But after its 13th year, Coachella is a becoming a festival not to be missed. For the first time this year, the festival featured identical lineups over back-to-back weekends, as demand for tickets can no longer be satisfied over one weekend. After a massive two-day festival in 1999 that featuring Beck and Rage Against the Machine, the festival organizers were deep in debt. No festival took place in 2000, and the 2001 event was only a one day affair.

But in the past decade, Coachella has only gained steam. The festival now runs two, three-day festivals over two weekends, and after being taken over by a major event promoter a few years ago, both weekends operate like a well-oiled machine of sunshine, music, camping, drugs and youthful exuberance.

This year the festival saw breakout performances from Gary Clark Jr., M83, St. Vincent and tUnE-yArDs, along with massive headlining sets from Radiohead, The Black Keys, Florence and The Machine, The Shins, Bon Iver, Swedish House Mafia and David Guetta, as well as a the hologram of the late Tupac Shakur joining the alive and stoned Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg on stage to close out both weekends.

tUnE-yArDs - Powa, Live From Coachella, April 14, 2012

The first weekend this year featured the coldest temperatures ever for a Coachella festival weekend, including only the second day of rain ever (take that Glastonbury!), while the second weekend (which we were lucky to attend) set the record for hottest temperatures in the 13 years the festival has run (106F/42C on both Saturday and Sunday).

I chose drinking lots of water over downing $7 Heinekens or taking hallucinogens, and with 60 SPF sunscreen, the festival is nothing but enjoyable. This year, for my first Coachella, we skipped the camping experience, which I hear brings 24-hour parties and long queues for a shower. Instead, we opted to stay nearby in a family-owned condo, taking the affordable shuttle buses to the Empire Polo Field every day (where the festival has always been held).

The real event for celebrities, annoying corporate promoters and journalists are the infamous after parties that take place at 5-Star Palm Springs resorts or at the condos rented out by bands. This year, after Radiohead wrapped up their set on the second Saturday, lead singer Thom Yorke DJ’d his own after party at the glitzy Parker Hotel for those lucky enough to get an invite.

Apart from having slim chance of getting an invite to these parties, the only thing anyone could really complain about:
• - Long lines for free water, mediocre and overpriced food, $7 beer, $12 margaritas.
• - Lack of shade outside of a beer garden.
• - Those with VIP or backstage bracelets have special sections in front of all stages, and will always be closer the bands (standing where the security guards do at most concerts, but in enlarged pens between the general admission crowd and the stage).
• - Double standards at security checks (I saw EVERY item on the “Do Not Bring” list inside the festival (DSLR cameras, camel backpacks, outside food, etc).
• - Five stages means you always have to miss an up and coming act if you want to see a headliner).

Things that are awesome:
• - Free parking at shuttle bus stops throughout the Coachella Valley.
• - Shuttles run often, have hilarious organizers getting you excited onboard, many have air conditioning, and the buses bypass traffic.
• - Bottled water is only $2 (price capped since 1999).
• - Always having the opportunity to get cooled down by mist tents and water cannons.
• - On-site lockers.
• - It’s fucking beautiful in the desert (most bands encourage the crowd to turn around to check out the sun sinking behind the sandy desert mountains, beyond the hundreds of palm trees surrounding the festival grounds).

Overall, Coachella is very well organized, and considering the calibre of artists the festival brings in every year, is an event that is nothing but an enjoyable experience. Get your tickets early next year - Coachella will only continue to sell out in mere minutes as always!

- Daniel

My first stop was the Front National assembly in front of the beautiful Opera. There I managed to catch two generations of Le Pen respectively commemorate the 600th anniversary of Jeanne d’Arc, the warfaring country girl celebrated as the epitome of a true nationalist by the party on every May 1st since the late 1980s, and rage at most of the rest of the world. A couple of skinheads were asked to leave by party security, their rough looks apparently not in line with Marine’s vision of a fresh, clean FN image. I got myself a few suspicious glances and was given a serious evil eye by a man with a very big flag. But I stood my ground and stayed, watching people while pondering how a crowd of such diversity and magnitude had been convinced to jump on a ride as daunting as this one.

After a quick lunch by the Eiffel Tower, I toured on to Sarko City by Trocadéro. A strange place this was, densely populated by light-skinned men and women, all perfectly groomed and hushing each other at the crucial moment when their Nicolas took the stage. This attraction seemed a bit overdone to me, considering especially le petit prince’s violently dramatic intro music. But everyone else there was intensely excited, waving even more tricolores even higher than anyone else I saw that day. In France, May 1st is known as fête du travail rather than fête des travailleurs, and evidently, the obviously well-off sarkozists figured the day was as much theirs as anyone else’s. More than anything, this assembly was marked by the strong scent of perfume, a feeling of possibly being in an A.I.-themed horror movie, and lots of trying not to ruin designer shoes by stepping on anyone’s toes. Did one (robot-like) segment alone secure Sarkozy’s last presidency?

Puzzled and somewhat troubled by what I had seen so far, I ventured east toward the Redlands, where a genuine workers’ march was to take off from Place Denfert. Luckily, I made it there just in time to catch the tail of the march. Working my way further and further up the huge serpentine of people, balloons, and cars blasting music, I passed students, teachers, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, feminists, people wearing stickers, Syrians, you name it. What they seemed to have in common was an all-encompassing air of celebratory rebellion. Crying out for better times while rejoicing in community, well, it made sense. Actually it was about the first thing that made sense to me that day.

Siri