Hip-hop's biggest name shocked the rock world when he headlined the Glastonbury Festival in 2008. Despite the initial outrage—which included a member of Oasis decrying the arrival of hip-hop on the main stages of festivals as "wrong"—Jay-Z's performance in the British countryside was a revelation. A veteran of eleven Billboard #1 albums (the most of any artist in history), his swagger and crossover appeal are sure to charm even Coachella's hipster crowds. And he has reason to be confident—he's fresh off the overwhelming success of The Blueprint 3 and a tour that was attended by the likes of Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel, Nicole Richie, James Blunt, and Jamie Foxx, and featured surprise performers including Rihanna, Memphis Bleek, and Pharrell.
Jay-Z will perform Friday, April 16 at the Coachella stage at 10:50 p.m.
The fun fest that is James Murphy's electronic dance/punk project, LCD Soundsystem has been wowing crowds for years en route to their Coachella performance. Murphy himself performs all the vocals and instruments on LCD's albums, but he's joined by a stellar cast for this week's live performances, including Al Doyle of Hot Chip and Nancy Whang of The Juan Maclean. Gerhardt Fuchs, a drummer and friend of Murphy's who performed with LCD in support of one of its tours, died in November after falling from a stalled elevator in a tragedy that shocked the small community of groups and artists in the electro/dance/punk genre (a large part of which is affiliated with Murphy's DFA records.) But the music has found its way of moving forward. LCD Soundsystem will sub-headline Friday, a.k.a. "Jay-Z Night."
LCD Soundsystem will perform Friday, April 16 at the Coachella stage from 9:05—10:00.
Everyone either loves or hates these Ivy League boys behind whimsical songs such as "Oxford Comma." Their second album,
Contra, hit #1 on the Billboard Top 200, peaked at the top of the Canadian charts, and came in second in France and Australia. The blend of standard indie feel-good and West African soukous music earned them "Best New Band" honors from Spin magazine and two appearances on Saturday Night Live. Vampire Weekend also performs Friday—unfortunately on a different stage than headliners Jay-Z and LCD Soundsystem—and between their sets.
Vampire Weekend will perform at the Outdoor Theater on Friday, April 16 from 9:55 to 10:45.
British rockers have dazzled Coachella audiences for years, and this year Muse looks to follow in the footsteps of fellow Britons like The Cure and Arctic Monkeys. Matthew Bellamy on lead vocals, guitar, and piano, Christopher Wolstenholme on bass and backup, and Dominic Howard on drums are expected to put on yet another of their aggressive, genre-crossing shows. And as anyone who has played Guitar Hero knows, Muse's musical style includes notoriously intricate string work spliced with vocal performances that drift between glam rock opera and alternative. If there have ever been doubts about Muse's ability to entertain gigantic crowds, the band cast these aside by touring with the epic U2 360˚ tour.
Muse will perform on the Coachella Stage from 9:35 to 11:05 on Saturday, April 17.
Hipster idols MGMT exploded onto the indie stage when (ironically) a fan-made video for their single "Kids" went viral. The Brooklyn duo of Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden have since nabbed a bevy of honors including being named Spin.com's Artist of the Day, one of Rolling Stone's Top 10 Artists to Watch in 2008, NME's Album of the Year, and two 2010 Grammy nominations. So much critical attention went to 2007's
Oracular Spectacular that some had begun questioning whether MGMT was living up to the hype. The group put these fears to rest with
Congratulations, released on April 13, 2010—just days before their Coachella performance this weekend. MGMT will follow media darlings the XX and Hot Chip on the Outdoor Theatre stage.
MGMT will perform at the Outdoor Theatre on Saturday, April 17 from 8:50 to 9:40.
Sunny Day Real Estate hails from Seattle, where Jeremy Enigk, Dan Hoerner, Nate Mendel, and William Goldsmith made music history as one of the foundational groups in the "emo" music movement. The group was able to move past the grunge aesthetic that dominated Seattle's local music scene with
Diary in 1994. (The album was re-released in 2009.) Sunny Day Real Estate shares a label with fellow Washington natives Death Cab for Cutie, and its members have taken part in some of emo and rock's greatest acts, including Chris Carraba's Dashboard Confessional and Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters. This year, they will set the mood for the feel-good sounds of Jonsi (think Sigur Ros 2.0), Phoenix, and Thom Yorke on Coachella's final day.
Sunny Day Real Estate will perform from 4:45 to 5:30 on Sunday, April 18 at the Outdoor Theatre.
Singer Eleanor "Elly" Jackson and synth player Ben Langmaid comprise La Roux, a British duo that cites David Bowie, Madonna, Prince, and the Knife among their influences. La Roux's sound and aesthetic appeal are gleefully individualistic, and they've earned friends and promoters as high in the pop world as Lily Allen, who took the duo on tour with her. Jackson has taken some heat for harsh comments about Lady Gaga; she says she's just being honest. Judge for yourself at the Gobi stage on Friday night.
La Roux will perform Friday, April 16 from 8:20 to 9:10 in the Gobi tent.
Beth Ditto, the short-haired, thick-bodied frontwoman of the Portland-based Gossip has broken boundaries. But the group did not gain commercial success until their third album,
Standing in the Way of Control in 2006. They're not the easiest mainstream sell: five feet tall and over 200 pounds, Arkansas-born, openly gay Ditto is an unlikely star. "I have three words for Beth:
life and soul," the late Alexander McQueen told Blackbook. Much like Ditto herself, the Gossip's sound is difficult to pin down—a little bit punk, a little bit hip hop, and hell of a lot of soul.
Gossip will perform on Saturday, April 17th on the Mojave stage from 5:40 to 6:30
British electropop star Little Boots, a.k.a. 25-year-old Victoria Hesketh, made a name for herself in 2008 after posting videos on YouTube and MySpace of her singing covers of artists ranging from Wham! to Miley Cyrus. She's since joined the ranks of a new era of female pop icons—from Lady Gaga to another big Coachella name, Elly Jackson of La Roux—and gained a following in the UK with two hits last year, "New in Town" and "Remedy." This past March, her freshman efforts made it across the pond, and ever since, critics and music fans alike have been falling for this unabashed star on the rise. "It's a savvy approach, effectively bridging the gap between
poptimism and alt snobbery," Pitchfork said of this platinum blonde pixie's album,
Hands.
Little Boots will perform on Sunday, April 18th on the Gobi stage from 8:10-8:55
Many were surprised to see the Radiohead frontman headlining the final night of Coachella this year, given the band's announcement that they were planning to get cracking on their eighth album at about this time. Further confusing things was the fact that the event initially branded his appearance as "Thom Yorke????" on its official poster. His attendance, however, wasn't the punctuational issue; it was his accompanying supergroup's name. Late last year, Yorke recruited Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, producer Nigel Godrich, former R.E.M. drummer Joey Waronker, and another percussionist, Mauro Refosco. In February, Yorke announced that this quintet would henceforth be known as Atoms for Peace—after a song on his 2006 solo album
The Eraser—and began a tour with his new bandmates earlier this month that culminates at the ever-appropriate Coachella. While some Radiohead fans may have been lucky enough to hear a bit of Atoms for Peace's new sound on the five-city gig, many will be flooding Coachella to hear what the ever-changing artist has to offer now.
Thom Yorke (with Atoms for Peace) will perform on Sunday, April 18th on the Outdoor stage at 9:00
For those looking to kick it old school at this year's festival, Woodstock icon Sly Stone is scheduled to appear (keyword being "scheduled") on Coachella's closing night. His legendary band Sly & the Family Stone was the first major American rock band to have an integrated lineup in both race and gender. This show, if it happens, could introduce audiences to a new side of Sly—he signed a new recording contract with L.A.-based Cleopatra Records at the end of last year and is expected to put out a new album sometime in 2010.
Sly Stone might perform on Sunday, April 18th on the Gobi stage from 7:00-7:45
Despite having appeared on numerous indie-inspired soundtracks, from
The O.C. to
Stranger Than Fiction to
(500) Days of Summer, Spoon is much more than background music. Lead singer Britt Daniel and drummer Jim Eno formed the band in 1993 and named themselves after 1970s German avant-garde group Can's hit song "Spoon." But Spoon's latest effort,
Transference, the seventh studio album by the Austin-based indie rockers, debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 chart without any movie or TV show touting it. Flying under the radar may have been just the ticket for them—at the end of 2009, Metacritic named Spoon the "
top overall artist of the decade", admitting that though they "may not be the most prolific… they were the most consistently great."
Spoon will perform on Sunday, April 18th on the Coachella stage from 6:30-7:20
In additional to Thom Yorke's Atoms of Peace taking the stage at Coachella this year, Jack White of The White Stripes is bringing his don't-call-us-a-supergroup supergroup. "You should call us a gang," White told Prefix magazine. "We're a
supergang." Comprised of White, Alison Mosshart of The Kills, Dean Fertita of Queens of the Stone Age, and Jack Lawrence of The Raconteurs, The Dead Weather were conceived during an impromptu jam session. The pale-faced, dark-haired quartet performed live for the first time last March, right before releasing their debut single "Hang You from the Heavens" off of their first album
Horehound. With their sophomore effort
Sea of Cowards hitting iTunes and stores in mid-May, fans can look forward to The Dead Weather performing some new material. "The last year has been
incredible," Mosshart told BBC. "I never knew it was going to go like this. We never planned to be a band. Certainly I didn't think we'd be so busy and that things would go so well."
The Dead Weather will perform on Saturday, April 17th on the Outdoor stage from 11:05 to Midnight
After The Sex Pistols, lead vocalist Johnny Rotten formed Public Image Ltd. (better known as PiL) in 1978. With a more experimental sound, Rotten, who went back to his birth name John Lydon, and his band established themselves as one of the first post-punk groups in the music industry. Over three decades and eight studio albums later, Lydon was rejoined by the band's earlier members Bruce Smith and Lu Edmonds, in addition to new bassist Scott Firth in 2009, for their first live show in 17 years. Coachella attendees will have to choose between PiL's comeback or Jay-Z, performing simultaneously.
Public Image Ltd. will perform on Friday, April 16 on the Outdoor stage from 11:20 to 12:10
Always dapper in their suit-and-tie stage attire, Faith No More brings a lot more chaos than their appearance would indicate. The 30-year-old band, which once included Courtney Love as a singer, combines funk, rock, hip hop, punk, jazz, and heavy metal. But after a decade of performances, six studio albums, and being hailed the kings of alternative metal, the five-man band parted ways in 1998 and began to work on separate side projects. Faith No More restored hope in February 2009 when Mike Patton, Billy Gould, Roddy Bottum, Mike Bordin, and Jon Hudson announced they'd be reforming for a European tour. Since then, they've performed overseas and have just made their first appearance in the U.S. in more than a decade in their hometown of San Francisco. And fans will not be disappointed when they return to Coachella. "They were sarcastic, loud, obnoxious, funky, fearless, smarmy, weird, aggressive, unique, ironic, inspirational, apathetic, long-winded, and sincere," raved the San Jose Mercury News. "That answers whether Faith No More is still
Faith No More."
Faith No More will perform on Saturday, April 17th on the Coachella stage from 7:55 to 8:45
