DIY in the desert: Who headlined the first Coachella?
American music festivals were in a truly terrible place come 1999.
The dust from the Woodstock reboot had just settled, and there was a genuine acceptance across the country that something like that would simply never happen again. The essence of counterculture had turned into widespread rioting, and so the utopian dream of a mass music line-up being celebrated in a vast natural expanse was gone, but on the other side of the pond, the concept was thriving, with legacy festivals like The Isle of Wight, Reading and Glastonbury all having endured a decade of iconic moments, spearheaded by Nirvana, Oasis and Pulp.
Glastonbury in particular was beginning to thrive and began setting the cultural trends for remaining festivals to follow, and disillusioned American festival fans, Paul Tollett and Rick Van Santen, began to notice this, thus hatching plans of their own. Tollett owned a promotion company named Goldenvoice that had recently staged a gig for Pearl Jam at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, and he swiftly noticed just how much scope there was for an outdoor event staged well.
He recruited Van Santen, and together they formed the genesis of Coachella. At this point, Tollett had noticed that the gig booking game was overly saturated and difficult to succeed in, explaining, “We were getting our ass kicked financially. We were losing a lot of bands. And we couldn’t compete with the money”.
Noticing what was happening in the UK, Coachella was born, as he thought that, “Maybe if you put a bunch of them together, that might be a magnet for a lot of people”. So, together he and Van Santen descended upon Glastonbury, where they began cold-pitching their event: “We had this pamphlet…showing sunny Coachella. Everyone was laughing”.
But they shouldn’t have. Tollett and Van Santen had curated a relatively exciting line-up that promised, just one week after the peril of Woodstock ‘99, to be the saviour of American festivals. Beck, Tool, and Rage Against the Machine served as headliners, while supporting acts included the Chemical Brothers, Morrissey, A Perfect Circle, Jurassic 5 and Underworld. It was an absolutely bulletproof line-up that saw the organisers focusing on artistry over commercial popularity and so quickly gained the title of ‘anti-Woodstock’ amongst music fans.
Who is headlining Coachella this year?
Like most festivals, Coachella’s reputation has evolved somewhat since those early days. The commerciality of the event has bled so far into it that it’s become somewhat unrecognisable as a music festival, and perhaps, more of a meeting point for influencers, with brand activations and commercial deals having changed the identity of the event altogether.
Many people fear that it has lost that vital artistic touch that sparked it in the first place, but regardless, it still sports a relatively strong line-up ranging across multiple genres, so while this year, Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber, and Karol G are all headlining, the xx, The Strokes, Young Thug, Addison Rae, Laufey, Iggy Pop, and Megan Thee Stallion will all serve as some of the supporting artists on the banner, ultimately proving its musical pedigree and diversity.
