Parting Shots from Coachella

I'm currently cruising back to Los Angeles in perfect sunshine reflecting on my time at Coachella festival. Last night I saw two familiar English voices.  Radiohead's Thom Yorke with Atoms For Peace and Blur's Damon Albarn with Gorillaz.

Both were extraordinary for me as it was the first time I had seen them play live with these side-projects and then Thom Yorke went and played acoustic versions of two Radioheadsongs, Airbag and Everything In Its Right Place. A perfect finale to a great weekend of music. To top it all off we just went for a walk in the national park at Joshua Tree, the area where Arctic Monkeysrecorded their latest albumHumbug.

Here are three of my favourite snaps that sum up my experience of Coachella. (See below)

1. Danny DeVito

The festival is glamorous. Everyone there is out to impress. It's seriously intimidating how many good looking people are around the place. One day I was sitting in the press area doing interviews and I saw a pair of girls literally lapping the VIP area for the best part of three hours. That's how it is. Star spotting comes easy. The likes of Arctic Monkeys,Kelly Osbourne, Alexa Chung, Jaime Winstone andDaisy Lowe were out in force. Beyonce and Jay-Zseemed very comfortable wandering among the punters and were standing a metre behind me to watch Thom Yorke! They were loving it. Another friend saw them watchingThe Dirty Projectors with B's little sis Solange. Apparently they were singing every word. My colleague Rodrigo Davies even spoke to Danny DeVito, who was there for a sixth year in a row.

2. The Dead Weather


After an hour of stress while no calls and text would connect because of bad reception, I ended up being driven high speed in a gold buggy through the backstage area and interviewing The Dead Weather as they were gearing up to their performance on the Outdoor Stage. Massive highlight to meet Jack White and Alison Mosshart.
3. Sunsets

There's not a festival in the world I don't think which has better sunsets than Coachella. The warm sun drops behind the mountains and you get this.