Tickets for this year’s Coachella went on sale Wednesday and, to nobody’s surprise, sold out in record time.
It took just two hours and 37 minutes for the festival to sell approximately 160,000 tickets for both mid-April weekends. Those seeking an explanation need look no further than the three headliners anchoring each day of the event.
Coachella is perfectly capitalizing on the newly released albums of Muse and Arcade Fire. Muse just released its latest album, “Live at Rome Olympic Stadium,” on Dec. 2. Featured on the album alongside the band is a raucous Roman crowd of more than 60,000 people who simply do not stop screaming. I wonder if they even heard any of the music that was playing, but one thing’s for sure, they were having a damn good time. Arcade Fire last headlined Coachella in 2011 after its last album, “The Suburbs,” won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. With its newest collection, “Reflektor,” drawing rave reviews, it’s no wonder fans are jumping at the chance to see the band perform in a festival setting.
And then there is the small fact of what might be the most anticipated Coachella act of all time — the OutKast reunion. The group has not released any studio work since “Idlewild” in 2006, and the prospect of seeing Big Boi reunite with Andre 3000 has me binging their music on Spotify, checking tour dates and looking for Polaroid pictures to shake. Honestly, Coachella’s lineup poster could just have “OutKast” in size 48 Comic Sans font in the middle with the names of other acts placed in the shape of arrows facing inwards. That’s how big of a deal it is.
The rest of the lineup is also littered with musicians who could easily be headliners for any other festival. Opening for OutKast on Friday is Grouplove, Bastille, The Cult, Ellie Goulding, Girl Talk (the best live performance I have ever been to) and Zedd, among others. Saturday features Kid Cudi, Nas, Empire of the Sun, MGMT, Foster the People, Lorde, Skrillex, Pharrell Williams, Queens of the Stone Age and headliner Muse. Chance the Rapper, Big Gigantic, Duck Sauce, Motorhead, Calvin Harris, Beck and many others help Arcade Fire close the weekend on a strong note.
Top to bottom, this might be the most stacked lineup I have ever seen. Although, Northwestern’s schedule makes it extremely difficult to actually attend the event (I applaud any who are doing so anyway), I will definitely be glued to my computer for the festival’s live stream.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @davidylee95
