Gig review: Coachella - day two

An eerie fog settled over the Coachella Music Festival on day two. But It wasn't cloud cover, mist or the huge numbers of smokers around causing the weird fog. It was - duh da da duh duh daah - smog.

At least the people I spoke to seemed to think it was, and there was little in the way of wind to move it away. It wasn't a pretty sight, turning the evening sunset over the venue into a yellowish hue and making several fans don doo-rags over their nose and mouth for protection. Guys - it's not a Game concert.

My lungs can handle the smog. Obviously they can - I had a four hour walk back to my hotel last night. There weren't enough buses and taxis in Palm Springs to handle the demand, so after a two-hour wait among the several hundred people trying in vain to get home, a bunch of us decided it would be best to walk.

When punches start being thrown at queue jumpers, you know it's time to leave a situation. The Situation would probably agree.

It was around 15 miles. You do the math. I started feeling like Hunter S Thompson - with less drugs - getting lost in the desert until I stumbled upon an abandoned, half-finished motorway, complete with tumbleweed blowing around, that led straight to my hotel.

A hot shower has never felt so good. I could actually watch the sweat and grime oozing off me and down the plug. The sewers in Palm Springs might never recover.

As you can probably understand, I didn't feel much like trekking around stages at a breakneck pace on day two, so I didn't catch absolutely everything I wanted to. The Dead Weather will have to wait for another day.

Here's my day two wrap. And don't forget to check out all the action in our Coachella photo gallery.

4pm: The Temper Trap's plans for American domination appear to be going according to plan - the catchy Aussie pop-rockers pull a sizeable audience over at the Outdoor Theatre, and many of the crowd knew all the words to their Coldplay-style anthems. Crucially, there were more people there at the end than when they started. That's got to be a good thing. And the celebratory stage dive by singer Dougy Mandagi proved to be the show's exclamation point.

4.40pm: I just found my new favourite band. Band of Skulls combine boy-girl vocals with White Stripes-style riffage, Band of Horses country bumpkinism and plenty of old school rawk. They rock.

5pm: I just met the man with the hardest job in the world: Managing Amy Winehouse. He seems to be a happy chap. Other celebrities spied mooching around backstage: Peaches Geldof, Kate Moss, Anne Hathaway, Kate Bosworth and various members of No Doubt. Danny DeVito is around too - but his mooch is more of a waddle.

5.15pm: For a country known for their high-fat foods and sugary snacks, it sure is hard to find chocolate and ice cream at Coachella. I can't even find anyone selling Coke. Guess it's time for another slice of the excellent pizza - but I could murder a peanut slab.

5.50pm: She's larger than life but surprisingly small in person. She can holler along with the best of them. And Beth Ditto sure can move - she'd put some rappers to shame as she shimmies and shakes her stuff around the stage during The Gossip's well-attended show on the Mojace stage. She's nothing short of captivating, and she commanded my attention for their entire set. Bravo.

6.30: Pretty much everyone at the venue decides they want to see slow-mo dubstep darlings The XX perform, gathering one of the biggest crowds so far. At least the pale Brits made it here, unlike Gary Numan, The Cribs and several other UK acts forced to cancel because of Iceland's annoying volcano. I don't think the crowds saw The XX at their best - their Laneways show in February was better - but Oliver Sim's throat-wobbling bass is a thrill on standouts Crystalised and VCR. Unfortunately they sparked several gruesome makeout sessions among amorous couples. Leave it out, guys.

7.10pm: Some bands only Americans get. Coheed and Cambria are one of them.

7.45pm: If you stop watching bands for a bit, here are some of the sights you can see at the festival: A giant fluorescent spider, hundreds of palm trees, around seven pizza joints, searing multi-coloured searchlights scanning the sky, about 20 different art installations (to be honest some of them are a bit ugly) and at least one person struggling to take off their T-shirt stuck to their back because of the sweat. That's when a pair of scissors comes in handy.

8.10pm: Mike Patton is a born showman, whether fronting one of his numerous side projects or going back to his roots with Faith No More's "second coming" he's always running at high intensity. Today he barks military-style instructions at the crowd, laughs like a maniac, jumps into the moshpit for a crowd surf and hollers into his microphone like a mad cheerleader instructor. Awesome show.

8.45pm: The smoke machines are working overtime for awkward indie darlings MGMT. Is it to cover up the fact that their new songs are a bit rubbish? 

9.15pm: Trust Muse to steal the show. The space-age prog rockers deliver, exploiting a superior sound system that everyone I talk to seems to agree is the best they've heard. That, the lasers and a random Deftones cover finally win me over - I'm a converted Muse fan. Lead me to their ark and I'll head off for an asteroid tour with them. 

* Check back tomorrow for coverage of day three, including Thom Yorke, Gorillaz, The Big Pink, Rusko, Phoenix, Spoon and Pavement.

- © Fairfax NZ News