Caught a few ghetto superstars performing at the Hammerstein: Snoop Dogg, Mobb Deep, LL Cool J, DMC, De La Soul, Kid Capri etc.
Friday, 30 November 2007
Jam Master Jay Awards - Hammerstein Ballroom
Caught a few ghetto superstars performing at the Hammerstein: Snoop Dogg, Mobb Deep, LL Cool J, DMC, De La Soul, Kid Capri etc.
Saturday, 28 April 2007
Coachella 2007
Driving from LA to Palm Springs (where Coachella festival is held) was a highway journey to remember. As you make your way further inland, huge desert mountains appear on either side of you, whilst the plains at the foot of the mountains are covered in wind farms. Towering 80 metre white metal fans, with a fan blades at least 20 metres across, spin freely powered by the gusty winds that cross the desert plains. I have never seen one of these farms in oz, and the juxtaposition of these huge man-made structures against the natural beauty of the moutains looks quite amazing.
Detour: Let me just remind you at this point, in LA you only have a few choices of what to eat. Burgers and fries, burritos, echiladas, tacos. Sandwiches (usually BLTs etc). It is all the WORST food. There are so many fast food franchises over here you don't know what to do, and it can be extremely difficult to find anything even remotely good for you. Battle number 1; ME v MUFFIN TOP.
We arrived at Coachella and attempted to set up our four person tent which was far to complicated for us to handle haha. At the camping ground, there were 6-7000 people camping. The scale of this festival is immense. Mobile shower trucks are brought in, (which have excellent hot, high pressure showers), and there are about 1 million "porta potties" (american portaloo). There were also tents to charge your phone at, and some wireless internet places (unfortunately I dont have a laptop!). You cannot bring alcohol into the actual festival, so we would usually try and drink as much as we could pre-1:00pm and then head inside and I wouldn't drink again for the rest of the day (beers were $7US each which is about as expensive as Huge-Egos in Kings Cross). There are no pass-outs at the festival, so you cant head back to your tent in the middle of the day to grab some more grog unfortunately. People don't tend to get that wasted it seems anyway, it is not like Field day where there are 90% of people on pingers, or whatever else they can get there hands on. Seriously at Coachella, you don't need to be drunk because the music is so incredible.
Inside the actual festival gates (i.e. away from the camping ground) are 5 MASSIVE stages. The actual area of the festival ground would be about 7-8 times as large as Field Day back in Sydney. It can literally take 15 minutes to walk between stages. Oh did I mention that there were 60,000 people attending? Over the course of the weekend, apparently Cameron Diaz, Lindsay Lohan, Danny De Vito, Paris and Nicky Hilton etc all made it down, although we didn't manage to spot any of them!
Pete and I had been to Wal-Mart bought some stupid animal towel things with hoods for little kiddies (I was a chicken and Pete was a frog) which we wore inside the festival. We were swamped by Americans taking photos of us because they thought is was the funniest thing ever. We looked pretty stupid.
Over the course of the three days we saw some incredible bands, and artists. I will give you some brief highlights, because I can tend to get a little carried away with music issues. To be frank, for the first time in my life, after the festival I actually had complete music overload.
Bands
Rage Against the Machine: I am starting with the band that played the last set of the whole festival on the main stage. RATM have not played together for the last 7 years since the broke up citing artistic differences. The anticipation for this band was unsurpassed by another at Coachella. The atmosphere leading up to their set was absolutely electric. Pete and I were genuinely scared at how insane this concert was going to be given how riotous, anarchic and heavy their music is.
We arrived 2 hours early to try and push towards the front. We managed to get an incredible spot just to the left of the stage about 25 metres back. 60,000 people flocked to the main stage to see the absolute headliners of the 3 days. When the lights finally dimmed, the huge screens on wither side of the stage showed Zack de la Rocha backstage in the dim red glow shadows of the stage, jumping up and down like an athlete pumping himself up for an Olympic 100m sprint.
The three band members came out on stage and dropped straight into "Testify". The crowd absolutely erupted, the mosh pit was going freakin crazy all around us, and slam pits opened up everywhere with massive puerto ricans and crazy punk amaericans patrolling them in a circle. After one of the songs, suddenly a huge chant of "fuck George Bush" erupted, from nowhere, with no prompting from the band... Next came "Bomb track" and again things were bordering on ridiculously out of hand. The drummer, bass and guitarist were so tight you may have been listening to the album. Zack laid back on the massive guitar and bass riffs and huge hiphop/rock drums, it was explosive.
Halfway through, he pushed his well known Communist agenda "the current administration of the United States, should be hung or shot, just like the German war criminals. But the problems with the system go beyond the current administration. They go to the core of the entire system, which needs to destroy a nation and profit from its reconstruction in order to survive. Ultimately, the system needs to destory itself". You got the feeling you were listening to a one man-revolutionary.
After a brief break. The band came out again and dropped the massive "Killing in the Name of", followed by "Bullet in the Hand". The crowd went absolutely mental. It was at this point I smelt smoke. I turned around and stood on my tippy toes (did I mention I was bare-footed in the mosh pit? It ripped my thongs off) and saw a huge slam pit behind us, and in the middle of the circling punters was a fire!!! They had lit a fucken FIRE in the middle of the mosh pit! Another dude was throwing cardboard on top! WTF!!!!!!!! The concert concluded and we left feeling like we had just seen the most explosive, amazing performance of our lives. 7 years without playing and they had delivered everything anyone could have hoped for. Rage were BACK.
Bjork: she had people crying in the crowd. The most on-point vocal performance from an icelandic angel.
Pharoah Monch: New york hiphop with a dope live band. "Simon Says" was insane!
Crowded House: The aussies played a beautiful set of their hits. Highlights were "private universe" and all the others. Very toight and loved singing along to all the songs at the main stage.
Justice: I almost freaked out for this one it was so good and ridiculously perfect. Wall of sound, jammin electro, and no one was even thrusting in the crowd (except me of course! just kidding). Highlights were Waters of Nazareth, DANCE! and of course the mammoth Never Be Alone (We are your friends) which they had remixed. Definitely in my top five.
MSTRKRFT: Did some mad heavy electro stuff. Big basslines and moshpits.
Soulwax: Big heavy rock/electro shit... noice.
Lupe Fiasco: So great to hear Kick Push, Daydreams and American Terrorist live, but to be honest he kind of underwhelmed with his MC and DJ set up. At Coachella, you NEED to have a band to compete with some of the crazy artists at the festival. Pharoah Monch ate him for dinner!
Tiesto: The final main stage set on the saturday night and boy did the americans lap it up. Flawless mixes from the worlds #1 DJ, it is all kinda gatecrasher/boring progressive house to me, but it definitely had some big moments.
Red Hot Chilli Peppers: Loved hearing these guys live for the first time. Band sounded so dope with flea the bass player funkin' it up, even if Anthony Keidis (the lead singer) sounded a little bit tired at times. Higlight for me was "under the bridge", "Californication", and that one that says "California rest in peace"; because it was in California. And stuff.
CSS: Crazy indie electro rock with a funny japanes girl for the frontman. Paris Hilton was standing on the side of the stage apparently listening to them play "paris hilton".
Peaches: She climbed up the tower of the main stage and pulled off her top, awesome to hear her sleazy xxx rated electro/rap/rock live.
Explosions in the Sky: Hadn't heard of this band before but they did some great all-instrumental stuff that was really atmospheric and cool.
Detour: Let me just remind you at this point, in LA you only have a few choices of what to eat. Burgers and fries, burritos, echiladas, tacos. Sandwiches (usually BLTs etc). It is all the WORST food. There are so many fast food franchises over here you don't know what to do, and it can be extremely difficult to find anything even remotely good for you. Battle number 1; ME v MUFFIN TOP.
We arrived at Coachella and attempted to set up our four person tent which was far to complicated for us to handle haha. At the camping ground, there were 6-7000 people camping. The scale of this festival is immense. Mobile shower trucks are brought in, (which have excellent hot, high pressure showers), and there are about 1 million "porta potties" (american portaloo). There were also tents to charge your phone at, and some wireless internet places (unfortunately I dont have a laptop!). You cannot bring alcohol into the actual festival, so we would usually try and drink as much as we could pre-1:00pm and then head inside and I wouldn't drink again for the rest of the day (beers were $7US each which is about as expensive as Huge-Egos in Kings Cross). There are no pass-outs at the festival, so you cant head back to your tent in the middle of the day to grab some more grog unfortunately. People don't tend to get that wasted it seems anyway, it is not like Field day where there are 90% of people on pingers, or whatever else they can get there hands on. Seriously at Coachella, you don't need to be drunk because the music is so incredible.
Inside the actual festival gates (i.e. away from the camping ground) are 5 MASSIVE stages. The actual area of the festival ground would be about 7-8 times as large as Field Day back in Sydney. It can literally take 15 minutes to walk between stages. Oh did I mention that there were 60,000 people attending? Over the course of the weekend, apparently Cameron Diaz, Lindsay Lohan, Danny De Vito, Paris and Nicky Hilton etc all made it down, although we didn't manage to spot any of them!
Pete and I had been to Wal-Mart bought some stupid animal towel things with hoods for little kiddies (I was a chicken and Pete was a frog) which we wore inside the festival. We were swamped by Americans taking photos of us because they thought is was the funniest thing ever. We looked pretty stupid.
Over the course of the three days we saw some incredible bands, and artists. I will give you some brief highlights, because I can tend to get a little carried away with music issues. To be frank, for the first time in my life, after the festival I actually had complete music overload.
Bands
Rage Against the Machine: I am starting with the band that played the last set of the whole festival on the main stage. RATM have not played together for the last 7 years since the broke up citing artistic differences. The anticipation for this band was unsurpassed by another at Coachella. The atmosphere leading up to their set was absolutely electric. Pete and I were genuinely scared at how insane this concert was going to be given how riotous, anarchic and heavy their music is.
We arrived 2 hours early to try and push towards the front. We managed to get an incredible spot just to the left of the stage about 25 metres back. 60,000 people flocked to the main stage to see the absolute headliners of the 3 days. When the lights finally dimmed, the huge screens on wither side of the stage showed Zack de la Rocha backstage in the dim red glow shadows of the stage, jumping up and down like an athlete pumping himself up for an Olympic 100m sprint.
The three band members came out on stage and dropped straight into "Testify". The crowd absolutely erupted, the mosh pit was going freakin crazy all around us, and slam pits opened up everywhere with massive puerto ricans and crazy punk amaericans patrolling them in a circle. After one of the songs, suddenly a huge chant of "fuck George Bush" erupted, from nowhere, with no prompting from the band... Next came "Bomb track" and again things were bordering on ridiculously out of hand. The drummer, bass and guitarist were so tight you may have been listening to the album. Zack laid back on the massive guitar and bass riffs and huge hiphop/rock drums, it was explosive.
Halfway through, he pushed his well known Communist agenda "the current administration of the United States, should be hung or shot, just like the German war criminals. But the problems with the system go beyond the current administration. They go to the core of the entire system, which needs to destroy a nation and profit from its reconstruction in order to survive. Ultimately, the system needs to destory itself". You got the feeling you were listening to a one man-revolutionary.
After a brief break. The band came out again and dropped the massive "Killing in the Name of", followed by "Bullet in the Hand". The crowd went absolutely mental. It was at this point I smelt smoke. I turned around and stood on my tippy toes (did I mention I was bare-footed in the mosh pit? It ripped my thongs off) and saw a huge slam pit behind us, and in the middle of the circling punters was a fire!!! They had lit a fucken FIRE in the middle of the mosh pit! Another dude was throwing cardboard on top! WTF!!!!!!!! The concert concluded and we left feeling like we had just seen the most explosive, amazing performance of our lives. 7 years without playing and they had delivered everything anyone could have hoped for. Rage were BACK.
Bjork: she had people crying in the crowd. The most on-point vocal performance from an icelandic angel.
Pharoah Monch: New york hiphop with a dope live band. "Simon Says" was insane!
Crowded House: The aussies played a beautiful set of their hits. Highlights were "private universe" and all the others. Very toight and loved singing along to all the songs at the main stage.
Justice: I almost freaked out for this one it was so good and ridiculously perfect. Wall of sound, jammin electro, and no one was even thrusting in the crowd (except me of course! just kidding). Highlights were Waters of Nazareth, DANCE! and of course the mammoth Never Be Alone (We are your friends) which they had remixed. Definitely in my top five.
MSTRKRFT: Did some mad heavy electro stuff. Big basslines and moshpits.
Soulwax: Big heavy rock/electro shit... noice.
Lupe Fiasco: So great to hear Kick Push, Daydreams and American Terrorist live, but to be honest he kind of underwhelmed with his MC and DJ set up. At Coachella, you NEED to have a band to compete with some of the crazy artists at the festival. Pharoah Monch ate him for dinner!
Tiesto: The final main stage set on the saturday night and boy did the americans lap it up. Flawless mixes from the worlds #1 DJ, it is all kinda gatecrasher/boring progressive house to me, but it definitely had some big moments.
Red Hot Chilli Peppers: Loved hearing these guys live for the first time. Band sounded so dope with flea the bass player funkin' it up, even if Anthony Keidis (the lead singer) sounded a little bit tired at times. Higlight for me was "under the bridge", "Californication", and that one that says "California rest in peace"; because it was in California. And stuff.
CSS: Crazy indie electro rock with a funny japanes girl for the frontman. Paris Hilton was standing on the side of the stage apparently listening to them play "paris hilton".
Peaches: She climbed up the tower of the main stage and pulled off her top, awesome to hear her sleazy xxx rated electro/rap/rock live.
Explosions in the Sky: Hadn't heard of this band before but they did some great all-instrumental stuff that was really atmospheric and cool.
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