A Gen Xer’s Trip To Coachella
Are hipster music festivals solely for the very young? Last year I joked that since I needed reading glasses to make out the ant-sized font of Coachella’s lineup, I was too old to attend. But when a friend’s band offered me a free VIP weekend pass (worth an outrageous $900), I figured, why not go? Some of my favorites were playing: Beck, Pixies, Bryan Ferry, Neutral Milk Hotel and MGMT, to name a few.
A lot has changed since I went to Chicago’s first Lollapalooza in 1991, so I wasn’t sure what to expect of a modern, millennial marketed music festival, one of the largest of its kind. But my love for live music hasn’t dimmed with time so I was pretty excited for a weekend of show hopping in the desert. That initial enthusiasm lasted right up until entrance security activated a scannable electric RFID bracelet on my wrist.
Coachella was a very controlled environment, which seemed to suck any fun or whimsy out of the air. Crowds were herded like cattle, scanned in and out of every area, like an Orwellian Woodstock. Sure, the VIP section was nice, but I couldn’t bring my $15 vodka soda with me to the field where the bands were playing.
It didn’t bother me that the crowds were mostly teens to early twenties, or that they dressed like they raided the Saved by the Bell wardrobe closet. What I did find odd though was that most of them seemed completely disinterested in the music part of the music festival. Selfies and hanging out at cellphone charging stations took precedence over watching the bands, which turned out to be awesome for me.
With very minor tunneling and polite excusing, I was easily able to get within 10 feet of a stage, where I discovered other old music nerds equally happy to be so close to Bryan Ferry and the like. It was within those 10 feet that I rediscovered the high from not just a live show, but a live show that lasts an entire weekend and gets my adrenaline pumping as I run from stage to stage. Though I left Coachella with mixed emotions, the multitude of music did awaken the sleeping festival fan in me. Although next time I’ll have to invest in a covert booze smuggling device, like the sunscreen lotion flask.
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