Don Kowalewski - The Super Unofficial Concertgoers Guide to Coachella 2012

The Super UnofficialConcertgoer's Guide to Coachella

The Super UnofficialConcertgoer's Guide to Coachella

Don Kowalewski

Published by Scripted atSmashwords

Copyright 2012

Smashwords Edition, LicenseNotes

This eBook is licensed for yourpersonal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or givenaway to other people. If you would like to share this book withanother person, please purchase an additional copy for eachrecipient. If youre reading this book and did not purchase it, orit was not purchased for your use only, then please return toSmashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respectingthe hard work of this author.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

- How to Use thisGuide

- History ofCoachella

- CoachellaEttiquette

- TheWristband

- DrivingDirections

- Parking

- So this is yourfirst time at Coachella? (and The Coachella Bootcamp)

- Where to Stay (akaAll About Camping)

- Some Stuff aboutFood Inside the Venue

- Food in theCampgrounds (Its Not All Granola and Hot Dogs)

- A Map

- Guys Guide to Packing for Coachella

- Gals Guide to Packing for Coachella

- So youre a Chaperon at Coachella

- The Lineup

- When in doubt, say it sucks.

- So you went to Coachella ...Now What?

- Coachella: The Future

Chi - How to Use This Unofficial Guide

Many of the opinions expressed in thisunofficial guide are the random observations of a dude in his late30s who went to lots of concerts back in the 90s and now is grownup with three kids, a suffocating mortgage, too much debt, and aseverely lacking social life. Hes not old enough to offer greatadvice, but also not so young that he cant help you out in yourtime of need.

Some of the stuff - the really factuallysound stuff - is copied and pasted directly from Coachella.com.Those dudes over on that site really have their act together, andfor that you should be thankful. Way out in the middle of thedesert it might be hard to find good cell towers and coverage attimes, and with 70,000 to 100,000 people all trying to update theirFaceBook and pin stuff to Pinterest, the 3G and 4G signals can besketchy. So, this eBook has everything you need and the most workyoull have to do is just scroll, a lot.

And theres going to be quite a bit of downtime, believe it or not. Youll have hours to kill in the car, andsometimes many hours to kill between sets from bands you like, andthen theres that drive home. So Ive tried to mix in useful stuffand entertaining stuff.

Keep this eBook and get signatures on it likeyearbook (except that youre probably reading this on an ereader,so never mind).

Ch1 - History of Coachella

Back in the late 90s somebody had a reallygreat idea: hold another Woodstock. After thirty years of talkingabout that awesome concert from the 60s where Janice Joplin andJimi Hendrix performed, they realized it didnt have to be a oncein a lifetime thing. Maybe it could be a once in a generationthing. Also in the late 90s, giant corporations were reallyperfecting the concept of corporate sponsorship disguised aspursuit of the arts. So, another Woodstock was born and became ariot literally, a riot broke out. Things were burned in fires.And with that, Woodstock never happened again.

Impossible to ignore were the tens ofthousands of people that attended, and rioted at, Woodstock 2 sosome other people with big, wide-open tracts of land thought theydtry and hold their own giant concert and make a bunch of moneyahem, I mean, hear some great music and party with all their bestfriends.

So in the hottest spot in California, theEmpire Coachella Valley, the Coachella Valley Music and ArtsFestival was born. It limped along for a few years until 2003 whenThe Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Beastie Boys played the show andit just kept growing. It peaked in 2007 with over 100,000 attendeesand Rage Against the Machine reuniting. Then the housing bubbleburst and the economy collapsed and Boomer parents could no longerafford to give their college-aged kids a bunch of money so theycould travel to some valley in California to watch over 80 bandsfor three days. OK, some people may have worked multiple summerjobs and saved their money and bought their own tickets. I got tobelieve that hard-working spirit still exists in the world, andpeople still spend their hard-earned money on cool things likeconcerts and art.

The spirit on which Coachella was founded,however, helped it survive. Even though they didnt have theirparents money to spend anymore, energy drinks and hemp craftsellers still wanted to reach the youngest Gen Xrs and the oldestMillennials, so Coachella continued with acts like Kanye West, TheBlack Keys, Paul McCartney, Jay-Z, Muse, and The Cure playing thestages year after year.

Another interesting fact about the Coachellavalley Pearl Jam held a concert there in 1993 because they werewaging a battle with Ticketmaster and the fees Ticketmastercharges, so they sold their own tickets to a non-Ticketmastercontrolled venue. Coachella tickets, ironically, could be purchasedthrough Ticketmaster (I have no idea if thats true, but Ill justbelieve its true and act smug and disgusted). Note: You can stillget a ticket on StubHub or Craigslist. I checked.

Ch2 - Coachella Etiquette

If youve never been to a music festival,youll still be able to navigate the landscape fairly well withthis handy guide.

1. There will be parking thats very far fromthe venue.

2. Therell be camping and campers.

3. You might get lost. Dont be afraid to askquestions of your fellow concert-goers. If possible, look for theoldest guy there. Hell likely have grey hair pulled back in a ponytail and a tie-die shirt. Out of 75,000 attendees, 5,000 will lookexactly like that. These are the elders and they are probablystoned, which means theyll be talkative, and because theyrelikely fathers themselves, theyll want to help and theyll talkand talk. In the same way as you hope someone will help you, asyou learn things about Coachella (like, hey ...therere rattlesnakes in the bushes so dont pee there), keep a friendly look onyour face, no matter how hot it is, and happily assist those whoalso look lost and confused, or who appear to have just been bittenby a rattlesnake.

4. Dont litter. Oh, right, right you neverlitter. But sometimes you sorta put down that bottled water or thatpaper cup while youre dancing and then forget to pick it up andthrow it away. Five thousand dudes have that same move and it worksif you have lawn seats to the Poison-Def Leopard show in your hometown because youre only going to be there for four hours, max. Andthere might be 20,000 people there (Im being generous in what Iassume those two bands can draw). After the show, a hundred peopleclean that venue and get it shined up for the The Beatles and BeachBoys tribute band shows scheduled for the next night. So in thatenvironment, when youre too lazy to hold onto your cup until youfind a waste basket, you can set it down and not worry about it.Coachella, however, will attract 75,000 people a day and if youdont find a waste basket, the place is going to look like crap andseagulls will poop everywhere. Just throw your stuff away.

5. Dont crowd the stage if this aint yourband. Eighty or more bands will play many stages over the six daysand two weekends. Just because you can force your way up to thefront of the crowd doesnt mean you always should. Yes, we all wantto be hanging on the stage when The Black Keys perform, soobviously its the toughest thing to do. The biggest Black Keysfans are going to get up there. Maybe you arent driven to push andshove your way up to the front of 40,000 people, but you might getbold if a lesser known band has, say, only a couple hundred peoplehanging around their performance and givin them love. You couldget to the front row, but take a look around first. A band thatsounds OK to you might be some sixteen-year-olds favorite band,ever. It might be their very own Goo Goo Dolls and they might beintimidated by the whole concert experience. Yield the front of thestage or the first ten rows to the bands biggest fans. Its justthe cool thing to do.