No 2020 reports nor 2021 but Coachella 2022 Day 0/1. Long and not much music, you've been warned.
Posted by
JD (aka Jason Dean)
Apr 19 '22, 10:22
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Turns out that in the time of the two festivals that weren't, a number of things changed.
The first change was that the couple that I'd been sharing a house with Indian Well opted not to go this year. I learned of this back in January and they had made their decision not to go when the medical restrictions were still in place. I wonder if they ever changed their minds once those were dropped.
The second change is that I went as a couple which helped with my accommodations for this trip after needing to look for a place for the first time in like five years. That's after the uncomfortable point where in Mid January....Hey, remember when we met your Aunt and Uncle for Lunch in December and they mentioned we could stay in their Palm Springs condo? Can you ask them?
Uncomfortable cause at that point, I had one ticket for Coachella so essentially: hey, I'm going to Coachella, can I use your family connection so I have a cheap place to stay?
Ok, I had put in a waitlist request for another ticket but there's no guarantees.....
By sheer luck of timing, I was able to show up to our Valentine's day late lunch / early dinner date with the email confirmation that arrived on Feb 14 morning that my request had been granted and my credit card charged.
So Palm Springs Condo secured, two wristbands / two shuttle passes in hand, we set out for Palm Springs on Thursday evening. Little more traffic than expected but find condo, drop off stuff and have dinner in downtown Palm Springs at Las Casuelas.
Turns out that the Agua Caliente resort park and ride Shuttle Stop is about 10 minutes away from where we're staying so that's going to be our transportation method for the three days. Find our way there, eventually figure out where they're running the buses from (Not the main driveway in front the Casino as we and two women from Norway eventually figure out) and get on a bus.
A bus, while headed to the festival turns out to be on a very specific note, the WRONG bus. As usual in such settings, I fell asleep on the bus and slept through the freeway portion of the drive as well as missed where we exited to surface streets. What did wake me up is that it felt like we were in stop and go traffic. So I know I'm on a different shuttle route than previous years but I have the feeling that we shouldn't be in this type of traffic as there's streets that are closed to general traffic that the buses use to bypass the worst of the traffic closest to the festival. What street are we on? Monroe?!?! This doesn't look familiar....wait, I think I recognize this route from when I used to drive my car to festival....where the hell are we? Did we just go into an entrance that was apparently not for buses as now we're leaving the edge of the festival? We're now driving AWAY from the festival?!?!? This has gone horribly wrong....oh, we're turning around so yay? Now we're going back and hey, this time we've gotten like five bus lengths inside the festival but we're still at the wrong place according to the guys who won't let the bus go any further. At this point, it's super clear than this bus driver has no idea of where we're specifically supposed to go. I can see a sign in one of the parking lots that says 14A which invokes long ago memories of parking there or somewhere near there and while the bus is stopped, I make the decision to get off the bus, inform FH of this, and before Mr. Completely Lost can set off again, we get off the bus.
On foot, we find our way to car camping and then join the march of festival goers to the main entrance. Bit longer walk than it should be but at least I know where we're going 8-P
Security lines are relatively short so there's that. So is the ID check to get a wristband to let us into the beer gardens. Short lived success as the line to get our pre-paid locker is insanely long. Long enough to make getting to The Regrettes set at 320 and a bit of a hike from the main gate impractical. Long enough that we miss the start of MIKA at 340 on the main stage but we do see most of the set. That was a great deal of fun and was a definite mood improver. Lead to the interesting exchange that he introduces Butterfly Club as being inspired by a place in Costa Mesa which makes FH look questioningly at me as she knows that I lived there for years. I quickly gloss over the mere basics and that while the building is still there and still operates as a club, it hasn't been the Butterfly Club for years.
Bishop Briggs is up next and we miss the first part of her set due to overlapping set times but she is at the next stage over (Outdoor stage) so we catch the majority of her show. Right to the rushed end where she plays an abbreviated version of The River as she's running into the hard out end of her set time. Like one verse, one chorus abbreviated version. I guess better to pull the plug on oneself than having it done for you. Would recommend that if one has interesting in music, going to see her live. Third time I'd seen her and other than timing issues, thought she did well with the large setting / relatively early set time challenges of her Coachella slot.
Made our way toward one of the back corners of the grounds and went into the Antarctic dome which remains one of those things that one has to see in person.
Then worked our way back down the tents to Mojave to see Carly Rae Jepsen. Ended up toward the back and she drew well for having a 530 set time. This was a really fun set between the quality of the performance/songs combined with the energy of the crowd.
Not having any real plans at this point, we kind of just wandered and checked out the overall grounds, took some pictures, and I got some idea of what it would be like to be there for the first time as opposed to 12 trips to Polo Grounds. Heck, I was even convinced to ride the Ferris Wheel which I'd never done. Got something to eat and figuring that the only other set that I'd bookmarked was Amyl and the Sniffers at 9, regardless of the long merchandise line, we should be good to get merch. Turned out to be so wrong but I got a Danny Elfman T-shirt so there's that.
Now without any plans, we got a drink at The Cabin in the Craft Beer Barn area and then wandered a bit. In my being old and increasingly getting cold and no real desire to see Harry, we headed out and were back to the condo around midnight. Thankfully no bus shenanigans as once you make it the semi-secret bus lot, it's pretty apparent with all the traffic control at the intersections how to get back to the freeway.
I promise there's more music upcoming in the Day 2 and 3 reports ;-)
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