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Graduate on time, or Coachella?...

By Maggie Grainger

May 1, 2006

San Diego--I’ll admit it—I have a small girl crush on Karen O, the charismatic lead singer of the band the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs. The woman just oozes sexuality from every pore of her body and during live performances she jerks and writhes across the stage, commanding the audience to stop lighting their cigarettes, sipping their overpriced beer, and take notice of her.

I’ve seen the band play three times in the last two years and when I heard they were going to play Coachella, I knew I was in for a treat.

As a senior at San Diego State, this last month has been a difficult one, mainly because I find it harder and harder to get my ass to the library. I had finally given in to the fact that if I wanted to graduate on time I would have to spend the weekend in the library. But this turn of events changed everything. Graduate, or rock out to two of my favorite female divas of all time?

I opted to rock out.

I decided to pass on Saturday’s line-up to get as much homework done as humanly possible and arrive at Coachella Sunday relatively guilt-free. Sure, I missed a sweet line-up that included artists such as Franz Ferdinand, Sigur Rios, Daft Punk, Kanye West and Depeche Mode but I was saving myself for the icing on the cake.

I convinced my boyfriend Ivan to make the two-hour trek into the desert (Okay, he didn’t need too much convincing.) with me and Sunday morning, and despite not quite finishing all my homework, we drove off to pay homage to my rock icons.

Once we hit Indio, the two of us spent an hour in the car crawling to the parking lot—thousands of cars streamed in from the freeway, geared up to see the show of a lifetime. It was another 45-minute trek, in 110 degree heat no less, from the car to the box office but it was all worth it once our sweaty bodies entered through the gates and we saw the playground laid out before us.

I still couldn’t believe it as Ivan and I drank Heinekens and wandered in and out of vendor and concert tents (We stopped to watch Matisyahu tear up the main stage and took a moment to dance to the beats of Paul Oakenfold.) that I was actually at Coachella.

Despite rumors that they are breaking up, the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs put on an amazing show. Wearing a pink dress with ripped, black tights, Karen O. did what she does best—wail, strut and act like the rock-goddess diva she is.

The one downside to a festival of this magnitude is the unfortunate fact that you will more than likely not get to see everyone’s complete set. As much as I wanted to see the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’s complete set, I had to leave 20 minutes early in order to rush across the grounds to secure a place on the dance floor for Madonna.

I realize many hipsters and Coachella purists were outraged to hear that Madonna had been added to the bill. How dare a pop star try to infiltrate their sacred concert. I’ve always hated the pretentious snobs who disown bands once they make it onto MTV and turn their noses up if you can’t come up with the name of Modest Mouse’s first LP. So, I found it especially satisfying when I noticed the tight-jean, black eye-liner crowd rushing right along with me to see the Material Girl, despite what it might do to their musical credibility.

She is Madonna for Christ’s sake.

So what if I could only see her head half the time. So what she only played for forty minutes. I finally saw Madonna live and I’m not going to lie—it was pretty fucking awesome.

Dancing across the stage in a skintight black leather outfit, she didn’t look like she was pushing 50—her backup dancers were having a hard time keeping up with her. She mainly sang songs from her newest album, “Confessions on a Dance Floor,” and even busted out her guitar for several tunes.

Once she finished her last song she instantly disappeared, almost like she had never graced Coachella with her presence at all, leaving eager fans hyper and waiting for more.

Madonna: once a tease, always a tease.

After her set, Ivan and I opted to skip Tool and head home—that paper wasn’t going to write itself—and as we weaved our way in and out of the countless dust-covered cars, empty beer cans and drunk couples fucking in between vehicles, I couldn’t help but feel a tremendous jolt of satisfaction.

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