Coachella is (was) the new awesome

For those of you who might pay attention to these things, you may have noticed that the last few posts have been betsy's, and that i have had very little to do with any of them. Well. That might be because I ended up in Southern California for most of last week, primarily to bake under the hot Palm Springs sunshine while at Coachella and sleep on the couches of various LA friends.

I drove down with Jeff Thomas, who turns out to be an excellent roadtrip companion if you looking for someone that knows (and sings along to) all of David Bowie's hits. Here we are at the festival looking surprisingly clean.



I love to watch the outfits that show up to these festivals, on both the performers and the poor hipsters there to sweat it out in the sunshine all day long. The die-hard rockers didn't disapoint, sauntering about in their tight black pants and slouched 80s boots, looking really good even in the ten million degree weather. We played the fun game called "which headliner are they here to see" based on the choice of outfit. Dressed all in black? Tool. Over 40 with a pony-tail? Depeche Mode. Obviously gay? Scissor Sisters.

Onstage, the rockstar outfit of choice this year was the all-white ensemble. And on the masses, mostly you saw short shorts and the ubiquitious ironic tee. This was my favorite - if you can't see it, it says "I BEAT ANOREXIA"


Most of the photos I took looked a lot like this, just with various bands up on the stage.

The two days of solid rock and roll were really pretty awesome. Favorite performances included Wolfmother, Wolf Parade, Metric, Franz, the Go! Team, Block Party and the Magic Numbers. So much good music.

I know the highlight of a rock n roll festival isn't supposed to be the hotel you stay in, but in this case, i sort of place our little Sahara Hot Springs hotel in that category. It was the most delightful (and strange) hotel built around all these natural hot spings, which meant we got to sit in hot springs and the sauna after coming home from the festival on Saturday night, and lounge around by the pool on Sunday morning before turning out for more music that afternoon.


I am pretty sure we were the only people that spoke english in the entire place...


...but that didn't stop us from relaxing under the PVC pipe waterfall with the other guests.


The best part about it was the weird statues and things that littered the landscape. Strange tee-pees and big plastic horses wearing sombreros were hidden around every corner, and here you can see Lady Liberty watching over the kiddie pool, illuminating the hot springs with her majestic lantern:

I drove back up to SF with Steven and Ben, and we took our sweet time coming back up the coast. You would have too, if you realized how many fun things there are to see in between LA and SF. One historical landmark was the half-pipe that Jared Rusten had helped build in the backyard of some friends of ours.

We spent the afternoon watching Steven skate back and forth

and keith showed us his sweet moves as well


So that is where i have been. Best kick-off to summertime ever.