There is some good news and some bad news about the lineup announced yesterday for Coachella, the music festival for cool people put on every spring in Indio, California. First, the good news: At The Drive-In, the beloved indie punks who broke up in the mid-aughts, spawning Mars Volta (and, we guess we should mention, Sparta) will reunite for the fest. ATDI are the type of band — and thrashed out the type of high-intensity shows — that some writers seem only able to describe as “legendary,” and while we wouldn’t put the band up there with the likes of Paul Bunyan and Jesse James, we will say that their live show should rate among 2012’s best — even with all legend-spotters sure to be sloshing beer on you wherever the band might wind up playing beyond the California desert.
Which brings us, indirectly, to the bad news, which is that Coachella’s organizers have chosen a trio of headliners who — while sure to please the beer-sloshers, the types whose music discovery peaked in other people’s dorm rooms — will disappoint anyone in search of even the mildest spark of the new.
The Black Keys, playing the first night of the festival, have, with the support of the Grammy committee, buyers of ad music, and Rolling Stone, dragged rock and roll ultraconservatism back onto the charts. If it weren’t for the White Stripes, you wouldn’t even be able to locate them in this century. (Sure, Danger Mouse produced them. So what?) Meanwhile, Radiohead — a band that’s been repeating the same rock-collage experiment since 2000, in a secret handshake for anyone who wishes they were still in college — will close out day two. Coachella will finally climax with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg sharing the main stage. Dr. Dre, his talents as a producer and the let’s say legendary status of “The Chronic” noted, is not a good rapper, and rapping is what he will be called upon to do in April. Snoop, meanwhile, is a distinctive rapper who has maintained a productive career. He is also the patron pimp-saint of beer-sloshers, the ultimate projection of smirking rap-trope appropriation. Which isn’t to say that you can’t just enjoy the many good bands leading up to each day’s milquetoast headliners. You’ll just wanna watch out for what might get spilled on you.