ANAHEIM, Calif. — Singer-songwriter Phoebe Bridgers made her debut at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2022 and yes, she was wonderful both in the music she made and the excitement she displayed.
Bridgers, who was 5 when the inaugural Coachella took place in 1999, grew up in Pasadena dreaming of the desert festival. As a teen, before she was old enough to get her driver’s license, she convinced her mother for several years to drive to Indio and drop her off at the festival gates.
“Picture it. It’s 2011 and I’m in a Two Door Cinema Club crop top,” Bridgers told the crowd last year after thanking her mom for all those rides. “My hair is pink. And I am at this festival.
“Actually, don’t picture it,” she added – too late! – as the crowd laughed at that image. “But I am from L.A. and being here means so much to me.”
As festival season approached this year, the memory of that sweet, genuine moment got us thinking about what it will be like for other Southern California acts making their Coachella debuts this year.
Surely it’s a dream come true for any artist who grew up in the palm tree shadows of one of the world’s most prestigious music festivals.
So before Coachella kicks off on April 14 for the first of two weekends, we tracked down five different groups or solo artists on the 2023 lineup and asked them about it.
This is what we heard.
The Linda Lindas
The four teen girls in the Linda Lindas range in age from 12-18. But just a year or two since they formed in Los Angeles, this terrifically fun punk rock band has already played festivals around the United States, Mexico, Japan, Germany and Spain.
Still, Coachella looms large as the Linda Lindas prepare to play – and attend – the desert fest.
“I think it’s going to be great – it’s going to be so fun,” says singer-guitarist Lucia de la Garza, 16. “It’ll be our first time going to Coachella to like see what it’s all about.
“We understand Coachella is a big deal, and so now we’re just gonna get a little more insight into like why?” she says.
“It’s one of those things that at least in school everybody would talk about who was going to Coachella that weekend,” says singer-guitarist Bela Salazar, 18, and the only band member to finish high school so far. “Growing up in California it’s like a big thing.”
Drummer Mila de la Garza, 12, says she and Lucia’s mom and dad went to Coachella one year to see Beyoncé. Salazar says she started dreaming of attending around fifth or sixth grade when her own taste in music started to emerge. Bassist-singer Eloise Wong, 15, the De La Cruz sisters’ cousin, says she’s already picking out which acts she hopes to see this year.
“This time it’s really exciting because there are bands like Scowl and Destroy Boys and Soul Glo,” Eloise says. “And Blondie is playing and the Breeders.”
Festival veterans, the Linda Lindas figure their Saturday set will fall early in the day, giving them plenty of time over the three-day weekends to watch other acts perform.
The band hasn’t played since early January, instead taking time off to write new material, Eloise says. Coachella might get the live debuts of several new songs, Lucia adds.
“To just like jump right into Coachella is gonna be like really exciting,” Lucia says. “It’ll be a little weird to be on stage again.”
The youngest three members of the band have to go back to school on days between Coachella weekends, but even coming home offers something awesome: On April 19, they’ll open for fellow Coachella performers Blondie at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.
Blondie, and especially singer Debbie Harry, have been idols of the Linda Lindas for years, the answer to the frequent interview question of “Who’d be your dream band to open for?” Lucia says.
“What do you do?” Eloise wonders. “If you’re like walking up to Debbie Harry, like, what happens then? What do you say?”
Gabriels
Singer Jacob Lusk of the Los Angeles band Gabriels laughs as he says he still doesn’t quite believe that he’s playing Coachella this year.
“I’m still like maybe it’s not really happening,” the 35-year-old Compton native says. “But if you’re interviewing me, I guess that means it has to really happening.”
Gabriels is printed on the Coachella poster, we observe.
“I am on the poster,” Lusk says, laughing. “I know. But they might have me like performing at the gate. I might be a parking lot singer.”
No chance of that. The modern soul-R&B fusion of Gabriels, which includes Ryan Hope and Ari Balouzian, is poised to play many more prominent stages.
No less than Elton John greeted their 2021 debut EP “Love and Hate In a Different” as one of the best records he’d heard in a decade. In February, Gabriels was nominated for best international group at the 2023 Brit Awards along with 2023 Coachella headliner Blackpink, the hip-hop duo of Drake & 21 Savage, Swedish indie duo First Aid Kit, and the Irish band Fontaines D.C., which won the award.
As a teen growing up in Compton, Lusk sang gospel in church, and later R&B as a constant on “American Idol” where he finished fifth in 2011. Now 35, Lusk never thought of Coachella as a stage on which he might perform.
“In my wildest dreams I would have been like a male Adele or something like that,” Lusk says. “So I just never would have imagined me singing at Coachella, or anyone wanting to hear it there to be honest.
“Then in the last few years like we’ve seen more artists like Beyoncé there,” he says.
In 2016, the year Gabriels first formed, soul and R&B performers such as SZA and Mavis Staples played Coachella, we tell him.
“We can slide in,” Lusk says. “We’re somewhere between SZA and Mavis Staples. OK.”
Hope, for whom playing England’s Glastonbury last year was his version of the Coachella dream, is British. Los Angeles native Balouzian is Armenian American.
“I grew up a whole ‘nother way,” says Lusk, who adds he sometimes describes his musical style as “If Nina Simone did pop music.”
“It’s really everyone’s music for everybody,” he says of Gabriels. “We want to create classy, timeless music that everyone can love and understand and relate to.”
Momma
Last year, as the Los Angeles-based indie rock trio Momma was headlining a show on the road, the band members received at least a dozen missed calls on their phones. Of course, they couldn’t pick up while simultaneously shredding away.
As they got off stage and saw all of the notifications, they called home to check in. It was their manager hitting redial in a panic to let them know that they’d landed a spot on the 2023 Coachella lineup, a festival they all loved growing up.
“We were like ‘Dude, we’re legit playing on stage right now,’ but our team kept telling us it’s really important,” Allegra Weingarten, vocalist and guitarist of the group says. “(When) he told us we got Coachella, we couldn’t believe it. It’s still pretty surreal.”
Comprised of Weingarten, Etta Friedman and Aron Kobayashi Ritch, in one way or another each member has attended Coachella as a fan.
Weingarten and Friedman had their first Coachella experience in 2011, seeing acts like Kings of Leon, Arcade Fire and the Chemical Brothers. They’ve attended three different festival years, making 2023 their fourth Coachella, but their first as performing artists.
Friedman notes that their friends always hype them up, expressing to the group that this might just be the biggest performance they’ve played to date. But for Momma, it doesn’t feel that way.
“Truthfully, I don’t think it will be a crazy, big show for us when you have everyone else on the bill,” Friedman says. “It just feels like the beginning of forever regarding where we’re going.”
Paris Texas
Not everyone will admit to or is successful at sneaking into a music festival like Coachella, but for the Los Angeles-based alternative rap duo Paris Texas, it’s a tale they don’t mind sharing. Producer Louis Pastel said that he sneaked his way into the festival back in 2013.
“This will technically be my first proper Coachella, even though I snuck in before and I can’t remember much,” he says while chuckling. “I just wanted to go see a few artists and leave.”
Now, for the South Central-bred Pastel and rap frontman Felix, performing alongside artists on the lineup this year like Frank Ocean, Kaytranada and Gorillaz is “a pretty big deal.”
Pastel says that even though it’s just days away, they don’t necessarily have a game plan. What they do know is that it’ll be a show unlike any other they’ve done in the past.
“This year, we plan to drop so much new music, and the Coachella audience is going to get a taste of that,” Felix says. “We want to make sure visually, we give them something cool, too. We don’t have a live band, so we want to just bring good energy and a mix of old and new stuff that people can enjoy, even if they’ve never heard or seen us before.”
The duo dropped its full-length debut, “Boy Anonymous,” in May 2021. The lead single, “Force of Habit,” became a viral hit. Though the pair have only created music together for a short period of time, Paris Texas is ready to take on Coachella and the world.
“We still can’t believe we could play this year, and it feels like we can only go up,” Felix says. “You know we’ve grown up in Los Angeles and this always seemed like a distant dream, so it’s cool to have it now.”
DannyLux
For DannyLux, the Gen Z Chicano rocker making modern corrido ballads, the Coachella festival is essentially in the backyard of his childhood home. Though DannyLux grew up in Palm Springs and recalls seeing festival goers crowd the area each year, he never got to attend himself.
This year, that’s all changing as he’ll finally make his debut at Coachella as a performer and as a fan. The 19-year-old Mexican American artist said that this forthcoming festival set feels full circle in many ways.
“It’s a blessing, to be honest. I just feel extremely lucky,” DannyLux says. “To be playing in my hometown and at Coachella just feels crazy. This performance, I’m making sure just to give it my all, but I am pretty nervous since I haven’t chosen the outfits I will be wearing or the setlist, so there’s still a lot to figure out.”
More so than in recent years, the Coachella 2023 lineup is stacked with Latin artists including Friday headliner Bad Bunny and sets throughout the weekend by acts like Becky G, Rosalía, Fabulosos Cadillacs, Conexión Divina, Kali Uchis and Eladio Carrión. Danny notes that playing alongside his Latin counterparts both Friday’s of the festival is exciting and nerve-wracking.
DannyLux is part of a new generation of rising Latin stars coming out of the Mexican indie music scene. He headlined Viva! Pomona and embarked on a mini tour with Los Angeles Chicano act Cuco last year. His 2023 is shaping up to be even bigger, he says.
“I never imagined myself playing in the big leagues, and this year, it’s just all happening so fast,” he says. “For this Coachella performance, I just want fans and anyone who happens to catch us to vibe out. It’ll be the most interactive performance. I mean we have to, it’s our hometown.”
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COACHELLA VALLEY MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL
When: noon April 14-16 and April 21-23
Where: Empire Polo Club, 81-800 Avenue 51, Indio
Tickets: Weekend one passes are sold-out, but available through secondary sellers; Weekend two passes are $549 for three-day general admission; $1,069 for three-day VIP admission. All admission, parking and on-site camping options are available at coachella.com.
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