Coachella 2006

Best male artist
Common because he stages a 4 elements classic hip-hop show (breakdancing included, his own ass on the stage, thus I forgive him for once again serenading the random hottie from the audience) and is just too gorgeous to be true. Kudos to his styilist: rumor has it he used to wear crochet pants.



Cee Lo (1/2 of Gnarls Barkley) because he could move a crowd of zombies and has one of the best voices under pressure. Pure soul voice. This is the difference between a real artist and a spoiled instant-fame golden kid who can't sing and dance at the same time.


Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan and I don't need to explain why.


Best female artist
Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O. Best frontwoman, frontman, everything! Dramatic, intense, crazy, flamboyant. The body arched backwards, mic's head in her mouth, screaming with all the air in her lungs. A fake teardrop on her cheek, punk mime in torn fishnets.


Worst female artist
Lady Sovereign. Goes onstage drunk and stoned, is bored and tired and hot, we feel the same after 5 minutes. No energy, no connection, too bad for an artist known to be a mean-ass tireless rap tornado.

Best act overall, for artistic and strictly personal reasons
DEPECHE MODE. Oh my God Dave Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahann.

Best goosebumps
1-Sun setting while Sigur Ros's Hoppipolla's piano intro fills the air from the Jupiter-sized speakers of the main stage.
2-Cocteau Twins's Liz Frazer on Massive Attack's Teardrop. Unfinished sympathy when I had just finished saying "How I wish they played Unfinished sympathy".
3-Depeche Mode's Home and Enjoy the silence. Time stops when thousands of voices sing in unison "All I ever wanted all I ever needed is here in my arms"
4-Daft Punk's "One more time" under the midnight's moon, people dancing like it was some sort of pagan ritual... "Music got me feeling so free" ...
5-Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Maps". I swear you could hear everybody's heart long for that great love that never was.

Best space-act
Daft Punk, atop a silver pyramid, in robot costumes, with a psychedelic blur of light effects. Danger Mouse (other 1/2 of Gnarls Barkley) as Wiz of Oz's Tin Man.


Best (personal) discovery
Platinum Piped Pipers.


Best impromptu
Interviewing Bloc Party's Kele, in my bathing suit (to my defence: we had just arrived, after a 15 minutes's walk in 100+ degrees).


Best ink and needle tattoos
Moses parting the waters of the Red Sea. An inked spine, following the outline of an actual spine.


Best magic marker tattoo
Random girl, front, back on bare skin, as follows: "I need a miracle" - "That means an extra ticket"

Best button
"Dior not war"

Best audience in the world (according to Karen O)
Coachella's (To be honest, Coachellians are natural born rock-techno cognoscenti. They make, on the other hand, a barely lukewarm hip-hop audience, but that's cool - what counts is loving music, and speaking up for what you like).



Quite a trip, to the desert and back.