photo: A Teddybear preys on unsuspecting passers-by in the VIP area before performing; by August Brown / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has never dated Winona Ryder.]

A half circle of 24 cops was taking in the scene just outside the shoulder-to-shoulder mob absorbing all that was Rage, and we're pretty sure they weren't there to make sure Evan Dando got home safely. The back half of the grounds just beyond their perimeter was so deserted all that was missing was a single tumbleweed crossing your path toward a depressingly dramatic light display signifying that, yes, other acts were onstage at that hour, too, and one of them was the reunited Lemonheads.

Seriously, you almost have to feel bad for Evan Dando at this point. He got his act together for taut, focused comeback record, scored a prime closing slot at the biggest rock festival in the country and wound up playing opposite the biggest show in Coachella's history. Dumb luck, that. But those who did turn out at the Outdoor Stage had plenty of elbow room for a set of perfectly fine, jangly power pop that without a doubt would've been crowd pleasing at just about any other hour of the weekend.

If nothing else, Dando can compare his struggles with darkwave staples VNV Nation and Israeli trance favorites Infected Mushroom, both of whom played tents that were barely a third full. Potty-mouthed irony-rap artists Spank Rock fared a little better, but their Gobi Tent was also the smallest. Rage against the schedule-makers, my brothers.

With bass lines that shook every bowel in the Sahara Tent, the Happy Mondays announced their return with a soulful set that featured guests, a lucky dancer and a surprisingly robust Shaun Ryder. It was 50 minutes for the "24 Hour Party People."

Nailing songs such as "Step On" and "Hallelujah" as if it were the '80s, the Mondays --whose influence as rock/soul hybridists is undeniable -- showed the half-full tent, which included front-row denizens holding aloft ticket stubs from long-ago concerts, that the sound of Madchester still breathed. Guitarist Danny Saber (Black Grape) was among the contributors, as was L.A.'s own motormouth, Mickey Avalon. But it was also a night to remember for a magazine writer, NME's Dan Martin.

Absent the staple of Bez's dancing, Martin filled in onstage -- despite a well-meaning security guy's effort to drag him off, thinking Martin was a wayward crowd member. When after a moment's absence he reappeared, throwing down some pretty decent moves. The crowd roared and the spirit of the Hacienda lived on.

Left: Ryder exits the stage with Danny Saber. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is into distribution. He's like Atlantic.]

If ripping on Ol' G.W.B. was the weekend's big theme, pan-ethnic punk/funk may have been another. Gogol Bordello threw down for the Eastern Bloc, Konono No 1. repped the Congo, and the Spanish-via-Paris vagabond Manu Chao did his best to prepare the audience for the Rage to come in a half-hour.

Coachella fans heard Chao's handiwork last year, having midwifed Amadou & Mariam's Malian blues on "Dimanche A Bamako." But on the main stage, Chao cherry-picked from countless cultures; English punk, bossa nova and cut-'em-fat reggae were all fair game.

It's unfair to stick Chao in the ghetto of the World Music bin, because nothing he does emulates the music of other cultures -- it's the real article. Grinning in a sporty bandanna, Chao sung with a revolutionary energy, and his gangbusters backing band matched him step for step. His bassist, who looked like Henry Rollins after a few trips down a buffet line, laid down deep, vigorous grooves while his guitarist melted faces with a high-wire flamenco solo.

Chao's a born provocateur as well, which is part of what makes him so beloved in Latin American politico circles. He dedicated one song to the "minor terrorist" we call President, before calling out Guantamo and random spying as part of the problem. But don't worry, he still finished one roiling hardcore tune with the chorus "me gusta marijuana." Back at you, Manu.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton finds it somewhat unsettling that he enjoys something on pop radio.]

Anyone stlll thinking the great, Internet-born Lily Allen craze had crested and been replaced by the Amy Winehouses of the world obviously wasn't anywhere near her set at an overflowing Mojave tent.

Backed by a full band and horn section that would've done the Skatalites proud, Allen confidently bounded through material from her MySpace-bred debut album "Alright, Still" with a brash confidence that recalled a smarter, sassier Gwen Stefani -- at least before Gwen became the eeriely airbrushed pop cyborg of today.

Beyond the superficial resemblances in sound and attitude, would the former singer for No Doubt have apologized for forgetting a few lyrics as a result of having a couple of spliffs earlier in the day? Would she so readily incite a tent full of women to scream in support as she bluntly introduced "Not Big," a song about the hardship of living with a man's, um, shortcomings? Not likely.

Dressed in her usual assortment of Lily-ana (hoop earrings, poofy dress, trainers), the London native strolled across both sides of the stage with the occasional cigarette and charisma to burn, not even letting the day's elephant in the room shadow what must've been one of her most successful shows stateside. After the crowd cheered in appreciation at her passing mention of the night's headliners, Allen was unfazed.

"I've never heard of them," she said with a devilish grin. "But apparently they're quite big."

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown thinks that guest blogging is MDM-azing.]

Eraserhead hairdos? Shrieking feedback? The notion that a British guitar rock band can be truly dangerous? We got all that Friday with Jesus and Mary Chain, and we got it again today with Klaxons, who absolutely murdered the Mojave tent and announced themselves as the Reid Brothers' most likely heirs. Yes, yes, we know we're feeding the hype machine, but good god Klaxons deserve it this time.

The X'ed out teenagers packing glowsticks and candy bracelets in their native England were replaced by a filthy and rabid crowd pogoing with their jaws on the floor and hands in the air. The trio (with a hired-gun live drummer) tore through the hits off their debut "Myths of the Near Future" with a maniacal brashness equal parts PiL and actual pills. "Atlantis To Interzone" churned with grimy basslines and don't-take-the-brown-acid caterwauling, while Jamie Reynolds and Simon Taylor traded deapan bon mots on the steely, propulsive single "Magick."

Like the JAMC, Klaxons' little secret is that they're actually whip-smart tunesmiths, and shimmering pop turns like "Golden Skans" and an ace cover of old-rave staple "Not Over Yet" suggested they have a long future after this faux-techno kick dies down.

"Thank you for making special for us," their swaggering, sweaty bassist Reynolds said.

"For that, we give you this," and lunged into another ferocious electro-punk freakout. Say it as loud as an air raid siren: Klaxons just killed it.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

So maybe there should have been more breathing room between the Crowded House reunion show on the main stage and Rage Against the Machine's headlining slot. Like two days.

The New Zealand pop quartet painted lovely pictures in the early dusk, harmonizing their way into the hearts of the throng gathering in anticipation of the festival climax. It might have come off as totally pastoral had not Neil Finn done the courteous thing and name-checked the bands that would follow. That sparked chants of "Rage, Rage, Rage" -- to which Finn could only reply, good-naturedly, "It's gonna be good. Go have a drink in the tent ... There's still time."

The folks up front waving the colors of New Zealand stayed put, of course. They'd waited a decade for their heroes to re-emerge, and they couldn't have been disappointed with the aplomb with which Crowded House delivered their hits. And when Finn's microphone cut out during "Don't Dream It's Over," he didn't have to ask the crowd very hard to help with the vocals. They filled in, very likely as they have been doing for the past 10 years.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler thinks every band should toss drumsticks into the crowd after their set. Also, shout-outs to cities. Those are good.]

Cansei de Ser Sexy, Sub Pop's Brazilian delegates of juicy dance-rock, chased after the rainbow of glam-hipster band fame every second of their performance. Purple unitard on Lovefoxxx? Uh-huh. A preponderance of bandanas and/or glittery scarves on every band member? You know it. Paris Hilton dancing on the side of the stage? Afraid so.

And check out this unholy amount of self-referencing: Lovefoxxx told the audience that she'd just met Hilton and then she proceeded to play "Meeting Paris Hilton." And somewhere in Williamsburg, we're pretty sure, an Urban Outfitters went up in flames.

Other stunts of the band's aerobicized set included a souped-up cover of L7's "Pretend We're Dead" and a new song that showcased CSS's sometimes-underrated songwriting chops. They closed with a scintillating trinity of CSS hits, including "Artbitch," their ode to merlot-swilling gallery flies.

In her introduction to the last song, "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above," Lovefoxxx said, "After Coachella, let's go to my house. I've got some condoms and we'll make love."

Hmm. ... I'm actually a lot more interested in some air conditioning at this point.

Coachella snapshot: A worker douses the crowd at the Do Lab in the center of the Empire Polo Field.

Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has a thing about quiet crowds.]

While the Klaxons were exploring the rhythmic possibilities of an air raid siren in the Mojave Tent, Sweden's José González was, against all odds, performing to a rapt crowd at the Gobi Tent.

Like Cat Stevens without the "Peace Train" homilies, the slight and scruffy González performed atop the stage's drum riser, accompanied at times by conga and a young woman who offered a few gentle pats on a cowbell as well as an occasional vocal harmony. As the sun slowly set behind us, González's breezy renditions of "Heartbeat" and "Stay in the Shade" needed little else beyond his honeyed voice and delicately finger-picked guitar.

Until, of course, the bass rumbles from the DJs spinning in the geodesic dome at the tent's mouth elbowed their way to the front of the tent. Every coffeehouse troubadour knows the feeling.

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

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The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

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Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

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Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

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Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Spank Rock: What does that mean, anyway?

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler admits that she's annoyed with Rage for spawning the Korns of the world even though that's not really fair.]

You want to know how to fill up the Gobi tent when you're one of Coachella's sacrificial lambs? Start off by looking like Pharrell if reared by Kurtis Blow in Jamaica. Then add in some potty talk about the bathing suit areas of both genders. Oh, and some bongo players and ladies in braids who will pop and lock with big grins on their faces. And let's not forget the secret sauce: some mostly empty talk about the races rioting on the dance floor that will make you sound intelligent but is pretty much a ruse. But hey, whatever. Spank Rock isn't trying to gather the intelligentsia for a poetry reading.

Some of us like our festival closers blissfully stoopid, thank you very much.

Buzz emanated from several sets that we didn't have time to take in fully --especially the remarkable stylings of beatboxer Kid Beyond, who packed an afternoon set in the Gobi Tent.

The Kaiser Chiefs did all they could to prove they belonged, too, promoting their sophomore album -- as well as spontaneous athletic endeavors -- when frontman Ricky Wilson climbed the rigging at the Outdoor Theatre.

Rodrigo y Gabriela turned in another in a growing line of stunning Southern California appearances when they unleashed their flamenco metal on the Gobi Tent crowd. "Almost evil," somebody called it. And almost instrumental, too -- except when they executed their cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here." The crowd sang. Hearing that, we wish we were there.

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Then there was the requisite end-of-the-night crush to exit the Empire Polo Field. At the "back door" to the VIP area, a wristband-toting crowd had assembled, hoping the leave through the very same gate they left the night before. But things always change from day to day at Coachella. Always.

Beefy but friendly security blocked the gate, until a dude with an entourage made his way through (tapping a man wearing a vintage Motley Crue T-shirt on the shoulder and saying, "Nice shirt"). The dude cracked the gate and yelled, "I'm Tommy Lee, let me the ---- out."

The guards obliged. And Mr. Vintage Motley Crue tried the blend in with Lee's entourage, but that didn't work. "I'm never wearing this damn T-shirt again," he said as he was exiled back to the land of the lesser VIPs.

Thankfully, more exits were open at the end of Coachella 2007 than were open last year, when the crowded was herded into a single walkway.

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Overheard in the Mojave Tent while the Klaxons plied their Nu-Rave:

"I don't want to be here! I want to be at Willie (Nelson)!"

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Final thought: 2007 was the year Coachella bashed Bush. Could 2008 be the year Coachella feeds the world?

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler is pretty sure Ibiza was made up by a group of really savvy publicists. Or reality TV producers.]

On Day 3 of this behemoth that's going to close with a whole lotta Rage, the Outdoor Theatre crowd was ready to make out on grass-stained towels to Air's glittery sunset electronica. But the sexy boys of Air delayed their set by 30 minutes before finally taking the stage under hot pink lights. Good thing too because the crowd was about to riot. Ha, not really. A riot before Air? Avant-pop fans don't do that.

The French duo turned it out well enough, getting airport-lounge sedate in the right moments and cranking up the glitchy stadium rock to keep the fabulous quotient high. "Sexy Boy" was trotted out, as well as some bubbly "Virgin Suicides" score material.

But honestly? Coming out that late at some yacht party off of Ibiza is one thing but at Coachella, it's just kind of obnoxious. So I turned in my visa and headed for Teddybears.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler isn't happy that the VIP tent was barren of Gatorade today. What's up with that?]

Finally, a Coachella dance band put the video screens to good use. The stepchild of the fest isn't Evan Dando but the video screens that have been mostly abused with cheeseball psychedelic twiddle ripped off from some one-shot rave in Indianapolis. Kudos to these Swedish freaks in the Teddybears who will roam the VIP tent in heat-stroking temps in bear heads just to make some seventeen-degrees-from-Paris-Hilton ladies scream and point.

They photoshopped their Teddybears heads into several Criterion Collection movies, including "The Godfather," "Taxi Driver" and "A Clockwork Orange." Alex and the droogs will never be the same.

Photo: A Teddybear preys on unsuspecting passers-by in the VIP area before performing; by August Brown / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has never dated Winona Ryder.]

A half circle of 24 cops was taking in the scene just outside the shoulder-to-shoulder mob absorbing all that was Rage, and we're pretty sure they weren't there to make sure Evan Dando got home safely. The back half of the grounds just beyond their perimeter was so deserted all that was missing was a single tumbleweed crossing your path toward a depressingly dramatic light display signifying that, yes, other acts were onstage at that hour, too, and one of them was the reunited Lemonheads.

Seriously, you almost have to feel bad for Evan Dando at this point. He got his act together for taut, focused comeback record, scored a prime closing slot at the biggest rock festival in the country and wound up playing opposite the biggest show in Coachella's history. Dumb luck, that. But those who did turn out at the Outdoor Stage had plenty of elbow room for a set of perfectly fine, jangly power pop that without a doubt would've been crowd pleasing at just about any other hour of the weekend.

If nothing else, Dando can compare his struggles with darkwave staples VNV Nation and Israeli trance favorites Infected Mushroom, both of whom played tents that were barely a third full. Potty-mouthed irony-rap artists Spank Rock fared a little better, but their Gobi Tent was also the smallest. Rage against the schedule-makers, my brothers.

With bass lines that shook every bowel in the Sahara Tent, the Happy Mondays announced their return with a soulful set that featured guests, a lucky dancer and a surprisingly robust Shaun Ryder. It was 50 minutes for the "24 Hour Party People."

Nailing songs such as "Step On" and "Hallelujah" as if it were the '80s, the Mondays --whose influence as rock/soul hybridists is undeniable -- showed the half-full tent, which included front-row denizens holding aloft ticket stubs from long-ago concerts, that the sound of Madchester still breathed. Guitarist Danny Saber (Black Grape) was among the contributors, as was L.A.'s own motormouth, Mickey Avalon. But it was also a night to remember for a magazine writer, NME's Dan Martin.

Absent the staple of Bez's dancing, Martin filled in onstage -- despite a well-meaning security guy's effort to drag him off, thinking Martin was a wayward crowd member. When after a moment's absence he reappeared, throwing down some pretty decent moves. The crowd roared and the spirit of the Hacienda lived on.

Left: Ryder exits the stage with Danny Saber. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is into distribution. He's like Atlantic.]

If ripping on Ol' G.W.B. was the weekend's big theme, pan-ethnic punk/funk may have been another. Gogol Bordello threw down for the Eastern Bloc, Konono No 1. repped the Congo, and the Spanish-via-Paris vagabond Manu Chao did his best to prepare the audience for the Rage to come in a half-hour.

Coachella fans heard Chao's handiwork last year, having midwifed Amadou & Mariam's Malian blues on "Dimanche A Bamako." But on the main stage, Chao cherry-picked from countless cultures; English punk, bossa nova and cut-'em-fat reggae were all fair game.

It's unfair to stick Chao in the ghetto of the World Music bin, because nothing he does emulates the music of other cultures -- it's the real article. Grinning in a sporty bandanna, Chao sung with a revolutionary energy, and his gangbusters backing band matched him step for step. His bassist, who looked like Henry Rollins after a few trips down a buffet line, laid down deep, vigorous grooves while his guitarist melted faces with a high-wire flamenco solo.

Chao's a born provocateur as well, which is part of what makes him so beloved in Latin American politico circles. He dedicated one song to the "minor terrorist" we call President, before calling out Guantamo and random spying as part of the problem. But don't worry, he still finished one roiling hardcore tune with the chorus "me gusta marijuana." Back at you, Manu.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton finds it somewhat unsettling that he enjoys something on pop radio.]

Anyone stlll thinking the great, Internet-born Lily Allen craze had crested and been replaced by the Amy Winehouses of the world obviously wasn't anywhere near her set at an overflowing Mojave tent.

Backed by a full band and horn section that would've done the Skatalites proud, Allen confidently bounded through material from her MySpace-bred debut album "Alright, Still" with a brash confidence that recalled a smarter, sassier Gwen Stefani -- at least before Gwen became the eeriely airbrushed pop cyborg of today.

Beyond the superficial resemblances in sound and attitude, would the former singer for No Doubt have apologized for forgetting a few lyrics as a result of having a couple of spliffs earlier in the day? Would she so readily incite a tent full of women to scream in support as she bluntly introduced "Not Big," a song about the hardship of living with a man's, um, shortcomings? Not likely.

Dressed in her usual assortment of Lily-ana (hoop earrings, poofy dress, trainers), the London native strolled across both sides of the stage with the occasional cigarette and charisma to burn, not even letting the day's elephant in the room shadow what must've been one of her most successful shows stateside. After the crowd cheered in appreciation at her passing mention of the night's headliners, Allen was unfazed.

"I've never heard of them," she said with a devilish grin. "But apparently they're quite big."

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown thinks that guest blogging is MDM-azing.]

Eraserhead hairdos? Shrieking feedback? The notion that a British guitar rock band can be truly dangerous? We got all that Friday with Jesus and Mary Chain, and we got it again today with Klaxons, who absolutely murdered the Mojave tent and announced themselves as the Reid Brothers' most likely heirs. Yes, yes, we know we're feeding the hype machine, but good god Klaxons deserve it this time.

The X'ed out teenagers packing glowsticks and candy bracelets in their native England were replaced by a filthy and rabid crowd pogoing with their jaws on the floor and hands in the air. The trio (with a hired-gun live drummer) tore through the hits off their debut "Myths of the Near Future" with a maniacal brashness equal parts PiL and actual pills. "Atlantis To Interzone" churned with grimy basslines and don't-take-the-brown-acid caterwauling, while Jamie Reynolds and Simon Taylor traded deapan bon mots on the steely, propulsive single "Magick."

Like the JAMC, Klaxons' little secret is that they're actually whip-smart tunesmiths, and shimmering pop turns like "Golden Skans" and an ace cover of old-rave staple "Not Over Yet" suggested they have a long future after this faux-techno kick dies down.

"Thank you for making special for us," their swaggering, sweaty bassist Reynolds said.

"For that, we give you this," and lunged into another ferocious electro-punk freakout. Say it as loud as an air raid siren: Klaxons just killed it.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

So maybe there should have been more breathing room between the Crowded House reunion show on the main stage and Rage Against the Machine's headlining slot. Like two days.

The New Zealand pop quartet painted lovely pictures in the early dusk, harmonizing their way into the hearts of the throng gathering in anticipation of the festival climax. It might have come off as totally pastoral had not Neil Finn done the courteous thing and name-checked the bands that would follow. That sparked chants of "Rage, Rage, Rage" -- to which Finn could only reply, good-naturedly, "It's gonna be good. Go have a drink in the tent ... There's still time."

The folks up front waving the colors of New Zealand stayed put, of course. They'd waited a decade for their heroes to re-emerge, and they couldn't have been disappointed with the aplomb with which Crowded House delivered their hits. And when Finn's microphone cut out during "Don't Dream It's Over," he didn't have to ask the crowd very hard to help with the vocals. They filled in, very likely as they have been doing for the past 10 years.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler thinks every band should toss drumsticks into the crowd after their set. Also, shout-outs to cities. Those are good.]

Cansei de Ser Sexy, Sub Pop's Brazilian delegates of juicy dance-rock, chased after the rainbow of glam-hipster band fame every second of their performance. Purple unitard on Lovefoxxx? Uh-huh. A preponderance of bandanas and/or glittery scarves on every band member? You know it. Paris Hilton dancing on the side of the stage? Afraid so.

And check out this unholy amount of self-referencing: Lovefoxxx told the audience that she'd just met Hilton and then she proceeded to play "Meeting Paris Hilton." And somewhere in Williamsburg, we're pretty sure, an Urban Outfitters went up in flames.

Other stunts of the band's aerobicized set included a souped-up cover of L7's "Pretend We're Dead" and a new song that showcased CSS's sometimes-underrated songwriting chops. They closed with a scintillating trinity of CSS hits, including "Artbitch," their ode to merlot-swilling gallery flies.

In her introduction to the last song, "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above," Lovefoxxx said, "After Coachella, let's go to my house. I've got some condoms and we'll make love."

Hmm. ... I'm actually a lot more interested in some air conditioning at this point.

Coachella snapshot: A worker douses the crowd at the Do Lab in the center of the Empire Polo Field.

Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has a thing about quiet crowds.]

While the Klaxons were exploring the rhythmic possibilities of an air raid siren in the Mojave Tent, Sweden's José González was, against all odds, performing to a rapt crowd at the Gobi Tent.

Like Cat Stevens without the "Peace Train" homilies, the slight and scruffy González performed atop the stage's drum riser, accompanied at times by conga and a young woman who offered a few gentle pats on a cowbell as well as an occasional vocal harmony. As the sun slowly set behind us, González's breezy renditions of "Heartbeat" and "Stay in the Shade" needed little else beyond his honeyed voice and delicately finger-picked guitar.

Until, of course, the bass rumbles from the DJs spinning in the geodesic dome at the tent's mouth elbowed their way to the front of the tent. Every coffeehouse troubadour knows the feeling.

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Desert dealings, Vol. 6

Buzz emanated from several sets that we didn't have time to take in fully --especially the remarkable stylings of beatboxer Kid Beyond, who packed an afternoon set in the Gobi Tent.

The Kaiser Chiefs did all they could to prove they belonged, too, promoting their sophomore album -- as well as spontaneous athletic endeavors -- when frontman Ricky Wilson climbed the rigging at the Outdoor Theatre.

Rodrigo y Gabriela turned in another in a growing line of stunning Southern California appearances when they unleashed their flamenco metal on the Gobi Tent crowd. "Almost evil," somebody called it. And almost instrumental, too -- except when they executed their cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here." The crowd sang. Hearing that, we wish we were there.

◊ ◊ ◊

Then there was the requisite end-of-the-night crush to exit the Empire Polo Field. At the "back door" to the VIP area, a wristband-toting crowd had assembled, hoping the leave through the very same gate they left the night before. But things always change from day to day at Coachella. Always.

Beefy but friendly security blocked the gate, until a dude with an entourage made his way through (tapping a man wearing a vintage Motley Crue T-shirt on the shoulder and saying, "Nice shirt"). The dude cracked the gate and yelled, "I'm Tommy Lee, let me the ---- out."

The guards obliged. And Mr. Vintage Motley Crue tried the blend in with Lee's entourage, but that didn't work. "I'm never wearing this damn T-shirt again," he said as he was exiled back to the land of the lesser VIPs.

Thankfully, more exits were open at the end of Coachella 2007 than were open last year, when the crowded was herded into a single walkway.

◊ ◊ ◊

Overheard in the Mojave Tent while the Klaxons plied their Nu-Rave:

"I don't want to be here! I want to be at Willie (Nelson)!"

◊ ◊ ◊

Final thought: 2007 was the year Coachella bashed Bush. Could 2008 be the year Coachella feeds the world?

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler is pretty sure Ibiza was made up by a group of really savvy publicists. Or reality TV producers.]

On Day 3 of this behemoth that's going to close with a whole lotta Rage, the Outdoor Theatre crowd was ready to make out on grass-stained towels to Air's glittery sunset electronica. But the sexy boys of Air delayed their set by 30 minutes before finally taking the stage under hot pink lights. Good thing too because the crowd was about to riot. Ha, not really. A riot before Air? Avant-pop fans don't do that.

The French duo turned it out well enough, getting airport-lounge sedate in the right moments and cranking up the glitchy stadium rock to keep the fabulous quotient high. "Sexy Boy" was trotted out, as well as some bubbly "Virgin Suicides" score material.

But honestly? Coming out that late at some yacht party off of Ibiza is one thing but at Coachella, it's just kind of obnoxious. So I turned in my visa and headed for Teddybears.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler isn't happy that the VIP tent was barren of Gatorade today. What's up with that?]

Finally, a Coachella dance band put the video screens to good use. The stepchild of the fest isn't Evan Dando but the video screens that have been mostly abused with cheeseball psychedelic twiddle ripped off from some one-shot rave in Indianapolis. Kudos to these Swedish freaks in the Teddybears who will roam the VIP tent in heat-stroking temps in bear heads just to make some seventeen-degrees-from-Paris-Hilton ladies scream and point.

They photoshopped their Teddybears heads into several Criterion Collection movies, including "The Godfather," "Taxi Driver" and "A Clockwork Orange." Alex and the droogs will never be the same.

Photo: A Teddybear preys on unsuspecting passers-by in the VIP area before performing; by August Brown / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has never dated Winona Ryder.]

A half circle of 24 cops was taking in the scene just outside the shoulder-to-shoulder mob absorbing all that was Rage, and we're pretty sure they weren't there to make sure Evan Dando got home safely. The back half of the grounds just beyond their perimeter was so deserted all that was missing was a single tumbleweed crossing your path toward a depressingly dramatic light display signifying that, yes, other acts were onstage at that hour, too, and one of them was the reunited Lemonheads.

Seriously, you almost have to feel bad for Evan Dando at this point. He got his act together for taut, focused comeback record, scored a prime closing slot at the biggest rock festival in the country and wound up playing opposite the biggest show in Coachella's history. Dumb luck, that. But those who did turn out at the Outdoor Stage had plenty of elbow room for a set of perfectly fine, jangly power pop that without a doubt would've been crowd pleasing at just about any other hour of the weekend.

If nothing else, Dando can compare his struggles with darkwave staples VNV Nation and Israeli trance favorites Infected Mushroom, both of whom played tents that were barely a third full. Potty-mouthed irony-rap artists Spank Rock fared a little better, but their Gobi Tent was also the smallest. Rage against the schedule-makers, my brothers.

With bass lines that shook every bowel in the Sahara Tent, the Happy Mondays announced their return with a soulful set that featured guests, a lucky dancer and a surprisingly robust Shaun Ryder. It was 50 minutes for the "24 Hour Party People."

Nailing songs such as "Step On" and "Hallelujah" as if it were the '80s, the Mondays --whose influence as rock/soul hybridists is undeniable -- showed the half-full tent, which included front-row denizens holding aloft ticket stubs from long-ago concerts, that the sound of Madchester still breathed. Guitarist Danny Saber (Black Grape) was among the contributors, as was L.A.'s own motormouth, Mickey Avalon. But it was also a night to remember for a magazine writer, NME's Dan Martin.

Absent the staple of Bez's dancing, Martin filled in onstage -- despite a well-meaning security guy's effort to drag him off, thinking Martin was a wayward crowd member. When after a moment's absence he reappeared, throwing down some pretty decent moves. The crowd roared and the spirit of the Hacienda lived on.

Left: Ryder exits the stage with Danny Saber. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is into distribution. He's like Atlantic.]

If ripping on Ol' G.W.B. was the weekend's big theme, pan-ethnic punk/funk may have been another. Gogol Bordello threw down for the Eastern Bloc, Konono No 1. repped the Congo, and the Spanish-via-Paris vagabond Manu Chao did his best to prepare the audience for the Rage to come in a half-hour.

Coachella fans heard Chao's handiwork last year, having midwifed Amadou & Mariam's Malian blues on "Dimanche A Bamako." But on the main stage, Chao cherry-picked from countless cultures; English punk, bossa nova and cut-'em-fat reggae were all fair game.

It's unfair to stick Chao in the ghetto of the World Music bin, because nothing he does emulates the music of other cultures -- it's the real article. Grinning in a sporty bandanna, Chao sung with a revolutionary energy, and his gangbusters backing band matched him step for step. His bassist, who looked like Henry Rollins after a few trips down a buffet line, laid down deep, vigorous grooves while his guitarist melted faces with a high-wire flamenco solo.

Chao's a born provocateur as well, which is part of what makes him so beloved in Latin American politico circles. He dedicated one song to the "minor terrorist" we call President, before calling out Guantamo and random spying as part of the problem. But don't worry, he still finished one roiling hardcore tune with the chorus "me gusta marijuana." Back at you, Manu.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton finds it somewhat unsettling that he enjoys something on pop radio.]

Anyone stlll thinking the great, Internet-born Lily Allen craze had crested and been replaced by the Amy Winehouses of the world obviously wasn't anywhere near her set at an overflowing Mojave tent.

Backed by a full band and horn section that would've done the Skatalites proud, Allen confidently bounded through material from her MySpace-bred debut album "Alright, Still" with a brash confidence that recalled a smarter, sassier Gwen Stefani -- at least before Gwen became the eeriely airbrushed pop cyborg of today.

Beyond the superficial resemblances in sound and attitude, would the former singer for No Doubt have apologized for forgetting a few lyrics as a result of having a couple of spliffs earlier in the day? Would she so readily incite a tent full of women to scream in support as she bluntly introduced "Not Big," a song about the hardship of living with a man's, um, shortcomings? Not likely.

Dressed in her usual assortment of Lily-ana (hoop earrings, poofy dress, trainers), the London native strolled across both sides of the stage with the occasional cigarette and charisma to burn, not even letting the day's elephant in the room shadow what must've been one of her most successful shows stateside. After the crowd cheered in appreciation at her passing mention of the night's headliners, Allen was unfazed.

"I've never heard of them," she said with a devilish grin. "But apparently they're quite big."

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown thinks that guest blogging is MDM-azing.]

Eraserhead hairdos? Shrieking feedback? The notion that a British guitar rock band can be truly dangerous? We got all that Friday with Jesus and Mary Chain, and we got it again today with Klaxons, who absolutely murdered the Mojave tent and announced themselves as the Reid Brothers' most likely heirs. Yes, yes, we know we're feeding the hype machine, but good god Klaxons deserve it this time.

The X'ed out teenagers packing glowsticks and candy bracelets in their native England were replaced by a filthy and rabid crowd pogoing with their jaws on the floor and hands in the air. The trio (with a hired-gun live drummer) tore through the hits off their debut "Myths of the Near Future" with a maniacal brashness equal parts PiL and actual pills. "Atlantis To Interzone" churned with grimy basslines and don't-take-the-brown-acid caterwauling, while Jamie Reynolds and Simon Taylor traded deapan bon mots on the steely, propulsive single "Magick."

Like the JAMC, Klaxons' little secret is that they're actually whip-smart tunesmiths, and shimmering pop turns like "Golden Skans" and an ace cover of old-rave staple "Not Over Yet" suggested they have a long future after this faux-techno kick dies down.

"Thank you for making special for us," their swaggering, sweaty bassist Reynolds said.

"For that, we give you this," and lunged into another ferocious electro-punk freakout. Say it as loud as an air raid siren: Klaxons just killed it.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

So maybe there should have been more breathing room between the Crowded House reunion show on the main stage and Rage Against the Machine's headlining slot. Like two days.

The New Zealand pop quartet painted lovely pictures in the early dusk, harmonizing their way into the hearts of the throng gathering in anticipation of the festival climax. It might have come off as totally pastoral had not Neil Finn done the courteous thing and name-checked the bands that would follow. That sparked chants of "Rage, Rage, Rage" -- to which Finn could only reply, good-naturedly, "It's gonna be good. Go have a drink in the tent ... There's still time."

The folks up front waving the colors of New Zealand stayed put, of course. They'd waited a decade for their heroes to re-emerge, and they couldn't have been disappointed with the aplomb with which Crowded House delivered their hits. And when Finn's microphone cut out during "Don't Dream It's Over," he didn't have to ask the crowd very hard to help with the vocals. They filled in, very likely as they have been doing for the past 10 years.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler thinks every band should toss drumsticks into the crowd after their set. Also, shout-outs to cities. Those are good.]

Cansei de Ser Sexy, Sub Pop's Brazilian delegates of juicy dance-rock, chased after the rainbow of glam-hipster band fame every second of their performance. Purple unitard on Lovefoxxx? Uh-huh. A preponderance of bandanas and/or glittery scarves on every band member? You know it. Paris Hilton dancing on the side of the stage? Afraid so.

And check out this unholy amount of self-referencing: Lovefoxxx told the audience that she'd just met Hilton and then she proceeded to play "Meeting Paris Hilton." And somewhere in Williamsburg, we're pretty sure, an Urban Outfitters went up in flames.

Other stunts of the band's aerobicized set included a souped-up cover of L7's "Pretend We're Dead" and a new song that showcased CSS's sometimes-underrated songwriting chops. They closed with a scintillating trinity of CSS hits, including "Artbitch," their ode to merlot-swilling gallery flies.

In her introduction to the last song, "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above," Lovefoxxx said, "After Coachella, let's go to my house. I've got some condoms and we'll make love."

Hmm. ... I'm actually a lot more interested in some air conditioning at this point.

Coachella snapshot: A worker douses the crowd at the Do Lab in the center of the Empire Polo Field.

Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has a thing about quiet crowds.]

While the Klaxons were exploring the rhythmic possibilities of an air raid siren in the Mojave Tent, Sweden's José González was, against all odds, performing to a rapt crowd at the Gobi Tent.

Like Cat Stevens without the "Peace Train" homilies, the slight and scruffy González performed atop the stage's drum riser, accompanied at times by conga and a young woman who offered a few gentle pats on a cowbell as well as an occasional vocal harmony. As the sun slowly set behind us, González's breezy renditions of "Heartbeat" and "Stay in the Shade" needed little else beyond his honeyed voice and delicately finger-picked guitar.

Until, of course, the bass rumbles from the DJs spinning in the geodesic dome at the tent's mouth elbowed their way to the front of the tent. Every coffeehouse troubadour knows the feeling.

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Dead Air for 30 minutes

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler is pretty sure Ibiza was made up by a group of really savvy publicists. Or reality TV producers.]

On Day 3 of this behemoth that's going to close with a whole lotta Rage, the Outdoor Theatre crowd was ready to make out on grass-stained towels to Air's glittery sunset electronica. But the sexy boys of Air delayed their set by 30 minutes before finally taking the stage under hot pink lights. Good thing too because the crowd was about to riot. Ha, not really. A riot before Air? Avant-pop fans don't do that.

The French duo turned it out well enough, getting airport-lounge sedate in the right moments and cranking up the glitchy stadium rock to keep the fabulous quotient high. "Sexy Boy" was trotted out, as well as some bubbly "Virgin Suicides" score material.

But honestly? Coming out that late at some yacht party off of Ibiza is one thing but at Coachella, it's just kind of obnoxious. So I turned in my visa and headed for Teddybears.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler isn't happy that the VIP tent was barren of Gatorade today. What's up with that?]

Finally, a Coachella dance band put the video screens to good use. The stepchild of the fest isn't Evan Dando but the video screens that have been mostly abused with cheeseball psychedelic twiddle ripped off from some one-shot rave in Indianapolis. Kudos to these Swedish freaks in the Teddybears who will roam the VIP tent in heat-stroking temps in bear heads just to make some seventeen-degrees-from-Paris-Hilton ladies scream and point.

They photoshopped their Teddybears heads into several Criterion Collection movies, including "The Godfather," "Taxi Driver" and "A Clockwork Orange." Alex and the droogs will never be the same.

Photo: A Teddybear preys on unsuspecting passers-by in the VIP area before performing; by August Brown / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has never dated Winona Ryder.]

A half circle of 24 cops was taking in the scene just outside the shoulder-to-shoulder mob absorbing all that was Rage, and we're pretty sure they weren't there to make sure Evan Dando got home safely. The back half of the grounds just beyond their perimeter was so deserted all that was missing was a single tumbleweed crossing your path toward a depressingly dramatic light display signifying that, yes, other acts were onstage at that hour, too, and one of them was the reunited Lemonheads.

Seriously, you almost have to feel bad for Evan Dando at this point. He got his act together for taut, focused comeback record, scored a prime closing slot at the biggest rock festival in the country and wound up playing opposite the biggest show in Coachella's history. Dumb luck, that. But those who did turn out at the Outdoor Stage had plenty of elbow room for a set of perfectly fine, jangly power pop that without a doubt would've been crowd pleasing at just about any other hour of the weekend.

If nothing else, Dando can compare his struggles with darkwave staples VNV Nation and Israeli trance favorites Infected Mushroom, both of whom played tents that were barely a third full. Potty-mouthed irony-rap artists Spank Rock fared a little better, but their Gobi Tent was also the smallest. Rage against the schedule-makers, my brothers.

With bass lines that shook every bowel in the Sahara Tent, the Happy Mondays announced their return with a soulful set that featured guests, a lucky dancer and a surprisingly robust Shaun Ryder. It was 50 minutes for the "24 Hour Party People."

Nailing songs such as "Step On" and "Hallelujah" as if it were the '80s, the Mondays --whose influence as rock/soul hybridists is undeniable -- showed the half-full tent, which included front-row denizens holding aloft ticket stubs from long-ago concerts, that the sound of Madchester still breathed. Guitarist Danny Saber (Black Grape) was among the contributors, as was L.A.'s own motormouth, Mickey Avalon. But it was also a night to remember for a magazine writer, NME's Dan Martin.

Absent the staple of Bez's dancing, Martin filled in onstage -- despite a well-meaning security guy's effort to drag him off, thinking Martin was a wayward crowd member. When after a moment's absence he reappeared, throwing down some pretty decent moves. The crowd roared and the spirit of the Hacienda lived on.

Left: Ryder exits the stage with Danny Saber. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is into distribution. He's like Atlantic.]

If ripping on Ol' G.W.B. was the weekend's big theme, pan-ethnic punk/funk may have been another. Gogol Bordello threw down for the Eastern Bloc, Konono No 1. repped the Congo, and the Spanish-via-Paris vagabond Manu Chao did his best to prepare the audience for the Rage to come in a half-hour.

Coachella fans heard Chao's handiwork last year, having midwifed Amadou & Mariam's Malian blues on "Dimanche A Bamako." But on the main stage, Chao cherry-picked from countless cultures; English punk, bossa nova and cut-'em-fat reggae were all fair game.

It's unfair to stick Chao in the ghetto of the World Music bin, because nothing he does emulates the music of other cultures -- it's the real article. Grinning in a sporty bandanna, Chao sung with a revolutionary energy, and his gangbusters backing band matched him step for step. His bassist, who looked like Henry Rollins after a few trips down a buffet line, laid down deep, vigorous grooves while his guitarist melted faces with a high-wire flamenco solo.

Chao's a born provocateur as well, which is part of what makes him so beloved in Latin American politico circles. He dedicated one song to the "minor terrorist" we call President, before calling out Guantamo and random spying as part of the problem. But don't worry, he still finished one roiling hardcore tune with the chorus "me gusta marijuana." Back at you, Manu.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton finds it somewhat unsettling that he enjoys something on pop radio.]

Anyone stlll thinking the great, Internet-born Lily Allen craze had crested and been replaced by the Amy Winehouses of the world obviously wasn't anywhere near her set at an overflowing Mojave tent.

Backed by a full band and horn section that would've done the Skatalites proud, Allen confidently bounded through material from her MySpace-bred debut album "Alright, Still" with a brash confidence that recalled a smarter, sassier Gwen Stefani -- at least before Gwen became the eeriely airbrushed pop cyborg of today.

Beyond the superficial resemblances in sound and attitude, would the former singer for No Doubt have apologized for forgetting a few lyrics as a result of having a couple of spliffs earlier in the day? Would she so readily incite a tent full of women to scream in support as she bluntly introduced "Not Big," a song about the hardship of living with a man's, um, shortcomings? Not likely.

Dressed in her usual assortment of Lily-ana (hoop earrings, poofy dress, trainers), the London native strolled across both sides of the stage with the occasional cigarette and charisma to burn, not even letting the day's elephant in the room shadow what must've been one of her most successful shows stateside. After the crowd cheered in appreciation at her passing mention of the night's headliners, Allen was unfazed.

"I've never heard of them," she said with a devilish grin. "But apparently they're quite big."

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown thinks that guest blogging is MDM-azing.]

Eraserhead hairdos? Shrieking feedback? The notion that a British guitar rock band can be truly dangerous? We got all that Friday with Jesus and Mary Chain, and we got it again today with Klaxons, who absolutely murdered the Mojave tent and announced themselves as the Reid Brothers' most likely heirs. Yes, yes, we know we're feeding the hype machine, but good god Klaxons deserve it this time.

The X'ed out teenagers packing glowsticks and candy bracelets in their native England were replaced by a filthy and rabid crowd pogoing with their jaws on the floor and hands in the air. The trio (with a hired-gun live drummer) tore through the hits off their debut "Myths of the Near Future" with a maniacal brashness equal parts PiL and actual pills. "Atlantis To Interzone" churned with grimy basslines and don't-take-the-brown-acid caterwauling, while Jamie Reynolds and Simon Taylor traded deapan bon mots on the steely, propulsive single "Magick."

Like the JAMC, Klaxons' little secret is that they're actually whip-smart tunesmiths, and shimmering pop turns like "Golden Skans" and an ace cover of old-rave staple "Not Over Yet" suggested they have a long future after this faux-techno kick dies down.

"Thank you for making special for us," their swaggering, sweaty bassist Reynolds said.

"For that, we give you this," and lunged into another ferocious electro-punk freakout. Say it as loud as an air raid siren: Klaxons just killed it.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

So maybe there should have been more breathing room between the Crowded House reunion show on the main stage and Rage Against the Machine's headlining slot. Like two days.

The New Zealand pop quartet painted lovely pictures in the early dusk, harmonizing their way into the hearts of the throng gathering in anticipation of the festival climax. It might have come off as totally pastoral had not Neil Finn done the courteous thing and name-checked the bands that would follow. That sparked chants of "Rage, Rage, Rage" -- to which Finn could only reply, good-naturedly, "It's gonna be good. Go have a drink in the tent ... There's still time."

The folks up front waving the colors of New Zealand stayed put, of course. They'd waited a decade for their heroes to re-emerge, and they couldn't have been disappointed with the aplomb with which Crowded House delivered their hits. And when Finn's microphone cut out during "Don't Dream It's Over," he didn't have to ask the crowd very hard to help with the vocals. They filled in, very likely as they have been doing for the past 10 years.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler thinks every band should toss drumsticks into the crowd after their set. Also, shout-outs to cities. Those are good.]

Cansei de Ser Sexy, Sub Pop's Brazilian delegates of juicy dance-rock, chased after the rainbow of glam-hipster band fame every second of their performance. Purple unitard on Lovefoxxx? Uh-huh. A preponderance of bandanas and/or glittery scarves on every band member? You know it. Paris Hilton dancing on the side of the stage? Afraid so.

And check out this unholy amount of self-referencing: Lovefoxxx told the audience that she'd just met Hilton and then she proceeded to play "Meeting Paris Hilton." And somewhere in Williamsburg, we're pretty sure, an Urban Outfitters went up in flames.

Other stunts of the band's aerobicized set included a souped-up cover of L7's "Pretend We're Dead" and a new song that showcased CSS's sometimes-underrated songwriting chops. They closed with a scintillating trinity of CSS hits, including "Artbitch," their ode to merlot-swilling gallery flies.

In her introduction to the last song, "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above," Lovefoxxx said, "After Coachella, let's go to my house. I've got some condoms and we'll make love."

Hmm. ... I'm actually a lot more interested in some air conditioning at this point.

Coachella snapshot: A worker douses the crowd at the Do Lab in the center of the Empire Polo Field.

Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has a thing about quiet crowds.]

While the Klaxons were exploring the rhythmic possibilities of an air raid siren in the Mojave Tent, Sweden's José González was, against all odds, performing to a rapt crowd at the Gobi Tent.

Like Cat Stevens without the "Peace Train" homilies, the slight and scruffy González performed atop the stage's drum riser, accompanied at times by conga and a young woman who offered a few gentle pats on a cowbell as well as an occasional vocal harmony. As the sun slowly set behind us, González's breezy renditions of "Heartbeat" and "Stay in the Shade" needed little else beyond his honeyed voice and delicately finger-picked guitar.

Until, of course, the bass rumbles from the DJs spinning in the geodesic dome at the tent's mouth elbowed their way to the front of the tent. Every coffeehouse troubadour knows the feeling.

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Teddybears kill the radio stars

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler isn't happy that the VIP tent was barren of Gatorade today. What's up with that?]

Finally, a Coachella dance band put the video screens to good use. The stepchild of the fest isn't Evan Dando but the video screens that have been mostly abused with cheeseball psychedelic twiddle ripped off from some one-shot rave in Indianapolis. Kudos to these Swedish freaks in the Teddybears who will roam the VIP tent in heat-stroking temps in bear heads just to make some seventeen-degrees-from-Paris-Hilton ladies scream and point.

They photoshopped their Teddybears heads into several Criterion Collection movies, including "The Godfather," "Taxi Driver" and "A Clockwork Orange." Alex and the droogs will never be the same.

Photo: A Teddybear preys on unsuspecting passers-by in the VIP area before performing; by August Brown / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has never dated Winona Ryder.]

A half circle of 24 cops was taking in the scene just outside the shoulder-to-shoulder mob absorbing all that was Rage, and we're pretty sure they weren't there to make sure Evan Dando got home safely. The back half of the grounds just beyond their perimeter was so deserted all that was missing was a single tumbleweed crossing your path toward a depressingly dramatic light display signifying that, yes, other acts were onstage at that hour, too, and one of them was the reunited Lemonheads.

Seriously, you almost have to feel bad for Evan Dando at this point. He got his act together for taut, focused comeback record, scored a prime closing slot at the biggest rock festival in the country and wound up playing opposite the biggest show in Coachella's history. Dumb luck, that. But those who did turn out at the Outdoor Stage had plenty of elbow room for a set of perfectly fine, jangly power pop that without a doubt would've been crowd pleasing at just about any other hour of the weekend.

If nothing else, Dando can compare his struggles with darkwave staples VNV Nation and Israeli trance favorites Infected Mushroom, both of whom played tents that were barely a third full. Potty-mouthed irony-rap artists Spank Rock fared a little better, but their Gobi Tent was also the smallest. Rage against the schedule-makers, my brothers.

With bass lines that shook every bowel in the Sahara Tent, the Happy Mondays announced their return with a soulful set that featured guests, a lucky dancer and a surprisingly robust Shaun Ryder. It was 50 minutes for the "24 Hour Party People."

Nailing songs such as "Step On" and "Hallelujah" as if it were the '80s, the Mondays --whose influence as rock/soul hybridists is undeniable -- showed the half-full tent, which included front-row denizens holding aloft ticket stubs from long-ago concerts, that the sound of Madchester still breathed. Guitarist Danny Saber (Black Grape) was among the contributors, as was L.A.'s own motormouth, Mickey Avalon. But it was also a night to remember for a magazine writer, NME's Dan Martin.

Absent the staple of Bez's dancing, Martin filled in onstage -- despite a well-meaning security guy's effort to drag him off, thinking Martin was a wayward crowd member. When after a moment's absence he reappeared, throwing down some pretty decent moves. The crowd roared and the spirit of the Hacienda lived on.

Left: Ryder exits the stage with Danny Saber. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is into distribution. He's like Atlantic.]

If ripping on Ol' G.W.B. was the weekend's big theme, pan-ethnic punk/funk may have been another. Gogol Bordello threw down for the Eastern Bloc, Konono No 1. repped the Congo, and the Spanish-via-Paris vagabond Manu Chao did his best to prepare the audience for the Rage to come in a half-hour.

Coachella fans heard Chao's handiwork last year, having midwifed Amadou & Mariam's Malian blues on "Dimanche A Bamako." But on the main stage, Chao cherry-picked from countless cultures; English punk, bossa nova and cut-'em-fat reggae were all fair game.

It's unfair to stick Chao in the ghetto of the World Music bin, because nothing he does emulates the music of other cultures -- it's the real article. Grinning in a sporty bandanna, Chao sung with a revolutionary energy, and his gangbusters backing band matched him step for step. His bassist, who looked like Henry Rollins after a few trips down a buffet line, laid down deep, vigorous grooves while his guitarist melted faces with a high-wire flamenco solo.

Chao's a born provocateur as well, which is part of what makes him so beloved in Latin American politico circles. He dedicated one song to the "minor terrorist" we call President, before calling out Guantamo and random spying as part of the problem. But don't worry, he still finished one roiling hardcore tune with the chorus "me gusta marijuana." Back at you, Manu.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton finds it somewhat unsettling that he enjoys something on pop radio.]

Anyone stlll thinking the great, Internet-born Lily Allen craze had crested and been replaced by the Amy Winehouses of the world obviously wasn't anywhere near her set at an overflowing Mojave tent.

Backed by a full band and horn section that would've done the Skatalites proud, Allen confidently bounded through material from her MySpace-bred debut album "Alright, Still" with a brash confidence that recalled a smarter, sassier Gwen Stefani -- at least before Gwen became the eeriely airbrushed pop cyborg of today.

Beyond the superficial resemblances in sound and attitude, would the former singer for No Doubt have apologized for forgetting a few lyrics as a result of having a couple of spliffs earlier in the day? Would she so readily incite a tent full of women to scream in support as she bluntly introduced "Not Big," a song about the hardship of living with a man's, um, shortcomings? Not likely.

Dressed in her usual assortment of Lily-ana (hoop earrings, poofy dress, trainers), the London native strolled across both sides of the stage with the occasional cigarette and charisma to burn, not even letting the day's elephant in the room shadow what must've been one of her most successful shows stateside. After the crowd cheered in appreciation at her passing mention of the night's headliners, Allen was unfazed.

"I've never heard of them," she said with a devilish grin. "But apparently they're quite big."

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown thinks that guest blogging is MDM-azing.]

Eraserhead hairdos? Shrieking feedback? The notion that a British guitar rock band can be truly dangerous? We got all that Friday with Jesus and Mary Chain, and we got it again today with Klaxons, who absolutely murdered the Mojave tent and announced themselves as the Reid Brothers' most likely heirs. Yes, yes, we know we're feeding the hype machine, but good god Klaxons deserve it this time.

The X'ed out teenagers packing glowsticks and candy bracelets in their native England were replaced by a filthy and rabid crowd pogoing with their jaws on the floor and hands in the air. The trio (with a hired-gun live drummer) tore through the hits off their debut "Myths of the Near Future" with a maniacal brashness equal parts PiL and actual pills. "Atlantis To Interzone" churned with grimy basslines and don't-take-the-brown-acid caterwauling, while Jamie Reynolds and Simon Taylor traded deapan bon mots on the steely, propulsive single "Magick."

Like the JAMC, Klaxons' little secret is that they're actually whip-smart tunesmiths, and shimmering pop turns like "Golden Skans" and an ace cover of old-rave staple "Not Over Yet" suggested they have a long future after this faux-techno kick dies down.

"Thank you for making special for us," their swaggering, sweaty bassist Reynolds said.

"For that, we give you this," and lunged into another ferocious electro-punk freakout. Say it as loud as an air raid siren: Klaxons just killed it.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

So maybe there should have been more breathing room between the Crowded House reunion show on the main stage and Rage Against the Machine's headlining slot. Like two days.

The New Zealand pop quartet painted lovely pictures in the early dusk, harmonizing their way into the hearts of the throng gathering in anticipation of the festival climax. It might have come off as totally pastoral had not Neil Finn done the courteous thing and name-checked the bands that would follow. That sparked chants of "Rage, Rage, Rage" -- to which Finn could only reply, good-naturedly, "It's gonna be good. Go have a drink in the tent ... There's still time."

The folks up front waving the colors of New Zealand stayed put, of course. They'd waited a decade for their heroes to re-emerge, and they couldn't have been disappointed with the aplomb with which Crowded House delivered their hits. And when Finn's microphone cut out during "Don't Dream It's Over," he didn't have to ask the crowd very hard to help with the vocals. They filled in, very likely as they have been doing for the past 10 years.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler thinks every band should toss drumsticks into the crowd after their set. Also, shout-outs to cities. Those are good.]

Cansei de Ser Sexy, Sub Pop's Brazilian delegates of juicy dance-rock, chased after the rainbow of glam-hipster band fame every second of their performance. Purple unitard on Lovefoxxx? Uh-huh. A preponderance of bandanas and/or glittery scarves on every band member? You know it. Paris Hilton dancing on the side of the stage? Afraid so.

And check out this unholy amount of self-referencing: Lovefoxxx told the audience that she'd just met Hilton and then she proceeded to play "Meeting Paris Hilton." And somewhere in Williamsburg, we're pretty sure, an Urban Outfitters went up in flames.

Other stunts of the band's aerobicized set included a souped-up cover of L7's "Pretend We're Dead" and a new song that showcased CSS's sometimes-underrated songwriting chops. They closed with a scintillating trinity of CSS hits, including "Artbitch," their ode to merlot-swilling gallery flies.

In her introduction to the last song, "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above," Lovefoxxx said, "After Coachella, let's go to my house. I've got some condoms and we'll make love."

Hmm. ... I'm actually a lot more interested in some air conditioning at this point.

Coachella snapshot: A worker douses the crowd at the Do Lab in the center of the Empire Polo Field.

Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has a thing about quiet crowds.]

While the Klaxons were exploring the rhythmic possibilities of an air raid siren in the Mojave Tent, Sweden's José González was, against all odds, performing to a rapt crowd at the Gobi Tent.

Like Cat Stevens without the "Peace Train" homilies, the slight and scruffy González performed atop the stage's drum riser, accompanied at times by conga and a young woman who offered a few gentle pats on a cowbell as well as an occasional vocal harmony. As the sun slowly set behind us, González's breezy renditions of "Heartbeat" and "Stay in the Shade" needed little else beyond his honeyed voice and delicately finger-picked guitar.

Until, of course, the bass rumbles from the DJs spinning in the geodesic dome at the tent's mouth elbowed their way to the front of the tent. Every coffeehouse troubadour knows the feeling.

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

It’s a shame about Rage

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has never dated Winona Ryder.]

A half circle of 24 cops was taking in the scene just outside the shoulder-to-shoulder mob absorbing all that was Rage, and we're pretty sure they weren't there to make sure Evan Dando got home safely. The back half of the grounds just beyond their perimeter was so deserted all that was missing was a single tumbleweed crossing your path toward a depressingly dramatic light display signifying that, yes, other acts were onstage at that hour, too, and one of them was the reunited Lemonheads.

Seriously, you almost have to feel bad for Evan Dando at this point. He got his act together for taut, focused comeback record, scored a prime closing slot at the biggest rock festival in the country and wound up playing opposite the biggest show in Coachella's history. Dumb luck, that. But those who did turn out at the Outdoor Stage had plenty of elbow room for a set of perfectly fine, jangly power pop that without a doubt would've been crowd pleasing at just about any other hour of the weekend.

If nothing else, Dando can compare his struggles with darkwave staples VNV Nation and Israeli trance favorites Infected Mushroom, both of whom played tents that were barely a third full. Potty-mouthed irony-rap artists Spank Rock fared a little better, but their Gobi Tent was also the smallest. Rage against the schedule-makers, my brothers.

With bass lines that shook every bowel in the Sahara Tent, the Happy Mondays announced their return with a soulful set that featured guests, a lucky dancer and a surprisingly robust Shaun Ryder. It was 50 minutes for the "24 Hour Party People."

Nailing songs such as "Step On" and "Hallelujah" as if it were the '80s, the Mondays --whose influence as rock/soul hybridists is undeniable -- showed the half-full tent, which included front-row denizens holding aloft ticket stubs from long-ago concerts, that the sound of Madchester still breathed. Guitarist Danny Saber (Black Grape) was among the contributors, as was L.A.'s own motormouth, Mickey Avalon. But it was also a night to remember for a magazine writer, NME's Dan Martin.

Absent the staple of Bez's dancing, Martin filled in onstage -- despite a well-meaning security guy's effort to drag him off, thinking Martin was a wayward crowd member. When after a moment's absence he reappeared, throwing down some pretty decent moves. The crowd roared and the spirit of the Hacienda lived on.

Left: Ryder exits the stage with Danny Saber. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is into distribution. He's like Atlantic.]

If ripping on Ol' G.W.B. was the weekend's big theme, pan-ethnic punk/funk may have been another. Gogol Bordello threw down for the Eastern Bloc, Konono No 1. repped the Congo, and the Spanish-via-Paris vagabond Manu Chao did his best to prepare the audience for the Rage to come in a half-hour.

Coachella fans heard Chao's handiwork last year, having midwifed Amadou & Mariam's Malian blues on "Dimanche A Bamako." But on the main stage, Chao cherry-picked from countless cultures; English punk, bossa nova and cut-'em-fat reggae were all fair game.

It's unfair to stick Chao in the ghetto of the World Music bin, because nothing he does emulates the music of other cultures -- it's the real article. Grinning in a sporty bandanna, Chao sung with a revolutionary energy, and his gangbusters backing band matched him step for step. His bassist, who looked like Henry Rollins after a few trips down a buffet line, laid down deep, vigorous grooves while his guitarist melted faces with a high-wire flamenco solo.

Chao's a born provocateur as well, which is part of what makes him so beloved in Latin American politico circles. He dedicated one song to the "minor terrorist" we call President, before calling out Guantamo and random spying as part of the problem. But don't worry, he still finished one roiling hardcore tune with the chorus "me gusta marijuana." Back at you, Manu.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton finds it somewhat unsettling that he enjoys something on pop radio.]

Anyone stlll thinking the great, Internet-born Lily Allen craze had crested and been replaced by the Amy Winehouses of the world obviously wasn't anywhere near her set at an overflowing Mojave tent.

Backed by a full band and horn section that would've done the Skatalites proud, Allen confidently bounded through material from her MySpace-bred debut album "Alright, Still" with a brash confidence that recalled a smarter, sassier Gwen Stefani -- at least before Gwen became the eeriely airbrushed pop cyborg of today.

Beyond the superficial resemblances in sound and attitude, would the former singer for No Doubt have apologized for forgetting a few lyrics as a result of having a couple of spliffs earlier in the day? Would she so readily incite a tent full of women to scream in support as she bluntly introduced "Not Big," a song about the hardship of living with a man's, um, shortcomings? Not likely.

Dressed in her usual assortment of Lily-ana (hoop earrings, poofy dress, trainers), the London native strolled across both sides of the stage with the occasional cigarette and charisma to burn, not even letting the day's elephant in the room shadow what must've been one of her most successful shows stateside. After the crowd cheered in appreciation at her passing mention of the night's headliners, Allen was unfazed.

"I've never heard of them," she said with a devilish grin. "But apparently they're quite big."

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown thinks that guest blogging is MDM-azing.]

Eraserhead hairdos? Shrieking feedback? The notion that a British guitar rock band can be truly dangerous? We got all that Friday with Jesus and Mary Chain, and we got it again today with Klaxons, who absolutely murdered the Mojave tent and announced themselves as the Reid Brothers' most likely heirs. Yes, yes, we know we're feeding the hype machine, but good god Klaxons deserve it this time.

The X'ed out teenagers packing glowsticks and candy bracelets in their native England were replaced by a filthy and rabid crowd pogoing with their jaws on the floor and hands in the air. The trio (with a hired-gun live drummer) tore through the hits off their debut "Myths of the Near Future" with a maniacal brashness equal parts PiL and actual pills. "Atlantis To Interzone" churned with grimy basslines and don't-take-the-brown-acid caterwauling, while Jamie Reynolds and Simon Taylor traded deapan bon mots on the steely, propulsive single "Magick."

Like the JAMC, Klaxons' little secret is that they're actually whip-smart tunesmiths, and shimmering pop turns like "Golden Skans" and an ace cover of old-rave staple "Not Over Yet" suggested they have a long future after this faux-techno kick dies down.

"Thank you for making special for us," their swaggering, sweaty bassist Reynolds said.

"For that, we give you this," and lunged into another ferocious electro-punk freakout. Say it as loud as an air raid siren: Klaxons just killed it.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

So maybe there should have been more breathing room between the Crowded House reunion show on the main stage and Rage Against the Machine's headlining slot. Like two days.

The New Zealand pop quartet painted lovely pictures in the early dusk, harmonizing their way into the hearts of the throng gathering in anticipation of the festival climax. It might have come off as totally pastoral had not Neil Finn done the courteous thing and name-checked the bands that would follow. That sparked chants of "Rage, Rage, Rage" -- to which Finn could only reply, good-naturedly, "It's gonna be good. Go have a drink in the tent ... There's still time."

The folks up front waving the colors of New Zealand stayed put, of course. They'd waited a decade for their heroes to re-emerge, and they couldn't have been disappointed with the aplomb with which Crowded House delivered their hits. And when Finn's microphone cut out during "Don't Dream It's Over," he didn't have to ask the crowd very hard to help with the vocals. They filled in, very likely as they have been doing for the past 10 years.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler thinks every band should toss drumsticks into the crowd after their set. Also, shout-outs to cities. Those are good.]

Cansei de Ser Sexy, Sub Pop's Brazilian delegates of juicy dance-rock, chased after the rainbow of glam-hipster band fame every second of their performance. Purple unitard on Lovefoxxx? Uh-huh. A preponderance of bandanas and/or glittery scarves on every band member? You know it. Paris Hilton dancing on the side of the stage? Afraid so.

And check out this unholy amount of self-referencing: Lovefoxxx told the audience that she'd just met Hilton and then she proceeded to play "Meeting Paris Hilton." And somewhere in Williamsburg, we're pretty sure, an Urban Outfitters went up in flames.

Other stunts of the band's aerobicized set included a souped-up cover of L7's "Pretend We're Dead" and a new song that showcased CSS's sometimes-underrated songwriting chops. They closed with a scintillating trinity of CSS hits, including "Artbitch," their ode to merlot-swilling gallery flies.

In her introduction to the last song, "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above," Lovefoxxx said, "After Coachella, let's go to my house. I've got some condoms and we'll make love."

Hmm. ... I'm actually a lot more interested in some air conditioning at this point.

Coachella snapshot: A worker douses the crowd at the Do Lab in the center of the Empire Polo Field.

Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has a thing about quiet crowds.]

While the Klaxons were exploring the rhythmic possibilities of an air raid siren in the Mojave Tent, Sweden's José González was, against all odds, performing to a rapt crowd at the Gobi Tent.

Like Cat Stevens without the "Peace Train" homilies, the slight and scruffy González performed atop the stage's drum riser, accompanied at times by conga and a young woman who offered a few gentle pats on a cowbell as well as an occasional vocal harmony. As the sun slowly set behind us, González's breezy renditions of "Heartbeat" and "Stay in the Shade" needed little else beyond his honeyed voice and delicately finger-picked guitar.

Until, of course, the bass rumbles from the DJs spinning in the geodesic dome at the tent's mouth elbowed their way to the front of the tent. Every coffeehouse troubadour knows the feeling.

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

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The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

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Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

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Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

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Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Before Rage, a Happy Mondays rave

With bass lines that shook every bowel in the Sahara Tent, the Happy Mondays announced their return with a soulful set that featured guests, a lucky dancer and a surprisingly robust Shaun Ryder. It was 50 minutes for the "24 Hour Party People."

Nailing songs such as "Step On" and "Hallelujah" as if it were the '80s, the Mondays --whose influence as rock/soul hybridists is undeniable -- showed the half-full tent, which included front-row denizens holding aloft ticket stubs from long-ago concerts, that the sound of Madchester still breathed. Guitarist Danny Saber (Black Grape) was among the contributors, as was L.A.'s own motormouth, Mickey Avalon. But it was also a night to remember for a magazine writer, NME's Dan Martin.

Absent the staple of Bez's dancing, Martin filled in onstage -- despite a well-meaning security guy's effort to drag him off, thinking Martin was a wayward crowd member. When after a moment's absence he reappeared, throwing down some pretty decent moves. The crowd roared and the spirit of the Hacienda lived on.

Left: Ryder exits the stage with Danny Saber. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is into distribution. He's like Atlantic.]

If ripping on Ol' G.W.B. was the weekend's big theme, pan-ethnic punk/funk may have been another. Gogol Bordello threw down for the Eastern Bloc, Konono No 1. repped the Congo, and the Spanish-via-Paris vagabond Manu Chao did his best to prepare the audience for the Rage to come in a half-hour.

Coachella fans heard Chao's handiwork last year, having midwifed Amadou & Mariam's Malian blues on "Dimanche A Bamako." But on the main stage, Chao cherry-picked from countless cultures; English punk, bossa nova and cut-'em-fat reggae were all fair game.

It's unfair to stick Chao in the ghetto of the World Music bin, because nothing he does emulates the music of other cultures -- it's the real article. Grinning in a sporty bandanna, Chao sung with a revolutionary energy, and his gangbusters backing band matched him step for step. His bassist, who looked like Henry Rollins after a few trips down a buffet line, laid down deep, vigorous grooves while his guitarist melted faces with a high-wire flamenco solo.

Chao's a born provocateur as well, which is part of what makes him so beloved in Latin American politico circles. He dedicated one song to the "minor terrorist" we call President, before calling out Guantamo and random spying as part of the problem. But don't worry, he still finished one roiling hardcore tune with the chorus "me gusta marijuana." Back at you, Manu.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton finds it somewhat unsettling that he enjoys something on pop radio.]

Anyone stlll thinking the great, Internet-born Lily Allen craze had crested and been replaced by the Amy Winehouses of the world obviously wasn't anywhere near her set at an overflowing Mojave tent.

Backed by a full band and horn section that would've done the Skatalites proud, Allen confidently bounded through material from her MySpace-bred debut album "Alright, Still" with a brash confidence that recalled a smarter, sassier Gwen Stefani -- at least before Gwen became the eeriely airbrushed pop cyborg of today.

Beyond the superficial resemblances in sound and attitude, would the former singer for No Doubt have apologized for forgetting a few lyrics as a result of having a couple of spliffs earlier in the day? Would she so readily incite a tent full of women to scream in support as she bluntly introduced "Not Big," a song about the hardship of living with a man's, um, shortcomings? Not likely.

Dressed in her usual assortment of Lily-ana (hoop earrings, poofy dress, trainers), the London native strolled across both sides of the stage with the occasional cigarette and charisma to burn, not even letting the day's elephant in the room shadow what must've been one of her most successful shows stateside. After the crowd cheered in appreciation at her passing mention of the night's headliners, Allen was unfazed.

"I've never heard of them," she said with a devilish grin. "But apparently they're quite big."

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown thinks that guest blogging is MDM-azing.]

Eraserhead hairdos? Shrieking feedback? The notion that a British guitar rock band can be truly dangerous? We got all that Friday with Jesus and Mary Chain, and we got it again today with Klaxons, who absolutely murdered the Mojave tent and announced themselves as the Reid Brothers' most likely heirs. Yes, yes, we know we're feeding the hype machine, but good god Klaxons deserve it this time.

The X'ed out teenagers packing glowsticks and candy bracelets in their native England were replaced by a filthy and rabid crowd pogoing with their jaws on the floor and hands in the air. The trio (with a hired-gun live drummer) tore through the hits off their debut "Myths of the Near Future" with a maniacal brashness equal parts PiL and actual pills. "Atlantis To Interzone" churned with grimy basslines and don't-take-the-brown-acid caterwauling, while Jamie Reynolds and Simon Taylor traded deapan bon mots on the steely, propulsive single "Magick."

Like the JAMC, Klaxons' little secret is that they're actually whip-smart tunesmiths, and shimmering pop turns like "Golden Skans" and an ace cover of old-rave staple "Not Over Yet" suggested they have a long future after this faux-techno kick dies down.

"Thank you for making special for us," their swaggering, sweaty bassist Reynolds said.

"For that, we give you this," and lunged into another ferocious electro-punk freakout. Say it as loud as an air raid siren: Klaxons just killed it.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

So maybe there should have been more breathing room between the Crowded House reunion show on the main stage and Rage Against the Machine's headlining slot. Like two days.

The New Zealand pop quartet painted lovely pictures in the early dusk, harmonizing their way into the hearts of the throng gathering in anticipation of the festival climax. It might have come off as totally pastoral had not Neil Finn done the courteous thing and name-checked the bands that would follow. That sparked chants of "Rage, Rage, Rage" -- to which Finn could only reply, good-naturedly, "It's gonna be good. Go have a drink in the tent ... There's still time."

The folks up front waving the colors of New Zealand stayed put, of course. They'd waited a decade for their heroes to re-emerge, and they couldn't have been disappointed with the aplomb with which Crowded House delivered their hits. And when Finn's microphone cut out during "Don't Dream It's Over," he didn't have to ask the crowd very hard to help with the vocals. They filled in, very likely as they have been doing for the past 10 years.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler thinks every band should toss drumsticks into the crowd after their set. Also, shout-outs to cities. Those are good.]

Cansei de Ser Sexy, Sub Pop's Brazilian delegates of juicy dance-rock, chased after the rainbow of glam-hipster band fame every second of their performance. Purple unitard on Lovefoxxx? Uh-huh. A preponderance of bandanas and/or glittery scarves on every band member? You know it. Paris Hilton dancing on the side of the stage? Afraid so.

And check out this unholy amount of self-referencing: Lovefoxxx told the audience that she'd just met Hilton and then she proceeded to play "Meeting Paris Hilton." And somewhere in Williamsburg, we're pretty sure, an Urban Outfitters went up in flames.

Other stunts of the band's aerobicized set included a souped-up cover of L7's "Pretend We're Dead" and a new song that showcased CSS's sometimes-underrated songwriting chops. They closed with a scintillating trinity of CSS hits, including "Artbitch," their ode to merlot-swilling gallery flies.

In her introduction to the last song, "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above," Lovefoxxx said, "After Coachella, let's go to my house. I've got some condoms and we'll make love."

Hmm. ... I'm actually a lot more interested in some air conditioning at this point.

Coachella snapshot: A worker douses the crowd at the Do Lab in the center of the Empire Polo Field.

Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has a thing about quiet crowds.]

While the Klaxons were exploring the rhythmic possibilities of an air raid siren in the Mojave Tent, Sweden's José González was, against all odds, performing to a rapt crowd at the Gobi Tent.

Like Cat Stevens without the "Peace Train" homilies, the slight and scruffy González performed atop the stage's drum riser, accompanied at times by conga and a young woman who offered a few gentle pats on a cowbell as well as an occasional vocal harmony. As the sun slowly set behind us, González's breezy renditions of "Heartbeat" and "Stay in the Shade" needed little else beyond his honeyed voice and delicately finger-picked guitar.

Until, of course, the bass rumbles from the DJs spinning in the geodesic dome at the tent's mouth elbowed their way to the front of the tent. Every coffeehouse troubadour knows the feeling.

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Manu Chao brings the people together

[Guest blogger August Brown is into distribution. He's like Atlantic.]

If ripping on Ol' G.W.B. was the weekend's big theme, pan-ethnic punk/funk may have been another. Gogol Bordello threw down for the Eastern Bloc, Konono No 1. repped the Congo, and the Spanish-via-Paris vagabond Manu Chao did his best to prepare the audience for the Rage to come in a half-hour.

Coachella fans heard Chao's handiwork last year, having midwifed Amadou & Mariam's Malian blues on "Dimanche A Bamako." But on the main stage, Chao cherry-picked from countless cultures; English punk, bossa nova and cut-'em-fat reggae were all fair game.

It's unfair to stick Chao in the ghetto of the World Music bin, because nothing he does emulates the music of other cultures -- it's the real article. Grinning in a sporty bandanna, Chao sung with a revolutionary energy, and his gangbusters backing band matched him step for step. His bassist, who looked like Henry Rollins after a few trips down a buffet line, laid down deep, vigorous grooves while his guitarist melted faces with a high-wire flamenco solo.

Chao's a born provocateur as well, which is part of what makes him so beloved in Latin American politico circles. He dedicated one song to the "minor terrorist" we call President, before calling out Guantamo and random spying as part of the problem. But don't worry, he still finished one roiling hardcore tune with the chorus "me gusta marijuana." Back at you, Manu.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton finds it somewhat unsettling that he enjoys something on pop radio.]

Anyone stlll thinking the great, Internet-born Lily Allen craze had crested and been replaced by the Amy Winehouses of the world obviously wasn't anywhere near her set at an overflowing Mojave tent.

Backed by a full band and horn section that would've done the Skatalites proud, Allen confidently bounded through material from her MySpace-bred debut album "Alright, Still" with a brash confidence that recalled a smarter, sassier Gwen Stefani -- at least before Gwen became the eeriely airbrushed pop cyborg of today.

Beyond the superficial resemblances in sound and attitude, would the former singer for No Doubt have apologized for forgetting a few lyrics as a result of having a couple of spliffs earlier in the day? Would she so readily incite a tent full of women to scream in support as she bluntly introduced "Not Big," a song about the hardship of living with a man's, um, shortcomings? Not likely.

Dressed in her usual assortment of Lily-ana (hoop earrings, poofy dress, trainers), the London native strolled across both sides of the stage with the occasional cigarette and charisma to burn, not even letting the day's elephant in the room shadow what must've been one of her most successful shows stateside. After the crowd cheered in appreciation at her passing mention of the night's headliners, Allen was unfazed.

"I've never heard of them," she said with a devilish grin. "But apparently they're quite big."

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown thinks that guest blogging is MDM-azing.]

Eraserhead hairdos? Shrieking feedback? The notion that a British guitar rock band can be truly dangerous? We got all that Friday with Jesus and Mary Chain, and we got it again today with Klaxons, who absolutely murdered the Mojave tent and announced themselves as the Reid Brothers' most likely heirs. Yes, yes, we know we're feeding the hype machine, but good god Klaxons deserve it this time.

The X'ed out teenagers packing glowsticks and candy bracelets in their native England were replaced by a filthy and rabid crowd pogoing with their jaws on the floor and hands in the air. The trio (with a hired-gun live drummer) tore through the hits off their debut "Myths of the Near Future" with a maniacal brashness equal parts PiL and actual pills. "Atlantis To Interzone" churned with grimy basslines and don't-take-the-brown-acid caterwauling, while Jamie Reynolds and Simon Taylor traded deapan bon mots on the steely, propulsive single "Magick."

Like the JAMC, Klaxons' little secret is that they're actually whip-smart tunesmiths, and shimmering pop turns like "Golden Skans" and an ace cover of old-rave staple "Not Over Yet" suggested they have a long future after this faux-techno kick dies down.

"Thank you for making special for us," their swaggering, sweaty bassist Reynolds said.

"For that, we give you this," and lunged into another ferocious electro-punk freakout. Say it as loud as an air raid siren: Klaxons just killed it.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

So maybe there should have been more breathing room between the Crowded House reunion show on the main stage and Rage Against the Machine's headlining slot. Like two days.

The New Zealand pop quartet painted lovely pictures in the early dusk, harmonizing their way into the hearts of the throng gathering in anticipation of the festival climax. It might have come off as totally pastoral had not Neil Finn done the courteous thing and name-checked the bands that would follow. That sparked chants of "Rage, Rage, Rage" -- to which Finn could only reply, good-naturedly, "It's gonna be good. Go have a drink in the tent ... There's still time."

The folks up front waving the colors of New Zealand stayed put, of course. They'd waited a decade for their heroes to re-emerge, and they couldn't have been disappointed with the aplomb with which Crowded House delivered their hits. And when Finn's microphone cut out during "Don't Dream It's Over," he didn't have to ask the crowd very hard to help with the vocals. They filled in, very likely as they have been doing for the past 10 years.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler thinks every band should toss drumsticks into the crowd after their set. Also, shout-outs to cities. Those are good.]

Cansei de Ser Sexy, Sub Pop's Brazilian delegates of juicy dance-rock, chased after the rainbow of glam-hipster band fame every second of their performance. Purple unitard on Lovefoxxx? Uh-huh. A preponderance of bandanas and/or glittery scarves on every band member? You know it. Paris Hilton dancing on the side of the stage? Afraid so.

And check out this unholy amount of self-referencing: Lovefoxxx told the audience that she'd just met Hilton and then she proceeded to play "Meeting Paris Hilton." And somewhere in Williamsburg, we're pretty sure, an Urban Outfitters went up in flames.

Other stunts of the band's aerobicized set included a souped-up cover of L7's "Pretend We're Dead" and a new song that showcased CSS's sometimes-underrated songwriting chops. They closed with a scintillating trinity of CSS hits, including "Artbitch," their ode to merlot-swilling gallery flies.

In her introduction to the last song, "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above," Lovefoxxx said, "After Coachella, let's go to my house. I've got some condoms and we'll make love."

Hmm. ... I'm actually a lot more interested in some air conditioning at this point.

Coachella snapshot: A worker douses the crowd at the Do Lab in the center of the Empire Polo Field.

Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has a thing about quiet crowds.]

While the Klaxons were exploring the rhythmic possibilities of an air raid siren in the Mojave Tent, Sweden's José González was, against all odds, performing to a rapt crowd at the Gobi Tent.

Like Cat Stevens without the "Peace Train" homilies, the slight and scruffy González performed atop the stage's drum riser, accompanied at times by conga and a young woman who offered a few gentle pats on a cowbell as well as an occasional vocal harmony. As the sun slowly set behind us, González's breezy renditions of "Heartbeat" and "Stay in the Shade" needed little else beyond his honeyed voice and delicately finger-picked guitar.

Until, of course, the bass rumbles from the DJs spinning in the geodesic dome at the tent's mouth elbowed their way to the front of the tent. Every coffeehouse troubadour knows the feeling.

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Lily Allen’s more than just a girl

[Guest blogger Chris Barton finds it somewhat unsettling that he enjoys something on pop radio.]

Anyone stlll thinking the great, Internet-born Lily Allen craze had crested and been replaced by the Amy Winehouses of the world obviously wasn't anywhere near her set at an overflowing Mojave tent.

Backed by a full band and horn section that would've done the Skatalites proud, Allen confidently bounded through material from her MySpace-bred debut album "Alright, Still" with a brash confidence that recalled a smarter, sassier Gwen Stefani -- at least before Gwen became the eeriely airbrushed pop cyborg of today.

Beyond the superficial resemblances in sound and attitude, would the former singer for No Doubt have apologized for forgetting a few lyrics as a result of having a couple of spliffs earlier in the day? Would she so readily incite a tent full of women to scream in support as she bluntly introduced "Not Big," a song about the hardship of living with a man's, um, shortcomings? Not likely.

Dressed in her usual assortment of Lily-ana (hoop earrings, poofy dress, trainers), the London native strolled across both sides of the stage with the occasional cigarette and charisma to burn, not even letting the day's elephant in the room shadow what must've been one of her most successful shows stateside. After the crowd cheered in appreciation at her passing mention of the night's headliners, Allen was unfazed.

"I've never heard of them," she said with a devilish grin. "But apparently they're quite big."

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown thinks that guest blogging is MDM-azing.]

Eraserhead hairdos? Shrieking feedback? The notion that a British guitar rock band can be truly dangerous? We got all that Friday with Jesus and Mary Chain, and we got it again today with Klaxons, who absolutely murdered the Mojave tent and announced themselves as the Reid Brothers' most likely heirs. Yes, yes, we know we're feeding the hype machine, but good god Klaxons deserve it this time.

The X'ed out teenagers packing glowsticks and candy bracelets in their native England were replaced by a filthy and rabid crowd pogoing with their jaws on the floor and hands in the air. The trio (with a hired-gun live drummer) tore through the hits off their debut "Myths of the Near Future" with a maniacal brashness equal parts PiL and actual pills. "Atlantis To Interzone" churned with grimy basslines and don't-take-the-brown-acid caterwauling, while Jamie Reynolds and Simon Taylor traded deapan bon mots on the steely, propulsive single "Magick."

Like the JAMC, Klaxons' little secret is that they're actually whip-smart tunesmiths, and shimmering pop turns like "Golden Skans" and an ace cover of old-rave staple "Not Over Yet" suggested they have a long future after this faux-techno kick dies down.

"Thank you for making special for us," their swaggering, sweaty bassist Reynolds said.

"For that, we give you this," and lunged into another ferocious electro-punk freakout. Say it as loud as an air raid siren: Klaxons just killed it.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

So maybe there should have been more breathing room between the Crowded House reunion show on the main stage and Rage Against the Machine's headlining slot. Like two days.

The New Zealand pop quartet painted lovely pictures in the early dusk, harmonizing their way into the hearts of the throng gathering in anticipation of the festival climax. It might have come off as totally pastoral had not Neil Finn done the courteous thing and name-checked the bands that would follow. That sparked chants of "Rage, Rage, Rage" -- to which Finn could only reply, good-naturedly, "It's gonna be good. Go have a drink in the tent ... There's still time."

The folks up front waving the colors of New Zealand stayed put, of course. They'd waited a decade for their heroes to re-emerge, and they couldn't have been disappointed with the aplomb with which Crowded House delivered their hits. And when Finn's microphone cut out during "Don't Dream It's Over," he didn't have to ask the crowd very hard to help with the vocals. They filled in, very likely as they have been doing for the past 10 years.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler thinks every band should toss drumsticks into the crowd after their set. Also, shout-outs to cities. Those are good.]

Cansei de Ser Sexy, Sub Pop's Brazilian delegates of juicy dance-rock, chased after the rainbow of glam-hipster band fame every second of their performance. Purple unitard on Lovefoxxx? Uh-huh. A preponderance of bandanas and/or glittery scarves on every band member? You know it. Paris Hilton dancing on the side of the stage? Afraid so.

And check out this unholy amount of self-referencing: Lovefoxxx told the audience that she'd just met Hilton and then she proceeded to play "Meeting Paris Hilton." And somewhere in Williamsburg, we're pretty sure, an Urban Outfitters went up in flames.

Other stunts of the band's aerobicized set included a souped-up cover of L7's "Pretend We're Dead" and a new song that showcased CSS's sometimes-underrated songwriting chops. They closed with a scintillating trinity of CSS hits, including "Artbitch," their ode to merlot-swilling gallery flies.

In her introduction to the last song, "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above," Lovefoxxx said, "After Coachella, let's go to my house. I've got some condoms and we'll make love."

Hmm. ... I'm actually a lot more interested in some air conditioning at this point.

Coachella snapshot: A worker douses the crowd at the Do Lab in the center of the Empire Polo Field.

Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has a thing about quiet crowds.]

While the Klaxons were exploring the rhythmic possibilities of an air raid siren in the Mojave Tent, Sweden's José González was, against all odds, performing to a rapt crowd at the Gobi Tent.

Like Cat Stevens without the "Peace Train" homilies, the slight and scruffy González performed atop the stage's drum riser, accompanied at times by conga and a young woman who offered a few gentle pats on a cowbell as well as an occasional vocal harmony. As the sun slowly set behind us, González's breezy renditions of "Heartbeat" and "Stay in the Shade" needed little else beyond his honeyed voice and delicately finger-picked guitar.

Until, of course, the bass rumbles from the DJs spinning in the geodesic dome at the tent's mouth elbowed their way to the front of the tent. Every coffeehouse troubadour knows the feeling.

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Klaxons freak out

[August Brown thinks that guest blogging is MDM-azing.]

Eraserhead hairdos? Shrieking feedback? The notion that a British guitar rock band can be truly dangerous? We got all that Friday with Jesus and Mary Chain, and we got it again today with Klaxons, who absolutely murdered the Mojave tent and announced themselves as the Reid Brothers' most likely heirs. Yes, yes, we know we're feeding the hype machine, but good god Klaxons deserve it this time.

The X'ed out teenagers packing glowsticks and candy bracelets in their native England were replaced by a filthy and rabid crowd pogoing with their jaws on the floor and hands in the air. The trio (with a hired-gun live drummer) tore through the hits off their debut "Myths of the Near Future" with a maniacal brashness equal parts PiL and actual pills. "Atlantis To Interzone" churned with grimy basslines and don't-take-the-brown-acid caterwauling, while Jamie Reynolds and Simon Taylor traded deapan bon mots on the steely, propulsive single "Magick."

Like the JAMC, Klaxons' little secret is that they're actually whip-smart tunesmiths, and shimmering pop turns like "Golden Skans" and an ace cover of old-rave staple "Not Over Yet" suggested they have a long future after this faux-techno kick dies down.

"Thank you for making special for us," their swaggering, sweaty bassist Reynolds said.

"For that, we give you this," and lunged into another ferocious electro-punk freakout. Say it as loud as an air raid siren: Klaxons just killed it.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

So maybe there should have been more breathing room between the Crowded House reunion show on the main stage and Rage Against the Machine's headlining slot. Like two days.

The New Zealand pop quartet painted lovely pictures in the early dusk, harmonizing their way into the hearts of the throng gathering in anticipation of the festival climax. It might have come off as totally pastoral had not Neil Finn done the courteous thing and name-checked the bands that would follow. That sparked chants of "Rage, Rage, Rage" -- to which Finn could only reply, good-naturedly, "It's gonna be good. Go have a drink in the tent ... There's still time."

The folks up front waving the colors of New Zealand stayed put, of course. They'd waited a decade for their heroes to re-emerge, and they couldn't have been disappointed with the aplomb with which Crowded House delivered their hits. And when Finn's microphone cut out during "Don't Dream It's Over," he didn't have to ask the crowd very hard to help with the vocals. They filled in, very likely as they have been doing for the past 10 years.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler thinks every band should toss drumsticks into the crowd after their set. Also, shout-outs to cities. Those are good.]

Cansei de Ser Sexy, Sub Pop's Brazilian delegates of juicy dance-rock, chased after the rainbow of glam-hipster band fame every second of their performance. Purple unitard on Lovefoxxx? Uh-huh. A preponderance of bandanas and/or glittery scarves on every band member? You know it. Paris Hilton dancing on the side of the stage? Afraid so.

And check out this unholy amount of self-referencing: Lovefoxxx told the audience that she'd just met Hilton and then she proceeded to play "Meeting Paris Hilton." And somewhere in Williamsburg, we're pretty sure, an Urban Outfitters went up in flames.

Other stunts of the band's aerobicized set included a souped-up cover of L7's "Pretend We're Dead" and a new song that showcased CSS's sometimes-underrated songwriting chops. They closed with a scintillating trinity of CSS hits, including "Artbitch," their ode to merlot-swilling gallery flies.

In her introduction to the last song, "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above," Lovefoxxx said, "After Coachella, let's go to my house. I've got some condoms and we'll make love."

Hmm. ... I'm actually a lot more interested in some air conditioning at this point.

Coachella snapshot: A worker douses the crowd at the Do Lab in the center of the Empire Polo Field.

Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has a thing about quiet crowds.]

While the Klaxons were exploring the rhythmic possibilities of an air raid siren in the Mojave Tent, Sweden's José González was, against all odds, performing to a rapt crowd at the Gobi Tent.

Like Cat Stevens without the "Peace Train" homilies, the slight and scruffy González performed atop the stage's drum riser, accompanied at times by conga and a young woman who offered a few gentle pats on a cowbell as well as an occasional vocal harmony. As the sun slowly set behind us, González's breezy renditions of "Heartbeat" and "Stay in the Shade" needed little else beyond his honeyed voice and delicately finger-picked guitar.

Until, of course, the bass rumbles from the DJs spinning in the geodesic dome at the tent's mouth elbowed their way to the front of the tent. Every coffeehouse troubadour knows the feeling.

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

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The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

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Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

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Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

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Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Night falls, anticipation builds

So maybe there should have been more breathing room between the Crowded House reunion show on the main stage and Rage Against the Machine's headlining slot. Like two days.

The New Zealand pop quartet painted lovely pictures in the early dusk, harmonizing their way into the hearts of the throng gathering in anticipation of the festival climax. It might have come off as totally pastoral had not Neil Finn done the courteous thing and name-checked the bands that would follow. That sparked chants of "Rage, Rage, Rage" -- to which Finn could only reply, good-naturedly, "It's gonna be good. Go have a drink in the tent ... There's still time."

The folks up front waving the colors of New Zealand stayed put, of course. They'd waited a decade for their heroes to re-emerge, and they couldn't have been disappointed with the aplomb with which Crowded House delivered their hits. And when Finn's microphone cut out during "Don't Dream It's Over," he didn't have to ask the crowd very hard to help with the vocals. They filled in, very likely as they have been doing for the past 10 years.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler thinks every band should toss drumsticks into the crowd after their set. Also, shout-outs to cities. Those are good.]

Cansei de Ser Sexy, Sub Pop's Brazilian delegates of juicy dance-rock, chased after the rainbow of glam-hipster band fame every second of their performance. Purple unitard on Lovefoxxx? Uh-huh. A preponderance of bandanas and/or glittery scarves on every band member? You know it. Paris Hilton dancing on the side of the stage? Afraid so.

And check out this unholy amount of self-referencing: Lovefoxxx told the audience that she'd just met Hilton and then she proceeded to play "Meeting Paris Hilton." And somewhere in Williamsburg, we're pretty sure, an Urban Outfitters went up in flames.

Other stunts of the band's aerobicized set included a souped-up cover of L7's "Pretend We're Dead" and a new song that showcased CSS's sometimes-underrated songwriting chops. They closed with a scintillating trinity of CSS hits, including "Artbitch," their ode to merlot-swilling gallery flies.

In her introduction to the last song, "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above," Lovefoxxx said, "After Coachella, let's go to my house. I've got some condoms and we'll make love."

Hmm. ... I'm actually a lot more interested in some air conditioning at this point.

Coachella snapshot: A worker douses the crowd at the Do Lab in the center of the Empire Polo Field.

Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has a thing about quiet crowds.]

While the Klaxons were exploring the rhythmic possibilities of an air raid siren in the Mojave Tent, Sweden's José González was, against all odds, performing to a rapt crowd at the Gobi Tent.

Like Cat Stevens without the "Peace Train" homilies, the slight and scruffy González performed atop the stage's drum riser, accompanied at times by conga and a young woman who offered a few gentle pats on a cowbell as well as an occasional vocal harmony. As the sun slowly set behind us, González's breezy renditions of "Heartbeat" and "Stay in the Shade" needed little else beyond his honeyed voice and delicately finger-picked guitar.

Until, of course, the bass rumbles from the DJs spinning in the geodesic dome at the tent's mouth elbowed their way to the front of the tent. Every coffeehouse troubadour knows the feeling.

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Crowded House plays to a crowded field

So maybe there should have been more breathing room between the Crowded House reunion show on the main stage and Rage Against the Machine's headlining slot. Like two days.

The New Zealand pop quartet painted lovely pictures in the early dusk, harmonizing their way into the hearts of the throng gathering in anticipation of the festival climax. It might have come off as totally pastoral had not Neil Finn done the courteous thing and name-checked the bands that would follow. That sparked chants of "Rage, Rage, Rage" -- to which Finn could only reply, good-naturedly, "It's gonna be good. Go have a drink in the tent ... There's still time."

The folks up front waving the colors of New Zealand stayed put, of course. They'd waited a decade for their heroes to re-emerge, and they couldn't have been disappointed with the aplomb with which Crowded House delivered their hits. And when Finn's microphone cut out during "Don't Dream It's Over," he didn't have to ask the crowd very hard to help with the vocals. They filled in, very likely as they have been doing for the past 10 years.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler thinks every band should toss drumsticks into the crowd after their set. Also, shout-outs to cities. Those are good.]

Cansei de Ser Sexy, Sub Pop's Brazilian delegates of juicy dance-rock, chased after the rainbow of glam-hipster band fame every second of their performance. Purple unitard on Lovefoxxx? Uh-huh. A preponderance of bandanas and/or glittery scarves on every band member? You know it. Paris Hilton dancing on the side of the stage? Afraid so.

And check out this unholy amount of self-referencing: Lovefoxxx told the audience that she'd just met Hilton and then she proceeded to play "Meeting Paris Hilton." And somewhere in Williamsburg, we're pretty sure, an Urban Outfitters went up in flames.

Other stunts of the band's aerobicized set included a souped-up cover of L7's "Pretend We're Dead" and a new song that showcased CSS's sometimes-underrated songwriting chops. They closed with a scintillating trinity of CSS hits, including "Artbitch," their ode to merlot-swilling gallery flies.

In her introduction to the last song, "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above," Lovefoxxx said, "After Coachella, let's go to my house. I've got some condoms and we'll make love."

Hmm. ... I'm actually a lot more interested in some air conditioning at this point.

Coachella snapshot: A worker douses the crowd at the Do Lab in the center of the Empire Polo Field.

Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has a thing about quiet crowds.]

While the Klaxons were exploring the rhythmic possibilities of an air raid siren in the Mojave Tent, Sweden's José González was, against all odds, performing to a rapt crowd at the Gobi Tent.

Like Cat Stevens without the "Peace Train" homilies, the slight and scruffy González performed atop the stage's drum riser, accompanied at times by conga and a young woman who offered a few gentle pats on a cowbell as well as an occasional vocal harmony. As the sun slowly set behind us, González's breezy renditions of "Heartbeat" and "Stay in the Shade" needed little else beyond his honeyed voice and delicately finger-picked guitar.

Until, of course, the bass rumbles from the DJs spinning in the geodesic dome at the tent's mouth elbowed their way to the front of the tent. Every coffeehouse troubadour knows the feeling.

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Party at CSS’s house

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler thinks every band should toss drumsticks into the crowd after their set. Also, shout-outs to cities. Those are good.]

Cansei de Ser Sexy, Sub Pop's Brazilian delegates of juicy dance-rock, chased after the rainbow of glam-hipster band fame every second of their performance. Purple unitard on Lovefoxxx? Uh-huh. A preponderance of bandanas and/or glittery scarves on every band member? You know it. Paris Hilton dancing on the side of the stage? Afraid so.

And check out this unholy amount of self-referencing: Lovefoxxx told the audience that she'd just met Hilton and then she proceeded to play "Meeting Paris Hilton." And somewhere in Williamsburg, we're pretty sure, an Urban Outfitters went up in flames.

Other stunts of the band's aerobicized set included a souped-up cover of L7's "Pretend We're Dead" and a new song that showcased CSS's sometimes-underrated songwriting chops. They closed with a scintillating trinity of CSS hits, including "Artbitch," their ode to merlot-swilling gallery flies.

In her introduction to the last song, "Let's Make Love and Listen to Death from Above," Lovefoxxx said, "After Coachella, let's go to my house. I've got some condoms and we'll make love."

Hmm. ... I'm actually a lot more interested in some air conditioning at this point.

Coachella snapshot: A worker douses the crowd at the Do Lab in the center of the Empire Polo Field.

Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has a thing about quiet crowds.]

While the Klaxons were exploring the rhythmic possibilities of an air raid siren in the Mojave Tent, Sweden's José González was, against all odds, performing to a rapt crowd at the Gobi Tent.

Like Cat Stevens without the "Peace Train" homilies, the slight and scruffy González performed atop the stage's drum riser, accompanied at times by conga and a young woman who offered a few gentle pats on a cowbell as well as an occasional vocal harmony. As the sun slowly set behind us, González's breezy renditions of "Heartbeat" and "Stay in the Shade" needed little else beyond his honeyed voice and delicately finger-picked guitar.

Until, of course, the bass rumbles from the DJs spinning in the geodesic dome at the tent's mouth elbowed their way to the front of the tent. Every coffeehouse troubadour knows the feeling.

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

It got cooler

Coachella snapshot: A worker douses the crowd at the Do Lab in the center of the Empire Polo Field.

Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has a thing about quiet crowds.]

While the Klaxons were exploring the rhythmic possibilities of an air raid siren in the Mojave Tent, Sweden's José González was, against all odds, performing to a rapt crowd at the Gobi Tent.

Like Cat Stevens without the "Peace Train" homilies, the slight and scruffy González performed atop the stage's drum riser, accompanied at times by conga and a young woman who offered a few gentle pats on a cowbell as well as an occasional vocal harmony. As the sun slowly set behind us, González's breezy renditions of "Heartbeat" and "Stay in the Shade" needed little else beyond his honeyed voice and delicately finger-picked guitar.

Until, of course, the bass rumbles from the DJs spinning in the geodesic dome at the tent's mouth elbowed their way to the front of the tent. Every coffeehouse troubadour knows the feeling.

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

A moment of silence for José González

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has a thing about quiet crowds.]

While the Klaxons were exploring the rhythmic possibilities of an air raid siren in the Mojave Tent, Sweden's José González was, against all odds, performing to a rapt crowd at the Gobi Tent.

Like Cat Stevens without the "Peace Train" homilies, the slight and scruffy González performed atop the stage's drum riser, accompanied at times by conga and a young woman who offered a few gentle pats on a cowbell as well as an occasional vocal harmony. As the sun slowly set behind us, González's breezy renditions of "Heartbeat" and "Stay in the Shade" needed little else beyond his honeyed voice and delicately finger-picked guitar.

Until, of course, the bass rumbles from the DJs spinning in the geodesic dome at the tent's mouth elbowed their way to the front of the tent. Every coffeehouse troubadour knows the feeling.

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Desert dealings, Vol. 5

Officials put the crowd total at 60,000 for each day of Coachella, though the grounds seemed more crowded Sunday. Maybe it was just the bigger-than-usual (for the time slot) main stage crowds for afternoon sets by Explosions in the Sky and the Roots.

Of the 16,000 campers at the festival, 30% were from outside the U.S.

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

The Roots branch out into activism too

[You don't have to beat the bushes to find people who are beating up on Bush, as guest blogger Jeff Weiss is the latest contributor to find.]

If a common sentiment emerged from the hip-hop acts that rocked this year's Coachella, it's opposition to the Bush administration, with everyone from well-known political firebrands like the Coup, El-P and Pharoahe Monch to relative newcomers like Brother Ali and Lupe Fiasco. The latter dedicated his anti-imperialist screed, "American Terrorist" to a roaring crowd. But perhaps the highlight of the bunch was the Philadephia hip-hoppers, The Roots, a group less known for their subversive sentiment.

Indeed, the showstopper of the Roots' 50-minute main stage set was a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," with soul singer Kirk Douglas handling vocals and bursts of psychedelic guitar and funky drums buoying the noise. The rest of the Roots set was less explosive and incendiary, as the band rattled off a series of covers ranging from funk classics like "Jungle Boogie" to "Push It" to "Egyptian Lover" to "Award Tour" to even Mims' "This Is Why I'm Hot."

Fiasco's set earlier in the day was similarly captivating, with the Chicago-bred MC displaying an energetic stage presence, flinging water on on-lookers and even sprinting into the crowd during closer, the Beta Band-sampling "Daydream."

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Bash Bush? The Coup can do

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler would like to thank Opti-Free Express Rewetting eye drops for

keeping her sane.]

"We like to keep it funky, as you might have heard," the Coup's Boots Riley

said to the Outdoor Theatre crowd. He was feeling a lot better today now that it's a

slightly more humane temperature. The Coup dipped deep into their back catalog with "5 Million

Ways to Kill a CEO," while agreeably wedging in a few licks and lines from the

Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give

It Away."

There's been plenty of Bush-bashing at Coachella. In fact it's become de rigeur; but

from the Coup, it feels like more than token rabblerousing. Especially when guest

vocalist Silk-E delighted the audience with her song "Baby Let's Have a Baby

Before Bush Do Something Crazy."

Even the most committment-phobic guy can't argue with that logic.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Keep your eyes on the Skies

[Guest blogger Chris Barton will not be messing with Texas any time soon, he swears. Oh, and about that photograph of the video screen next to the main stage -- we manipulated it in an attempt to convey visually what we experienced sonically.]

One of the more unlikely indie success stories of the last five years, Austin's Explosions in the Sky rose from apocalypse-conjuring masters of quiet-loud-quiet-loud guitar rock dynamics to a film score pedigree and a late afternoon main stage slot. Though their aesthetic is such that the ingredients essentially remain the same from song to slow-burning song, the band is an absolute monster live, offering martial percussion and guitars that can chime like church bells or swell into frozen washes of noise. The end result can sound frightening, sad, hopeful or triumphant, depending on your mood.

Though the sun was bearing down, "exultant" was the mood of the day, particularly during one of the more delicate passages from Explosions' latest album "All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone." With the ideal score behind them, security staff began tossing bottle after bottle of water high above the audience, sending drops of icy relief onto a grateful crowd.

Perpetually swaying guitarist Munaf Rayani soon after dropped to his knees before his guitar and raised his hands above his head as if in the midst of a religious experience. With much of the crowd clapping along with the steadily ascending rhythm, we all were.

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Coming out in favor of Against Me!

[Guest blogger August Brown is from Florida too, and understands.]

Against Me! are surely the only band to turn the name "Condoleeza" into a throat-shredding call-to-arms chorus. But the band beats all sorts of odds: They're from Florida and they're not Skynyrd ripoffs; they wore all black and didn't pass out on the Outdoor Theatre stage; and they managed to make punk rock sound fresh in 2007.

Tom Gabel was a ball of agit-prop energy, howling his drinking-song anthems over a bevy of "whoa-oh's" and manic power chords. In a weekend with the Nightwatchman, the Coup and Rage, union songs are officially back in style and Gabel's were among the best. On "From Her Lips To God's Ears," off their excellent LP "Searching For A Former Clarity," Gabel shivered with righteous indignance, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to indict the trigger-happy politics of Ms. Rice: "Do you remember what the martyr stood for? Oh, Condoleeza do you get the joke?"

Such an allusion sounds like a pretty ghastly idea on paper, but Gabel's wild-eyed flailing and his band's muscular pummel made it spine-tingling.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

The Kooks: tastes great, less filling

If the Kooks' catchiness were freon, Coachella would be air-conditioned.

The Brighton quartet unleashed their jaunty pop songs on a Mojave Tent overflowing with bodies and adulation, much of the latter conveyed by youthful females who seemed to get a bit glassy-eyed the more singer Luke Pritchard cavorted around the stage. The Brighton quartet may not be critical darlings, but they are darlings.

More than just the boyish Pritchard's flowing brown locks, it's all in the choruses. They're not big and anthemic; they're clipped and unusually phrased, like a quick kiss in the darkened back of a nightclub. The music has all the right ingredients, even if the finished product could use a few more calories.

Pritchard's is a contagious charm, though, magnified by his own happy-to-be-at-Coachella sentiments. At one point, he dashed to sidestage to give his bearded, mop-topped publicist a smooch. "You Don't Love Me," indeed.

Pictured: Luke Pritchard captured mid-cavort beside guitarist Hugh Harris. Photo by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Grizzly Bear learns to roar

[Guest blogger August Brown has been told he's more otter than bear.]

Grizzly Bear are not an a capella band (well, not usually), but for all the talk of their incantory harmonies, you'd be forgiven if you thought they were a hairy barbershop quartet. But the big story out of their Gobi tent set was that, lo and behold, there's a bit of a loud, nasty rock band buried in there somewhere.

Their geniusly named drummer Chris Bear throttled his kit
Steve Reid-style while guitarist Daniel Rossen gave the songs welcome shot of pissed-off distortion. Their Warp debut "Yellow House" was a touch too mannered, but their live set was lush and volatile, and full of the unnervingly pretty three and four-part harmonies they're so known for. A few snappy pop numbers, like the stargazing Motown throwback "Knife" were a nice break from all the free-form noisemaking, but band mastermind Ed Droste seems to have finally figured out how to out-freak the folk crowd: by getting a little bit angry.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

LCD Soundsystem: less cowbell

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler has never had Daft Punk at her house but she thinks the invitation probably got lost in the mail.]

LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy is the anti-frontman's frontman. He owns the stage with cool charisma instead of hyperactive stunts. So even when he stepped out 15 minutes late, the Saturday night crowd in the Sahara Tent who'd been whipped into a frenzy by Justice's blistering set, howled in a way befitting Murphy's status as the doyen of dance-punk.

Launching with "Us and Them," Murphy played the cowbell primitvely, raising the instrument close to his ears so he could hear the precise tones of his hits. Cold-blooded funk roiled in the background, courtesy of synths player Nancy Whang and Al Doyle of Hot Chip filling in on guitar. Tyler Pope, !!!'s guitarist, danced on the sidelines but jumped into the fray for "Yeah," catching drumsticks tossed at him by drummer Pat Mahoney. At one point, Pope, Doyle, Murphy and Mahoney were all playing percussion, Murphy with an empty water bottle.

The audience embraced the self-deprecation of "North American Scum," batting beach balls at each other, crowd-surfing and even indulging in a little of that old chestnut, the stage dive. And then Murphy cooled them out with "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."

As the end of the show, one woman turned to her friend and said, "That was like Talking Heads meets everything." Yeah, pretty much.

Photo by Margaret Wappler / LAT.

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

A little Avett brotherly love

(Guest blogger Chris Barton can't make it to Stagecoach this year. His feet thank him.)

Though there's so much more still to come, one can't escape the fact this is the last day of Coachella '07--but we prefer to look on the bright side. After all, we're now one day closer to next week's Stagecoach, a twangier version of the same thing with probably the same amount of vintage western shirts on hand.

Watching North Carolina's Avett Bros. host a bluegrass tent revival in the afternoon, it's tough not to feel a little bit of excitement for 'Country Coachella,' even though the Avetts will be long gone by then.

Which makes no sense. The trio's mix of down-home harmonies, fiery picking and larynx-shredding intensity might do some of those Kenny Chesney fans some good. Sticking to the standard upright bass, banjo, guitar line-up, the acoustic trio performed with a howling, Pentecostal fervor that Jack White's spent years trying to perfect. The Avetts broke with traditional bluegrass from a percussion standpoint, however--banjo player Scott Avett stomped on a kickdrum pedal, while brother Seth worked a high-hat while strumming the guitar, not to mention the breaks where the trio slapped the bodies of their instruments for a lttle extra boost. Covering the usual bluegrass themes--liquor, love and loss--the Avetts brought a welcome bit of blood 'n guts to a Gobi Tent that surely was about to be lulled into a harmony-rich stasis with the coming of Grizzly Bear.

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Tapes ‘N Tapes ‘N trying our patience

[Guest blogger August Brown wonders why Pitchfork only has haterade for L.A. bands.]

There's little to say about Tapes 'n Tapes that Clell Tickle hasn't already, but if these guys are the Best New Music, indie rock's in a world of hurt. The self-consciously quirky guitar-pop quartet was one of last year's more random success stories -- its debut "The Loon" was a deeply unremarkable collection of warmed over Isaac Brock-isms and shoutouts to Harvard Square.

Live, they replicated such exactly, dipping into their thin catalog of blog fodder to work a sleepy Mojave tent. When they chilled out a bit on "Ten Gallon Ascots" they were more convincing, but like singer Josh Grier's new fashion mullet, they shot for edgy and ended up as kind of sad.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

The only way to travel

[Guest blogger Chris Barton has been raging against walking in the heat.]

One of the cruelest things about the desert heat is that in the long walk from the car to the main gate, festival-goers become parched and are ready to buy water before even hearing a note. Welcome to the free market. Operating with a permit from festival operators, local entrepreneur Clarissa offers a ride from the parking lot to the base of the main gate's walkway for $5 a person. It might sound like a lot for a three-minute drive, but after two days of Coachella it was a godsend. Too bad we got to talking and I forgot to pay my fare. Sorry, Clarissa! Hope I see you at the end of the night; I'll happily pay double for the ride back.

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Now this is how rumors get started …

Sources say this just ain't so:

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Texas quintet: Better than fair to middling

Rage Against the Machine T-shirts became all the rage Sunday afternoon, as the festival grounds filled in anticipation of the big reunion show. While pin-up boy Miko turned the main stage into a Sunday brunch discotheque -- his falsetto clearly aiming for the hearts of female fans and instead piercing everybody's forehead like a frontal lobotomy -- the early rage was provided by Texas metallurgists Fair to Midland in the Mojave Tent.

The quintet's brawny, dire rock, punctuated by violent hard-core breakdowns, came off as the real deal, neither as overwrought or whiny as many young bands venturing into that territory. The difference? The range of vocalist Darroh Sudderth, who can belt it out, growl, croon ... you name it. It is no surprise the fivesome caught the attention of System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who joined his troops early in the set to sing backup vocals on "Wall of Jericho."

Afterward, Sudderth and band mates turned the half-full tent into a convulse-along, even sparking a mini-moshpit. Nirvana for the long-chin-hair set.

Perhaps most surprising was the set-ending single, "Dance of the Manatee," from the forthcoming "Fables of a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times Is True." The song is built on a strummed chord progression that sounds as if it could have come out of Travis' catalogue. It was, dare we say, pretty?

Photo of Sudderth and Tankian by Kevin Bronson / LAT.

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Tiësto 1, Rock 0

[Chris Barton lingers before leaving the grounds Saturday night.]

Scoff at a DJ headlining the main stage all you want, but Dutch-born trance superstar Tiësto turned Indio into a small corner of Europe, rumbling the grounds with whirling synthesized whooshes and, most importantly, the unstoppable beat that could never be contained in some petty tent. Peppers fans may've run for the gates, but for a sizable contingent of dance freaks, the evening's messiah had arrived to claim the main stage for his devoted disciples.

As a montage of "Baraka"-esque videos played in soothing slow motion amid a swirling, intergalactic light display, even the most joyless rockist inside us finally got it: While Coachella's mind-bending parking maze was closing down many a night with frustration, many were closing their Saturday with what felt like an ascension.

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Desert dealings, Vol. 4

[Quick hits from rapid wanderings on Saturday:]

Perry Farrell and Boots Riley of the Coup joined Tom Morello -- doing business as the Nightwatchman --in the Gobi Tent during his set of social commentary and heated (I know, how could it be otherwise?) Bush-bashing. The Coup's set on Sunday at the Outdoor Theatre is not to be missed.

◊ ◊ ◊

The Good, the Bad and the Queen lurched to late start at the Outdoor Theatre in the final set of Saturday, but the British all-star band more than lived up to its members' lineage. ...

Warmest set of the day? One visitor from New Zealand voted for the Fratellis in the breezeless Mojave Tent. The Scottish trio proved that they are every bit as good as the music on their debut, "Costello Music," yet as in their recent club show in Los Angeles, they failed to engage the crowd. ... The Rapture sizzled in its evening-ending set in the Sahara Tent, with singer Luke Jenner stage-diving and surfing around the proceedings on the outstretched arms a remarkably energetic dance-punk crowd. ...

The Black Keys parlayed their taut blues rock into a killer late set at the Mojave Tent -- there are not a lot of blues at Coachella, unless you count folks complaining about the heat.

Pictured: The Good, the Bad and the Queen's Damon Albarn claps his hands without saying yeah. Photo by Spencer Weinter / LAT.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Death, taxes and the Chili Peppers

[Guest blogger Chris Barton was indeed red hot earlier today; no peppers were harmed in the process.]

In a parallel universe somewhere, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are taking the Coachella 2007 stage after 15 years of inactivity, embarking on a much-anticipated and triumphant reunion appearance on one of the country's biggest stages.

Ours is not that universe.

But, given the band's struggle with a multitude of demons through the years, it easily could have been. Instead, this year's Coachella is the Chilis' second appearance, and they bang out shows of this size pratically without breaking a sweat. In fact, one could argue they're bigger than ever. So big only a handful of classic hits like the inevitable "Under the Bridge" need be trotted out. So big John Frusciante can deliver a delicately falsettoed version of Fleetwood Mac's "Songbird" with no one batting an eye. So big Anthony can bound around the stage in a creepy moustache and freestyle about being in band called "the Red Hots." And so big Flea can pound out his umpteenth virtuosic bass solo and, when taken together, it's almost like those 15 years never passed. Yet, somehow, they did, and the Chilis keep on keeping on--a brand name.

◊ ◊ ◊

Meanwhile, with the Chili Peppers preaching to the choir and LCD Soundsystem converting anybody in sight, the creaky strains of Sparklehorse -- with Mark Linkous singing of "a spirit ditch" -- were falling on mostly reclined bodies in a half-full Mojave Tent. It's a tough polo field.

Photo by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Girl Talk gets sassy

[Guest blogger August Brown still can't believe that "Love Will Keep Us Together/Tear Us Apart" mashup. Unreal.]

There's probably no two songs with less in common that Neutral Milk Hotel's "Holland, 1945" and Khia's "My Neck, My Back." One is a stream-of-consciousness retelling of Anne Frank's sexual awakening, and the other is, well, a bit more straightforward on the latter topic. But Greg Gillis, the erstwhile DJ/button pusher/super-stoked hypeman behind Girl Talk, somehow found a place in mash-up land where they can co-exist peacefully. Greg Gillis is the ur-hipster.

For a project whose live performances consist of little more than hitting spacebar a bunch of times (as bloggers, trust us that it's not too exciting), Gillis had more unabashed joy flipping through his iTunes than most bands did playing instruments. He took a good chunk of the crowd with him onstage (Paris Hilton too -- we'd know that vacant stare anywhere) with him onstage to grind in a fury of sweat, terrycloth headbands and general malnourishment. Your knowledge of top-40 hip hop and '80's pop arcana will determine how witty you find the whole ordeal, but his skill at assembling club bangers from unlikely sources (The bassline to "Lithium," the verse from "SexyBack" and the chorus to "Carry On My Wayward Son" in one song?) is indisputable. "This is the greatest time of my life," he screamed at the mass of sweaty bodies before him, and probably meant it. Gillis loves irony, but his party is no joke.

Oh, and we saw Justice too. Meh. We'll see enough shaggy French DJ's playing Ed Banger remixes at the after-party tonight.

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

◊ ◊ ◊

Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Desert dealings, Vol. 3

Paris Hilton suddenly seemed to be everywhere -- briefly backstage during the Arcade Fire's set, onstage with Girl Talk and part of a celebrity triangle backstage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers' set. That triangle was something to behold. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello stood, bobbing his head while watch his RHCP guitar rival John Frusciante; next to him, oblivious to the music, Courtney Love was furiously text-messaging. Just behind them, Hilton was doing jumping jacks to "Dani California," at one point accidentally whacking a bystander with her purse.

◊ ◊ ◊

Lindsay Lohan and Danny Masterson were backstage for Arcade Fire, and probably a bunch of other people we didn't recognize. ... And Tara Reid apparently needed to be recognized -- she was trying to talk her way to the backstage area during the Chili Peppers.

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Sometimes, you don't ask questions, you just snap a photo:

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Return of the iron man

[Guest blogger Jeff Weiss can do this every day, all the time.]

One of Ghostface Killah's many aliases is Ironman, lifted from the Marvel Comics superhero. But his consistency after 13 years in the rap game recalls that of the other Iron Man, Cal Ripken Jr. Running through a 45 minutes greatest hits set-list, Ghostface covered everything from Wu classics like "Shame on a N--a" to 2006's critically lauded "Fishscale," to his legendary guest appearances on other Wu classics, including "Ice Cream," "4th Chamber" and the immortal Raekwon single on which Ghostface is featured, "Criminology."

Judging from the raucous crowd's reception, 2007 is shaping up to be the year of the Wu, with Ghost trumpeting the Clan's return with this summer's much-awaited "8 Diagrams." Intuition would have told you that the crowd would've been sparse with indie sensations Arcade Fire slotted opposite, but the lawn in front of the Outdoor Theatre was packed, chanting "Wu Tang" loud enough to drown out the Fire. The performance had a celebratory air, closing as usual with an impromptu dance party, with crowd members rushing the stage and dancing to "Cherchez La Ghost."

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Arcade Fire stokes the flames

Tomorrow, on the Sabbath, you get politics, when Rage Against the Machine figures to turn Coachella into a big, old soapbox. On Saturday night, the glowstick-waving crowd got religion. The Arcade Fire delivered a set so full of spirituality and verve that the main stage could've doubled as a giant, pyrotechnics-loaded pulpit. Nobody in sight -- especially those who witnessed the band's quick rise -- sensed disappointment was around the corner, not from a polite collective of string-wielding Canadians. But in acknowledging that expectations were met, it is easy to take for granted the artful chaos that is Arcade Fire's music. The only small question was whether their unhinged madness would work on such a huge stage.

It did, from the kitchen-sink percussion -- these folks bang on anything that's handy -- to the majestic, almost funereal organ behind "Intervention." The passion was not lost on sweltering crowd; the crowd's affections were not lost on Butler, who thanked them for their kindness. "Manners," he said, "are the cornerstone of a prosperous society."

Photo of Win Butler by Spencer Weiner / LAT.

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Kings of Leon ascend the throne

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler believes if there was a family band fight between Kings of Leon and Lynyrd Skynyrd in their prime, the former -- hate to say it -- would be toast.]

You see some bands live, and you can just imagine their demise. Not for lack of talent, but because they just don't want it enough. But Kings of Leon, a family band with an  evangelical preacher in the lineage, want it bad. Their radiant set proved that the Nashville crew are following the North Star of fame with keening ambition and an unshakeable faith in the powers of transcendent Southern rock. Although their self-seriousness can get a little much sometimes (really, Caleb, you can wear that black vest and huge cross without giggling at yourself?), there's no denying that Kings of Leon have rock-star glory in their sights.

Ripping through most of "Because of the Times," their third album, the grim-faced gentlemen showed that the album's darker, more complex material plays as well as the lighter breakthrough work, "Aha Shake Heartbreak." But did they have to be so stubborn and refuse to play "Fans," my favorite KOL song? No one else seemed to miss it. The audience danced, rolled in the grass and pumped their fists. They're ready to crown their Kings.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Once more, with punctuation!!!

[Guest blogger Chris Barton ventures into the Mojave Tent for some vigorous punctuation lessons wth !!!]

When you name your band after a trio of emphatic punctuation marks (and don't think there wasn't some intra-band discussion as to just how many of those would be sufficient on their first playbill), understatement is not one of your strong suits. At any given time the Sacramento dance-funk-whatever ensemble embodied the more-is-more theory of dance music, with its nine-members at times boasting four percussionists, two guitarists, a horn section and three singers -- not that they needed the extra help with lead '!' Nic Offer serving as master of ceremonies.

Like some mutant cross between a funk bandleader, spastic Jazzercise instructor and Ron Burgundy, Offer worked either side of the stage in a way that would've done last year's tent superstar Madonna proud. Mixing up a host of unabashedly goofy dance moves and it's-just-too-funky-in-here facial expressions, the swimtrunk-clad Offer whipped the crowd into a frenzy as the band charged through crescendo after tent-rattling crescendo in a manic set taken from the band's sophomore album "Myth Takes." Mixing insistent guitar lines, seismic-level bass and trance-like rhythms that at times flirted with a twitchier take on Afro-beat, Offer said from the beginning his goal was to have sweat pouring from the ceiling once his band was through. Fortunately, the battery of supersoakers closing their set offered a much more pleasant alternative.

Pictured: Nic Offer (center) brings SexyBack with the help of three exclamation points and a pair of swim trunks. Photo by Chris

Barton / LAT.

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Whistling and working it with Andrew Bird

[Guest blogger August Brown is swappin' his blood with formaldehyde.]

Now that Patrick Wolf is apparently quitting music (or is he?), there's a void in the field of completely bonkers violin-wielding pop savants. Andrew Bird is easily the best, and probably only, man up for the job. His newest record "Armchair Apocrypha" lagged a bit due to its micro-managed politeness. Live, however, Bird was suave and insousciant, blasting the Gobi tent with feedback and whistling through a bank of effect gizmos. "Fiery Crash" made the most of his loop pedal, stacking his harmonies and plucky violin licks, while sideman Martin Dosh bashed out a jazzy racket on drums and keys beside him. Bird never took off his sunglasses, a nice touch that made his show-off moments (like the time he swapped between guitar, violin, xylophone and whistling in a single verse) more charming than precocious. He has enough raw arranging talent to shame just about everyone playing Coachella, save maybe James Murphy. But with this set, he finally sounded a bit dangerous.

Pictured: Andrew Bird resists the temptation to perform "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" despite the crazy desert heat. Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

They’re hitting the bottle, and that’s good

Coachella's recycling program is working so well it may be putting people out of work.

The effort lets festival-goers get one free bottle of water for every 10 empties they turn in. The empty plastic bottles are then crushed right away and carted off. An official says there have been 60% fewer garbage pickups in the first day and a half of of the festival, and some workers assigned to garbage detail are actually standing around with little to do.

Proclaimed Paul Tollett of Coachella promoter Goldenvoice: "This is the cleanest festival in the history of rock 'n' roll."

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Travis showers crowd in melody

A friend had a quick word when I answered his what's-your-hurry query by saying I was dashing off to see Travis. "Wimpy."

Wrong. Melodies have muscles too, and the Scottish band flexed them to an adoring, arm-waving crowd who treated gray-round-the-edges frontman Fran Healy as if he were a teen idol. Healy coaxed some beautiful chords out his guitar, practiced his American accent and told the masses assembled at the main stage they were "lovely" -- which they were, after workers dashed down the pathways tossing water bottles and dousing them with wet stuff.

Then Travis played one its most familiar anthems, "Why Does It Always Rain on Me?" -- bringing to mind the wishful thinking from the night before, when the Jesus and Mary Chain played "Happy When It Rains." The highlight came when guitarist Andy Dunlop gingerly climbed atop a stack of amps (steadied by backstage personnel) and saluted the crowd. Then, like the rest of Travis' set, he came in for a safe landing.

Pictured: Andy Dunlop channels his inner "golden god" (above). Left, Fran Healy wields the acoustic axe. Photos by Kevin Bronson / LAT

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

The spectacle that is Spektor

[Guest blogger Margaret Wappler wishes she had stuck with those piano lessons that she blew off in the 5th grade. Sorry, Mom.]

As the only singer-songwriter type to grace Coachella's main stage, anti-folk Russian Regina Spektor knew exactly how to capture the audience's attention. She announced this was a singer's show by kicking off with an a cappella number, tapping out bare-bones percussion with her finger on the mic. "I will love him till the day I die," she sang, her rich voice cutting through the staggering heat. The crowd was rendered spellbound, or at least as spellbound as you can be while pouring Gatorade down your gullet.

As the show progressed, the audience's crush on rosy-cheeked Spektor deepened as she rolled out one endearingly odd narrative after another, featuring cereal boxes, cocaine and the Iron Curtain. One dreadlocked man expressed his delight by inexplicably imitating John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever," but for the most part, it was a lot of mouthed lyrics and screams of "I love you, Regina!"

For most of her set, Spektor and crew showcased the instruments not typically seen at Coachella, including the chair-as-drum and the triangle but when faced with technical difficulties ("Any of you know anything about electronics?" she asked), Spektor strapped on a guitar and played a primitive, haunted version of "That Time" from her latest album, "Begin to Hope." It was a gorgeous affirmation that even with a guitar on, for Spektor, voice is king.

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Beating the heat with some new pornography

[Guest blogger Chris Barton checks out the New Pornographers and empathizes with his Canadian brothers and sisters.]

Raising chills on one's arms in 100-degree heat is no easy task, but that's exactly what the New Pornographers did during their Outdoor Stage set with one of the irresistably catchy tracks from their latest album "Twin Cinema." Maybe it's the power of judiciously placed "hey-la" boy-girl harmonies, but the air seemed a little cooler around the Outdoor Stage during their set, enough so there was probably more audience hand-claps per hour than anywhere else at this year's Coachella. Not that lead singer AC Newman felt any cooler.

Cursed from a temperature-tolerance standpoint with both red hair and Canadian citizenship, a smiling Newman confessed between songs that he "Might die from sunstroke up here. But today is a good day to die." After briefly struggling to quote "your president" George W. Bush and Lt. Colonel Kilgore from "Apocalypse Now," Newman asked someone in the crowd to check Wikipedia before launching into an equally catchy song from "Mass Romantic." Sure enough, Newman got his answer two songs later from a helpful voice in the crowd who explained the quote was a Native American saying.

"Well this is going to be very interesting for everyone here," Newman cracked. "Have you considered the benefits of an online education?"

Pictured: Two New Pornographers turn maple leaf red. Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Hot Chip breaks legs, shakes them.

[August Brown has a warning, he'll spell it out for you.]

Is there a yet whiter version of blue-eyed soul? Perpetually sunburned soul? If it exists, English techno-poppers Hot Chip have it nailed. Everything about their sound, from the three-way conga solos to self-referential boasts that "Hot Chip will break your legs," should add up to a perfect storm of aggressive tweeness.
But it all works in a schizophrenic and hip-shaking way that's witty but not ironic, affecting without becoming cloying.

The quintet has become a bit of a dark-horse club favorite, and meta-floor fillers like "Over And Over" (where Alexis Taylor mutters that "the joy of repetition really is in you" something like a dozen times) got hands, cameraphones and a flurry of balloons in the air. But there were a few moments of real vulnerability beneath the acidic humor, and a long-form take on "Boy from School" was both a blast to dance to and quietly heartbreaking. Even a new song, usually an invitation to hit their beer tent, became a singalong by the third chorus. We're keeping these guys on repeat.

Photo by August Brown / LAT.

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Hot is a state of mind

Meanwhile, along the backside of midway among enormous faux-leaf lean-to's straight out of "Ferngully,"; a brown, onion-shaped DJ booth is energizing a small but clearly committed collection of dance fans with no regard for temperature or time of day. With Metamorphs dropping a throbbing assortment of trance, jungle and perhaps some other beat-heavy hyphenate engineered on vinyl, the hardcore contingent spun and twirled to their hearts discontent while some just laid on their backs in the shade to absorb the vibrations. A nice stopover point while waiting for MSTKRFT, sure, but why not just convert one of those nearby onions into a medical tent branch office and be done with it?

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

Coming alive with Jack’s Mannequin

[Correspondent Chris Barton tries a new flavor.]

Though positioned opposite more indie cred-tastic acts like Hot Chip and Regina Spektor, Orange County's Jack's Mannequin drew a packed, energetic mob of true believers surrounding the Outdoor Stage. Armed with a full complement of arena-ready arm gestures and manic, piano-pounding enthusiasm from frontman Andrew McMann, the ex-Something Corporate frontman fought the merciless midday heat with a battery of heartfelt pop dusted with a smattering of everything's-gonna-be-all-right emo (and if such a thing doesn't exist, it does now).

While the songs ranged from anthemically cathartic to cathartically anthemic, it's tough to do anything but celebrate a guy who delivers every note as if his life depended on it. "We're just so lucky to be here," McMann shouted from the stage, and given his recovery from leukemia a few years back, this wasn't just stage patter. But one thing though -- amid all the earnest good vibes and crowd-pleasing shoutalongs, what's with the bassist rocking the mirrored Weezer-esque irony-guitar? Consistency, people!

Photo by Chris Barton / LAT.

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."

A word from the Bard

We've seen far less in the way of clever T-shirts this year than last -- must have been all the Tool fans in 2006. But one young festival-goer hit it out of the park with this one:"Shakespeare hates your emo poems."