[Coachella 2011 Review] Night 3 – Exhaustion Set In While I Swarmed Stages To Catch Foster The People, Tinie Tempah, The National & Ratatat

performs during Day 3 of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival 2011 held at the Empire Polo Club on April 17, 2011 in Indio, California.

By the time Day Three of Coachella had rolled around I was so incredibly tired I was sort of amazed I even made it as far as I did.

Perhaps, I should have thought twice about the level of partying I was doing post-Coachella performances.

I am young and female and at Coachella.  So let’s be realistic, if I removed fun from the equation then I might as well just be dead inside.

I spent the first half of the day covering the bands that visited the KROQ house including:  The Joy Formidable, She Wants Revenge, The Kills and Neon Trees.

Once that was over I headed over to the festival where I was greeted with lines and chaos and all things awesome, including sets by Foster The People, Tinie Tempah, The National & Ratatat.

Photo by Karl Walter // Getty Images

It took me long enough to get into Coachella that I missed first part of Foster The People’s set, which apparently didn’t matter since they were having problems with their sound and ended up starting late. The packed crowd was not happy about it, especially since their set backed right up into Duran Duran‘s.

However, once things were worked out they were absolutely awesome.  After listening to their EP and seeing them perform, I know that there’s tons of awesome in store for this band.  They started with one of their songs that everyone knew and despite the sound issues it was fantastic and really got the crowd going.

Photo by Karl Walter // Getty Images

But it was the new song that they played, one that’s currently untitled but fans have been calling “Got to Get Away,” that really blew people away.  Like Foster The People’s other songs it has an infectious sort of rock-dance vibe and you can’t help and the packed tent moved together like a blanket floating in the wind.

Towards the end of Foster The People, I realized I needed to race over to catch British hip-hop star Tinie Tempah perform in front of what was likely the biggest U.S. crowd.  But after talking to all the people at Coachella over the weekend, I have a sneaking suspicion that most of those people were European because a huge chunk of concert goers were foreign.