The ferris wheel at Coachella Valley in Indio, California. Coachella 2013 starts today.
The 2013 music festival season gets under way in just a few hours with the 2013 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California.
While last month’s South By Southwest in Austin is the biggest musical event each year in sheer numbers, it is not a musical festival per se.
Coachella is considered the crown jewel of the big outdoor music festivals in the U.S., followed by Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, and Sasquatch. Over the past five years, as the popularity of music festivals has soared, spawning many new festivals (including Outside Lands in San Francisco) Coachella marks the beginning of the outdoor music festival season.
As of 7 a.m. Friday morning, thousands are streaming into the camp grounds and parking lots for this weekend’s big music and arts party in the middle of the southern California desert east of San Diego and just down the road from the Palm Springs city limits. Over the past few years, Coachella has become so big, and the demand for tickets so overwhelming, that organizers from Golden Voice Productions added a second weekend starting in 2012. That move was a huge success that organizers announced within weeks of last year’s event that there would be two weekend festivals for 2013 as well. If you’re going to Coachella for the first time, either this weekend, or next weekend, it is strongly advised to read the rules about passes, will call, wristbands, vehicles, camping and parking. Over the years, we’ve heard plenty of unfortunate stories about people not being able get in to the campgrounds or the festival grounds themselves. For example, if you purchase a pass from a third party source (like online ‘ticketing’ sites) or scalpers, you won’t get in.
If you’re one of the millions that wish they could go to Coachella this year, but can’t, the next best thing is available – Coachella Live on YouTube!
View ENTV‘s analysis of the Coachella 2013 headliners announcement, with coverage of Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Blur, The Postal Service, Wu-Tang Clan, Phoenix and also Fuse TV‘s review of the Coachella lineup for 2013.
In celebration of Coachella 2013, IRC has put together a special and extensive Coachella 2013 Headliners Spotify Playlist of headliners. The embedded playlist below features many of the other great bands playing this weekend.
The opening day of Coachella 2013, today, Friday, April 12th (and April 17th), includes headliners like Blur, The Stone Roses, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Modest Mouse, Lou Reed, Jurassic 5, Grinderman, as well as artists like Bassnectar, Dog Blood, How to Destroy Angels, Passion Pit, Tegan and Sara, Band of Horses, Beach House, Metric, Local Natives, Of Monsters and Men, Japandroids, Divine Fits, Stars, Johnny Marr, and Alt-J, to name just a few.
For Saturday, April 13th (and April 20th), headliners include Phoenix, the XX, the Postal Service, Sigur Ros, New Order, Hot Chip, Grizzly Bear, along with secondary acts like Knife Party, Two Door Cinema Club, Moby, Descendents, Yeasayer, Franz Ferdinand, Violent Femmes, Portugal, the Man, Bat for Lashes, Richie Hawtin, Major Lazer, Fedde Le Grand, Dropkick Murphys, FOALS, and many others.
For Sunday, April 14th (and April 21st), headliners include Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Vampire Weekend, Social Distortion, Wu-Tang Clan, and non-headliners like Pretty Lights, Tame Impala, the Lumineers, Dead Can Dance, La Roux, James Blake, Excision Grimes, the Gaslight Anthem, the Faint, Hardwell, Paul Oakenfold, Dinosaur Jr., OMD, Airborne Toxic Event, Father John Misty, Tanlines, Rodriguez, Mimosa, Cloud Nothings, and many, many more.
View the entire lineup by clicking on the official 2013 Coachella poster
