California Dreaming

April 17, 2015

California Dreaming

Michael & Lee

 

War On Drugs

For the third year in a row, I headed out to California in April to catch the annual Coachellla Music & Arts Festival in Indio. This year for the first time since I have been going, Kathy opted not to join me, having a busier work schedule and huge music festivals not being her thing. This year once again, I joined my boss George, his friend Jalak and my co-worker and friend Lee in Palm Springs at a house we rented near the Polo Grounds where the festival is held.

Raekwon 

Action Bronson

The last two years, Kathy and I had flown in to Vegas and driven over across the desert, this year I decided to fly in a day early and to fly in to San Diego instead of Vegas. It has been many, many years since I was last in San Diego and there is a lot going on there, plus it is closer to Palm Springs than Vegas.

I arrived in San Diego just in time to catch the beautiful sunset into the Pacific at the U.S.S. Midway an old aircraft carrier that is docked in San Diego harbor. The carrier is now a military museum and there is a beautiful waterfront park that honors the US Navy and military service in general. There is even a huge statue depicting the famous end of the war kiss by Key West’s own Seward Johnson. 

 

Upon checking in to my hotel, I looked out the window of my room at a beautiful view of Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres and to my good fortune a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks was just getting underway, so I walked down the block from my hotel, bought a ticket and checked out the ballgame. In honor of Jackie Robinson, all the players on both teams wore the number 42, which though somewhat confusing was still pretty cool. The Padres took a close, exciting game 3-2 on an 8^th inning tie-breaking solo home run. It was a nice way to start off my stay in California.

 

The next day, I drove down the coast and over to Palm Springs to pick my friend Lee up at the airport and check in to the house. George and Jalak arrived on a later flight and we were ready for the first day at Coachella. It was Lee’s first time at the festival so we went over fairly early as she really wanted to see Action Bronson who had a fairly early set time.

 

George Ezra

As usual we had the VIP passes, which get you your own special area with private bars, food vendors and restrooms and we spent some time there planning out our day. There were eight stages with almost continuous live music making it difficult to decide at times who to watch perform.

Lee

George Ezra “Budapest”

Among the early bands that we checked out were Azealia Banks, Raekwon and Ghostface Killah, George Ezra, War on Drugs, Interpol, Alabama Shakes and Lykee Li. They were all pretty decent but to my mind two really stood out, George Ezra and War On Drugs. Neither were all that familiar to me, but both won me over with amazing performances that had me hooked and wanting to see much more from both.

Azelia Banks

War On Drugs

Alabama Shakes

Lykee Li