Well, sadly, the last day of Coachella has finally arrived.  Before I depart for the polo fields, though, here are my thoughts on the second glorious day of the fest:

THE JOY FORMIDABLE (B+)

These hard rockers from North Wales sure started the second day off with a bang.  With only three members, they still managed to sound huge, stadium worthy.  The end of the show was a blast, with each member totally trashing the stage.  With their anthemic arena rock, I sense a potentially big future for the Joy Formidable.  

THAO WITH THE GET DOWN STAY DOWN (B+)

Another great set, this time at the Outdoor Theatre and this time a much different flavor of rock.  This was calmer, but more experimental, and very percussive.  Thao is a terrific singer live and has great stage presence.  The drummer was equally impressive, bringing several different rhythmic styles to the table.  All in all, this was great lovable indie pop at its finest.

FOALS (A)

This was the first incredible set of the day.  Hailing from England, these brit rockers fused high energy math rock with soaring, larger than life arena rock.  The result was breathtaking and intense at the same time.  The level of precision with each musician (5 in this case) was absolutely astonishing.  Just hearing all the individual lead parts combined with the quick syncopated jabs of the drums was enough to make my head spin.  It all culminated into an epic version of “Two Steps, Twice” in which the lead singer hurled himself of the speakers eight feet down and into the audience… without warning.  Luckily no one was hurt, but man… now that is rock n’ roll.

TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB (B)

Immediately following Foals in the Mojave tent, these Irish rockers with a taste of pop sensibility played quite decently.  They managed to match the sounds on their hook filled debut CD, but after an intense band like Foals, they seemed rather tame.  Not a whole lot of moving around was going on, which was surprising, given the level of speed and energy in their songs.  The best word to describe this set is: pleasant.  It wasn’t great, but with only one album under their belt, Two Door Cinema Club has plenty of room to hone in on their sound and live performance.

ERYKAH BADU (B)

I have very mixed emotions about this set.  Erykah had moments of incredible brilliance (“On and On” and “Didn’t Cha Know” were incredible standouts), but the set was riddled with sound problems.  Badu’s microphone kept feeding back, which constantly kept the performance from ascending into greatness.  After the feeding back fits subsided, however, I could hear the true show, which for the most part, sounded stunning.  Unfortunately, Erykah went well over her set time and was forced to leave the stage, leaving a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth.  

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE (B+)

I wouldn’t say I was disappointed with this set.  As a matter of fact, I enjoyed almost all of it, with the possible exception of “All to All” (it was mixed kind of poorly).  BUT, when I saw this Canadian collective play Lollapalooza in 2008, they were, much, much, much better.  Oh well.  It was still great.  I still got to enjoy some of their best songs (“7/4 Shoreline,” “Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl,” “Cause = Time”) and their new material sounded great live as well.  

BRIGHT EYES (A-)

Ah, yes, this set took me back.  I haven’t really listened to Bright Eyes that much in these past couple years, and I was beginning to suspect that I had possibly grown out of them.  But man, Conor Oberst and crew managed to make most of their songs sound even better than their studio recordings.  It also helped that their set went heavy on older material (almost half the set was devoted completely to I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning), even including tracks like “Bowl Of Oranges” and “Lover I Don’t Have To Love.”  Standouts were definitely “Old Soul Song,” “Four Winds,” and the tremendous closer “Road To Joy.”  This performance reinstated my love for Bright Eyes, and gave me quite the large amount of high school nostalgia.

MUMFORD AND SONS (B+/D)

I have to admit: I had no intention of seeing this band.  I was just at the main stage because I was waiting for Animal Collective to go into Arcade Fire, and I was already in quite the prime viewing position.  You may notice that there are two scores.  The first score reflects the opinion of the average Mumford & Sons fan.  The latter score reflects mine.  I am absolutely not a fan…  but I’m not an idiot.  They obviously played very well, and their harmonies were impressive.  However, this genre of country meets U2 grandeur was not to my liking.  Everything was shrouded in Bono-ish melodramatics, and almost every song sounded the exact same.  Well played, but… blech, not for me.

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE (C)

This set completely embodied my opinion of this band’s entire catalog.  Way, way, way uneven.  First of all, it seemed like Animal Collective went well out of their way to be as weird as possible, and it showed.  About three songs into their set, over half the crowd had completely lost interest and had sat down.  I haven’t seen a main stage crowd act this way since I saw Love & Rockets open for Nine Inch Nails.  Perhaps this Baltimore psychedelic collective should have closed the Outdoor Theatre, because Arcade Fire fans were not having it.  This was probably because the band played almost nothing recognizable.  I understand that Animal Collective sets are largely improvised, but it wasn’t working that much for me.  There were moments in the set when they blew me away, however.  Some of the songs simply clicked and worked very well.  ”Brothersport” was very impressive.  But for the most part, it was just… well, too weird, too distant, and it almost seemed like the band intended to piss off the audience.  

ARCADE FIRE (A)

All right!  An “A” for “Arcade Fire”!  After sitting through two not so great performances, Arcade Fire rectified all of this with a stunning, breathtaking, energetic, larger than life performance.  It was more or less the same set I saw in Lollapalooza, give or take a couple numbers and the order switched around.  However, at Lollapalooza I was way far away and they didn’t play as long.  This time I was front row, and it was even better for that fact.  All the crowd pleasers were there (“The Sprawl II,” “Rebellion (Lies),” “Power Out,” “Keep The Car Running”), and Win Butler and the gang seemed genuinely enthused to be there.  Nothing much else to say, really.  ”Wake Up” was glorious.  ”Month of May” was fierce and pounding, a perfect opener for the set.  There were no missteps.  No sound problems.  No bad energy.  No pompous presence.  It was just Arcade Fire, performing like it was their last day on Earth.  A great closer to the second night.  

All right, just one more day!  Let’s end this fest with a bang!