When the Coachella 2012 lineup was announced, I couldn’t deny that I was impressed.  With such a solid collection of artists, I was even considering trying to make it down this year.  Adding a second weekend with the exact same lineup seemed confusing and, in all honesty, a stretch.  How much was that gonna cost them?  What artists are going to be willing to kick it in the general area for another week just to perform to a second crowd of people that will likely already know what to expect?  Radiohead was smart and booked a couple of Mexico City dates during the week to continue on their tour with Other Lives.  The festival did manage to reel in the big names that the kids these days seem to love and plenty of them: The Black Keys, The Shins, Bon Iver, M83, etc.  Most of those bands are or will be on tour, regardless, and the rest of them slowly popped up on the bill of various other festivals – Bon Iver, The Shins, Beirut, Santigold, Wild Flag, Childish Gambino, Beats Antique, The Head and the Heart, tUnE-yArDs, St. Vincent, and Feist will all be at the Sasquatch! Festival this year.  After the reality that I was going to stay home with my lady and my infant child became more and more of a reality and the initial hype wore off, there were only a few acts that I was really disappointed about missing by not attending Coachella; most of which weren’t getting very high billing.  Death Grips and Company flow were at the top of the acts that I personally have been wishing would make their way up here to the Pacific North West, but haven’t shown any plan to fulfill that dream.  fIREHOSE subsequently posted their full tour and already came through here last week.  Amon Tobin would appear with his ridiculously amazing and mindblowing ISAM tour, which is still going strong, and, although it’s definitely worth witnessing again, I already caught it last year.  I would have checked out the Mazzy Star and Cat Power sets, but it’s not like I’m gonna slit my throat over missing them.  The only real big name act that I was disappointed about not seeing was Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg together.  It turns out that I had good reason for such disappointment, as their set included a hologram of a resurrected and rapping Tupac Shakur; a visual effect that easily rivaled that of Tobin’s groundbreaking live show. Read the rest of this entry →