Coachella

Editor’s note: Fidel is out this week, so columnist Suzy Exposito is filling in. Suzy, take it away!Does Bad Bunny ever tire of making history? The global pop phenom and Puerto Rico’s leading Master of Ceremonies will claim the main stage for himself Friday night as the first Latin music act ever to headline the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.(The first Latino ever to headline, however? That title belongs to Zack de la Rocha from Rage Against the Machine, which headlined the inaugural fest in 1999.)This is not…

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Thursday, April 13. I’m Vanessa Franko, an assistant editor on the audience engagement team, and I’m making sure I am stocked up with sunscreen for the next few weeks. Even though festival season is practically year-round in Southern California, April is when things kick into high gear. Two major events are happening over the next two weekends: the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. When I first…

Music fans will return to the desert this weekend for the 22nd edition of Coachella, with Bad Bunny, Blackpink and Frank Ocean set to headline.It’s a return to normal pacing for North America’s largest music festival, which resumed last April after two years away and several false starts owing to the pandemic. While last year was marked by concern over organizers’ removal of mask and vaccination restrictions two months before the festival, the pandemic has receded farther into the background for this year’s rendition,…

Fortnite’s push into music continues with its second collaboration with Coachella, and it’s a bit more involved than last year.The music festival will be featured inside of the game in a few different ways. Perhaps most notable is the “Coachella Island” that players can explore, built using the game’s Creative mode, and which features music from Porter Robinson, some mini-games to play, and a virtual merch tent. (The island will be available to check out starting on April 14th at 3PM ET.)Meanwhile, 18 different songs from…

It looks like The Weeknd is planning a surprise appearance at this year’s Coachella.On Wednesday, the Canadian pop star retweeted a post from fan account @abelstargirllll claiming he will return to the Indio, California festival. Coachella 2023, headlined by Frank Ocean, Blackpink, and Bad Bunny, is set to take place on the weekends of April 14-16 and April 21-23.Abel may have been hinting toward this on Monday, tweeting a desert emoji with a question mark, followed by a post asking, “Where will you find me?”Another…

The 2023 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is only a few days away.And you may be among the hundreds of thousands of people who will converge on the desert city of Indio, packing into the Empire Polo Club for America’s largest and most renowned musical festival. And whether you bought your festival pass months in advance, or just this week, the whole thing can feel overwhelming. You may have been firing off your burning questions into your friend group chat, only to be met with more questions, or worse,…

Whenever Michael Milano first parts the gates at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, the 30-year-old from San Francisco heads straight to the Sahara Tent.“One of the most exciting things going in is seeing all the new stuff in there,” Milano said. The musician grew up in L.A. and has been to every Coachella since 2007. He once played an opening DJ gig on a tiny side stage back in 2011. For him, nothing quite compares to the LED temple where Coachella’s biggest DJ-driven acts, from EDM to hip-hop and K-pop,…

While Coachella 2023 headliners Bad Bunny, Blackpink and Frank Ocean will attract the largest crowds and the most IG posts, as ever, it’s the you-saw-them-when acts that will provide future bragging rights to fans in the know. Among the scores of artists we can’t wait to catch in the desert, here are a dozen up-and-comers we wouldn’t dare miss.APRIL 14 AND 21AngèleWhat Dua Lipa was to the early days of stay-at-home, Angèle might be to whatever kinda-sorta-back-out phase we’re in now. The Belgian disco chanteuse…

Coachella kicks off next week, and if you want to watch it at home, you can pick from one of six streams at once on YouTube throughout both weekends, YouTube announced on Monday. That’s double the three simultaneous live streams you could catch last year.This year’s Coachella lineup is pretty good, so I bet there will be a lot of good shows to watch on YouTube throughout the weekend. I’m personally interested in performances from Gorillaz, Wet Leg, Boygenius, Björk, and the ever-elusive Frank Ocean, and I’ll be doing my…

You no longer have to fret about missing an act during YouTube's live Coachella streams. The company has confirmed that, for the first time, it will stream all six stages during both weekends of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which kicks off April 14th, 2023 at 7PM Eastern and resumes April 21st at the same time. Previously, you had to make do with three streams. Replays will be available until the next day kicks off. To no one's surprise, YouTube is using Coachella to pitch its services. Premium…