COACHELLA: DAY 3 RECAP

Friday you have boundless energy. Saturday you’re crisp from the sun and mildly hoarse, but you’ve still got your legs underneath you. Sunday, however, is when the battle is won or lost; when true heroes are made (or broken) on the grassy proving ground of the Indio desert. It’s Day Three. Do you know where you parked your car?

With dubstep maestro Caspa blowing up the Sahara, Wiz Khalifa painting the Main Stage “Black & Yellow,” and Angus & Julia Stone crooning to the Gobi, the ChinaShop team split up in the early afternoon to maximize coverage. After catching a little of each—and spending a few moments mesmerized by the inside of Jonathan Glazer and J Spaceman’s art installation—we hunkered down for Nas and Damian Marley. “Welcome To Jamrock, “If I Ruled The World,” “Move!” and “Road To Zion” were just a handful of hits that the duo performed, as a Jamaican flag in the crowd waved in time with the same flag onstage. By far my favorite daytime performance, and a great foil to Marley’s twilight slot at Coachella 2006.

Around the same time, Los Angeles noise rockers HEALTH were up in the Mojave, and if you didn’t have ear protection, chances are you left a little of your cilia dead on the ground. True to form, the four members flailed, screamed, thrashed and shred to epic proportions in the sweltering desert heat. Favorite moments included a haunting version of “USA Boys” and the mind-bending dirge of “Die Slow.” Just to the left, Ellie Goulding was preaching pure pop perfection to a Gobi Tent filled to the brim with shiny, happy people. It was a true Coachella moment; a yin and yang sound clash doing battle across 50 yards of turf. In the end, HEALTH got the volume, but Ellie got numbers.

At this juncture, the credible indie rock journalist in me would wax poetic about how Foster The People were amazing and how Joy Orbison, tucked away in the Oasis Dome, were the Sunday sleeper. Both performances received rave reviews from people I spoke to later that night, but I wasn’t able to make it to either. I can’t really say why, apart from the fact that my “Notorious” decision to be “Safe” left me “Hungry Like The Wolf” and longing for the “Ordinary World.” I did catch the last third of Ratatat. That’s gotta count for something, right?

After Ratatat concluded, most of the Mojave crowd migrated to the Main Stage to catch the end of the Strokes and get prime seating for Kanye. With Coachella 2009 favorites the Bloody Beetroots about to go off in the Sahara, 20-year electronic music veterans Leftfield were faced with a modest but up-for-it crowd of true old school dance heads. After bubbling up with “Song Of Life,” they turned out a mostly uptempo set that ran through hits like “Phat Planet” and “Afrika Shox”—both off Rhythm & Stealth—as well as early Leftism hits like “Afro Left,” “Original,” “Storm 3000” and “Release The Pressure.”

Then there was Kanye.

By now you’ve heard about how he “flew” in on a crane, how he came out with a herd of dancers for “Dark Fantasy,” how the fireworks launched into the dark desert sky during “Power,” and how all the backstage buzz about potential guest performers essentially fell flat. One tweet sarcastically exclaimed, “I really enjoyed “kanye: the musical” at Coachella,” while others extolled the brilliance of his stage setup. I, sadly, was underwhelmed, and just as much as I blame Yeezey himself, I gotta lay some blame on Jay-Z. Last year, Jay was not only the Friday night highlight, but the kingpin of the entire festival weekend. Like all the headliners before him, he understood that playing to this crowd under this set of circumstances required something larger than life; a true spectacle. From his live band and ever-changing light show backdrop to his ongoing repartee with the crowd, he came out swinging, and when his own upward trajectory ended with “Encore” and his duet with Beyoncé on “Young Forever,” the fireworks took it higher. He understood that even a performer of his stature with a never-ending catalog of hits in his back pocked can’t shoulder the burden of Coachella’s famed Main Stage on his own.

Kanye, not surprisingly, thought he could, and his show fell flat. The fiery, one-two “rocktronica” punch of Kings of Leon and the Chemical Brothers on Friday was genius, and Arcade Fire—whose slow rise to greatness arguably started at Coachella 2005—gave a Grammy-worthy performance that resonated with the desert faithful and the millions of worldwide watchers tuning in on YouTube. By the time each artist concluded their set, they had transcended the size and scope of the stage itself. As his backing tracks boomed and Kanye rhymed and pointed and prowled in front of a stone-carved backdrop of biblical proportions, the stage seemed to get larger and larger around him, swallowing him up like a lone gladiator trapped inside an arena. His apologists will use it as a metaphor for his singular greatness—the one headliner who proved his mettle by going it alone, without the help of laser lights or platinum-selling special guests. They’ll also label me a hater, which I most certainly am not. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was a Top 5 album for me last year, and Kanye’s artistic greatness is something I’ve always held onto in the midst of his personal shenanigans. But for better or worse, I held his closing night Coachella performance to the measuring stick left for me by bands like Radiohead, the Pixies, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against The Machine, Roger Waters, Paul McCartney, Prince, and of course Jay-Z. This one just didn’t measure up.