Tony Barson/WireImage
It will be a rare event to see Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre perform live together at the Coachella Music Festival.
The real news about this year’s Coachella Music Festival, announced Tuesday, can’t be found in the headliners.
Well, at least not in 2-out-of-3 of them.
It’s cliche for this onetime king of the alterna-rock be-ins to feature Radiohead and the Black Keys toplining four of its six shows. Haven’t they shown up a score of times before? It’s far more exciting that Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg will serve as headliners on the two Sunday dates (April 15 and 22) in this Indio, Calif., desert event.
It’s been over a decade since Dre last released an album: 1999’s “2001.†While he promises that â€" no kidding this time - he’ll finally put out the endlessly delayed followup, “Detox,†this year; meantime, it’s superrare to see him live, especially appearing with his old partner-in-rhyme, Snoop Dogg.
Still, Dre’s connection to Snoop owes more to the studio than to the stage. Meaning their performance may well have more symbolic power than physical punch.
Far more likely to deliver live are two huge Coachella reunions this year: At the Drive-In and Pulp.
At the Drive In - set to appear on the April 15 and 22 shows - were one of the most fierce and adventurous bands of the ’90s. They fractured over a decade ago into two other bands: Sparta, and the far more successful, the Mars Volta. The latter has been led by former Drive-In singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala and guitarist Omar RodrÃguez-López, two of the wildest live performers of the modern era.
Founded in El Paso, Tex., in the early ’90s, At the Drive-In fully updated art-rock for the age of alterna-rock. When most every other band conformed to a grunge-like style, At the Drive-In went for something more abstract and ambitious. Guitarist Rodriquez-Lopez combined the psychedelic wildness of a Carlos Santana with the intellectual cool of a Robert Fripp. While that connection has continued to make the Mars Volta one of the last decade’s best bands, there’s an extra punch and focus to At the Drive-In. It’s something longtime fans can’t wait to see in its full live form again.
Pulp specialized in something more verbally driven and refined. The British band, led by Jarvis Cocker, served in the great U.K. tradition of literate rock bands, from the Kinks to the Pet Shop Boys to the Smiths. Their albums during the Brit-pop era of the ’90s ranked as some of the wittiest and most purely British rock discs of their day.
Leader Cocker has gone on to make cool solo albums of his own. But there’s nothing like seeing him back with his decadent old bandmates.
Other exciting artists set to rock Coachella this year include the neo-’90s Yuck, the engagingly moping New York band We Are Augustines, the flinty St. Vincent, British neo-folk star Laura Marling, and the wittiest up-and-coming rapper/actor of now, Childish Gambino.
It’s almost enough to make a diehard New Yorker wish he lived on the Left Coast.
email: jfarber@nydailynews.com
No comments:
Post a Comment