LOS ANGELES — The sofas scattered around the backstage artists' compound at Coachella were still wrapped in plastic when the Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia gathered earlier this week to rehearse for the joint headlining performance that will close the first half of the annual desert mega-festival on Sunday night.
"Just like grandma's house," said Mike Dean, the veteran hip-hop producer, as he munched from a mini-bag of Doritos. Dean, who's playing guitars and keyboards in the show, was talking gear with Steve Angello and Axwell of Swedish House Mafia, the Stockholm-based dance-music trio; the Weeknd, who paused production on an upcoming HBO series to perform at Coachella after Kanye West abruptly pulled out, was chatting about TV with a member of his team. (He hasn't had time to watch much lately, though he recently caught the 2018 docuseries "Wild Wild Country.")
A stagehand popped in to usher the crew onto Coachella's enormous main stage, where a scrubbing disco groove boomed across the sprawling polo field — empty for now but soon to be filled with tens of thousands of music fans elated to be back in the desert for the first time since 2019. Angello pointed up: "We have nine lasers up there," he said, "and we have nine lasers up there." Somebody handed the Weeknd a microphone, and suddenly his high, pleading voice was floating out into the dusk.
