Predicting Coachella 2011: The best of the fake posters (and word on the rumored 5 p.m. ‘announcement’)
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
This is the week that Coachella watchers start freaking out and buzzing with anticipation on the Internets with their speculations, early confirmations, random prognostications ... and fake posters.
The buzz today online is that KROQ-FM (106.7) is planning some sort of announcement Tuesday evening, but sources close to the event say in no uncertain terms that this rumor is bogus. Which means that Pop & Hiss is pretty certain that the poster to the right isn’t accurate -- if only because it would be physically impossible for two Frenchmen to do all those gigs on all those stages (even if they had help -- not).
But part of the fun of Coachella is this speculative phase, which serves to get the fans buzzing and drive the conversational traffic up. Over at the Coachella page, videos are starting to pop up featuring bands no doubt signed on, and random sites have been connecting dots to eke out little tidbits of info.
But while it’s tempting to report every leak and confirmation in the days leading up to the announcement -- whenever that may be, whether later today, Thursday, Saturday, next Tuesday or Groundhog Day -- much of the dot-connecting diminishes the overwhelming feeling of looking at the completed poster (not the one above, and probably not the one below).
Consequence of Sound has been doing a great job keeping up with the rumors and speculation, even if no one outside of a few insiders is able to confirm any of it -- and a few of CoS’ statements directly contradict rumors that Pop & Hiss has heard from high level sources.
Billboard too has offered a few confirmations, and MySpace pages, retailer one-sheets and tour itineraries are also popping up online that lead to some pretty concrete information (PJ Harvey seems to be a lock, at least based on this proof).
But until that (real) poster pops online sometime before April 15, we’ll refrain from chasing all the rampant tweets and fake fliers.
And expect that, as always, we’ll be reporting the (real) Coachella news as it breaks.
-- Randall Roberts
