29 Great moments from the 10th Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, Empire Polo Club, Indio, California, April 17-19, 2009.
1. Fleet Foxes drawing a huge, mellow crowd, sweltering under woolly beanies on the Outdoor Stage, Saturday, playing ‘White Winter Hymnal’. Temperature: 98 degrees.
2. Karen O, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Coachella Stage Sunday, dressed as a disco ball, doing The Cramps’ ‘Human Fly’.
29 Great moments from the 10th Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, Empire Polo Club, Indio, California, April 17-19, 2009.
1. Fleet Foxes drawing a huge, mellow crowd, sweltering under woolly beanies on the Outdoor Stage, Saturday, playing ‘White Winter Hymnal’. Temperature: 98 degrees.
2. Karen O, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Coachella Stage Sunday, dressed as a disco ball, doing The Cramps’ ‘Human Fly’.
An object lesson in filming a gig, this, as Patrick Daughters (director of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' stunning "Maps" promo) captures The Rapture's nervous energies in long, unfussy, elegant shots. Recorded last Christmas, the quartet still resemble—happily—enthusiastic grad students who've stumbled on the ideal disco/punk hybrid. But Daughters exploits this, making them—especially soulful-eyed frontman Luke Jenner—look at once gawky and iconic.
With NYC's bright new hopes (Liars, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) openly worshipping at the altar of scratchy early-'80s UK punk-funk (PiL, Gang Of Four), it now seems doubly outrageous that Department S were denied the release of this like-minded debut at the time—"Whatever Happened To The Blues" alone is 20 years ahead of Radio 4. An even greater shame that singer Vaughan Toulouse (who died of AIDS in 1991) isn't around to savour the overdue recognition this should grant him.
