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The Infamous Lineup

With Coachella 2008's lineup being announced yesterday, the Blogosphere went absolutely bananas in response. Everyone and their brother decided to blog on it, and I believe there were at least three backlashes just yesterday, ranging from the initial "the lineup sucks!" to the follow up of "stop being elitist, its eclectic" to the final consensus of "sure, it's good...but where are the real headliners."

Of course given the fact I'm Alaskan, I didn't post because...well...things in Indio, California rarely affect what I am doing here. However, I was debating on which Festival I wanted to take a trip to this year. Would I have my first venture to a mega-festival such as Coachella or Bonnaroo? Would I stick it to the Northwest and hit up Sasquatch or possibly the Bumbershoot/ Musicfest NW combo again? Well, after I saw the lineup for this, it's definitely not going to be the absurdly overpriced Coachella Festival.

Key Negatives to Coachella

• 3 day pass = $269. Wowza. If I went, the only thing left in my wallet would be a suicide note, because I would be broke, broke, broke.
• Indio, California in May? 100+ degrees. No shade? 110 degrees. Stuck amongst a ton of other concert goers? Feels like 125. This way I'd just say die straight out.
• Don't know a lot of people around Indio, so costs to stay would be higher.
• Headliners are not great enough to make the whole thing a true value proposal.

As much as I like a lot of the bands playing (Quick rundown...Day 1: Jack Johnson, the Verve, Fatboy Slim, Tegan and Sara, the Swell Season, the National, Animal Collective, Stars, Aesop Rock, Minus the Bear, Jens Lekman, Architecture in Helsinki, Rogue Wave; Day 2: Portishead, Death Cab for Cutie, Rilo Kiley, M.I.A., Cold War Kids, DevotchKa, Flogging Molly, Islands, MGMT, Dredg; Day 3: Roger Waters (Sub-Parentheses! Doing Dark Side of the Moon!), the Streets, Murs, the Field, and Sia...phew), I'm definitely not dying to see any of them. Day 1 would be pretty awesome, but seriously, last year was headlined by Rage Against the Machine, Bjork, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with other luminaries like the Arcade Fire, Air, Interpol, and LCD Soundsystem playing. It just doesn't compare.

So in the first year I really, REALLY considered going, I'm just going to have to pass on you Coachella. Too many negatives, not enough big positives.

But I had to blog about it. I didn't want the blog police to come over and ask me why I didn't blog about Coachella. I just couldn't let that happen!