Coachella, snippets from the past…

Coachella: a festival in a desert – hot in the day, cold at night; just thinking about what to pack if (I was going) makes my head hurt. Fashion dilemmas aside, this year’s line-up has just been announced. And unsurprisingly, it features a host of big name acts (Kanye West, check), a sprinkling of last year’s and this year’s ones-to-watch (Best Coast, check; Warpaint, check) and a bunch of other well known names (Bright Eyes, PJ Harvey…the list goes on).

Apparently, a general rule of thumb for the festival’s line-up is that they tend to not book the same act twice (bar a few exceptions), so who else has graced the stages in this Colorado Desert setting, and what gems do we have hiding in the Coachella gigography from recent years?

2010

2010 saw Jay-Z, Muse and Gorillaz in the headline slots. It was also the first year single day tickets weren’t sold, and Eyjafjallajökull (aka the Icelandic volcano to blame for the giant ash cloud) caused some problems, preventing certain acts from flying over.

Florence and the Machine:

This video’s awesome:

2009

In 2009 the festival was held a week earlier than usual, and it was a mix of old a new(ish) for the top slots with Paul McCartney, The Killers and The Cure headlining.

Girl Talk’s performance from the first night, this looks so much fun:

Signed setlist from Los Campesinos!:

2008

Prince was announced fairly last minute as one of the headliners for this year, with Roger Waters and Jack Johnson headlining the other nights.

Vampire Weekend:

Prince doing a cover of Radiohead’s Creep:

2007

2007 was the first year the festival was extended to 3 day; Bjork, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and a reformed Rage Against The Machine headlined.

RAGTM setlist:

A snippet from LCD’s performance:

For more Coachella history head to www.songkick.com/festivals/876-coachella. And don’t forget, there’s a whole wealth of other festival goodness to explore on the site, check out some other long-running legendary events such as Glastonbury, Bumbershoot and Rock am Ring.

PS a big thanks to all the users who’ve spent time adding all this great content (particularly Blazin who’s added a ton of Coachella stuff!).

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