[Coachella 2011 Review] Best Coast, Death From Above 1979, Duran Duran, Duck Sauce, Kanye West
Photos by Faith-Ann Young
Back at home in Los Angeles, Coachella 2011 is officially over. Overall, it’s been a wonderful blur of decent to amazing live music, rum drinks, long sweaty walks, eye candy wearing ridiculous Native American garb, and lots of delayed texts.
Coming from the perpetual party to the 9-to-5 work grind is always a little bit hard, but we’ll always have memories of three wonderful days on the polo field, especially after Kanye West‘s mind-blowing close to the festival last night.
Best Coast
![bestcoast1 faith ann [Coachella 2011 Review] Best Coast, Death From Above 1979, Duran Duran, Duck Sauce, Kanye West](http://cbskroq.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/bestcoast1-faith-ann.jpg?w=385&h=130 "bestcoast1-faith-ann")
Artist Sound: Fuzzy, buzzy ’90s surfer rock reverb with ’60s pop chord structures.
Crowd Response: Diehards were singing along, but mostly everyone was completely chill, basking in the beauty of the desert twilight. No one was really “rocking” out, but no one was really complaining about the lack of stage presence.
Performance Adjectives: Mellow, lackadaisical, summery, wistful, crunchy, messy
Notable Songs Played: “Bratty B,” “Crazy For You,” “Summer Mood,” “Boyfriend,” “When I’m With You,” “Born Again” (new song), “That’s The Way Boys Are” (Lesley Gore Cover)
Poignant Moments: Lead singer Bethany Cosentino asking the audience to ask Kanye West to let her sing backing on one of his tracks.
Hype Vs. Reality: Best Coast write beautiful, druggy Phil Spector-era ’60s-style surf tunes but they sound much better on their album than live. Cosentino is not a very dynamic stage performer. Likewise, the instruments sounded a little bit ramshackle. As good as everyone says? The album is flawless, live show is disappointing.
jv
April 18, 2011 8:59 pm
Kanye was effing epic, of all the artist this past weekend only kanye was able to draw such a crowd and energy.
As much as people love to hate him I’m glad this performance was able to shut everyone up. Don’t deny it people, i saw yall boppin your head to his beats.
everyone go look up the performance of gold digger and listen to the sing along!
MATTHEW
April 18, 2011 10:23 pm
Kanye’s set was f’in EPIC! ! !
jelly-rollo
April 19, 2011 5:01 pm
Kayne West put up one of the glitziest Broadway shows of outdoor festivals I’ve seen. It was amusing but not musically enthralling as music bands go but entertaining.
karenw
April 19, 2011 7:05 pm
Duran Duran wasn’t at all boring for me…I loved every one of their songs (of course I am ‘old’). Loved Kanye too, just wished I hadn’t been surrounded by 6 ft men with their arms in the air THE ENTIRE TIME and could hardly see a thing! Still what I heard was awesome.
joko
April 21, 2011 1:53 pm
Kanye started off strong but fizzled fast. There were a lot of boos and even a kanye sucks chant. Kanye did not get Coachella and Coachella did not get him. Everytime he talked the boos got worse. I’m not sure how you can give a review like this and not get fired. The place was empty by the last song…The intro was pretty tight though.
Jared Risman
April 22, 2011 8:41 am
KAYNE WEST FOR PRESIDENT 2012!