Photoblogging Coachella 2006: Part 1


All photos by David Greenwald

This was my first year at the Coachella Valley Music Festival, and it was completely amazing. From driving around Indio in the trunk of my friend’s Prius to watching the Magic Numbers wandering around in the press tent and seeing Daft Punk blow the minds of tens of thousands of people, it was a whirlwind of insanity, heat and incredible music.

We left Los Angeles at about 2 p.m. and arrived at Coachella about five hours later. Taking an hour and 15 minutes to go five miles on Monroe Street? Not cool. We got out of the car and started walking. We managed to get there just in time…

…for the gorgeous Chan Marshall of Cat Power and the Memphis Rhythm Band. They played most of Cat Power’s excellent new record The Greatest and Chan danced around on stage and threw her jewelry into the audience. No banter, but a great set nonetheless.

After all the other bands had finished (except for She Wants Revenge, of course) everyone walked over to the dance tent for Daft Punk.

They wore robot suits and had a ridiculous light show and pretty much destroyed everyone else who played at Coachella this year. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people dancing. When the apocalypse comes, and the only way to save the universe is to party, Daft Punk will be playing at my house. My house!

Best part of Day 1 aside from DP: the spontaneous a cappela version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” by some of the exiting crowd. Whether it was just the heat or everyone being drunk or on drugs, the atmosphere at Coachella was almost entirely fun and mellow – I don’t think I saw any instances of pushing through crowds or even drunken debauchery. Nice work, you crazy 60,000 people, you.

Continue on to Day 2 here.

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