Coachella 2006 And why Life is So Good.

Coachella was completely awesome. On Saturday I saw Head Automatica, The Walkmen, Wolfmother, Common, Imogen Heap, Sigur Ros, Franz Ferdinand, Atmosphere, and Depeche Mode. On Sunday I saw The Infadels, Murs, Mates of State, Jamie Lidell, Gnarls Barkley, Yeahs Yeah Yeahs, Massive Attack, and Tool. I also saw small chunks of many other bands' sets...some of which were great.

Highlights include:

Gnarls Barkley (Cee-Lo Green + Dangermouse) appearing to perform with a 15 piece band including strings. The band came on stage dressed as characters from the Wizard of Oz and struck up Breathe (the first musical cut from Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon) whereupon Cee-Lo and Dangermouse triumphantly entered dressed as the Cowardly Lion (see picture) and the Tin Man respectfully. What followed was 45 minutes of pure, unadulterated awesomeness.

Imogen Heap the singer/co-programmer of Frou Frou played a completely awesome set and called the soundguy a "lazy douche". And he was.

Atmosphere (w/Brother Ali) was really incredible...even better than last time. They were lined up next to the headliners (Depeche Mode), so it was a cozy little crowd. I got to go with a cute girl from Australia who worked at the festival (more on this to come) and had so much fun, I feel I could reasonably contest their assertion that you can't imagine how much fun we're having.

Murs performed a really awesome set in front of a pretty small crowd. Slug showed up for the last song and that just made it even better.

I got to sit in the sound booth for most of Tool and had a straight on view of the stage. I had been about 10 rows from the front in the push-and-shove for the first 4 songs or so. Then I deecided I would get out and watch from the back (I really am getting old). So I worked my way to the trough and was pulled out by security. I followed them toward the sound booth and asked where the exit was. They said there wasn't one and to sit down and watch the show. So I did. Tool was astoundingly good. I'd seen them once before in HIgh School, but this was way better. I sat down with Tool's soundguy and got to ask him questions about how he mic'd and mixed and stuff. I learned a lot.

All that... and I only had to pay around $300 for the whole trip and get a little sunburned. Good deal.

So on to why my life is so good now. I used to be rather good at social interactions with the opposite sex. It was easy for me to talk to girls, even ones I didn't know and ask girls out. Now many of you can attest I am arguably somwhat handicapped in that department, and most of you (Adam excepted perhaps if he even remembers me from Riviera days) have always known the retarded me. One lousy girl pretty much ruined me about 4 years ago. No joke. I fell harder than I've ever fallen for a girl who played me hard. The first of "the Melissas". Ever since that she-devil ripped my heart out of my chest I have been clumsily bumbling my way through the whole "girls" part of my life.

Not any more. I totally just snapped out of it. I was trying to sort out some ticketmaster issues with our camping tickets and was invited to sit down in the shade with the 3 people selling tickets while I waited on the bastard ticketmaster rep for an hour or two. There was an independantly wealthy ex-hippie who only worked at Coachella for fun (and belonged to the Amalgamated Order of Real-Bearded Santas http://www.aorbsantas.com/pages/1/index.htm ), a completely quiet "intern" from a nearby college and a super cute girl named Bre from Australia.

I just up and snapped out of it. Snapped out of my 3-4 year social impediment. Before I knew it I was the old me just talking to this girl. She was a big Atmosphere fan, and we really hit it off the first day, and went to Atmosphere together. Then we went dancing to Daft Punk afterwords and hit some shows together the next day. Then she came by my tent night before last and kissed me. And I kissed her back... a lot. It was awesome.

I want to clarify, I'm not in love with this girl. I'm not even anticipating ever seeing her again. I'm pretty confident IM will pretty much be our only future contact. It seemed understood between us that it was just this random thing. I'm typically not into "random things". I usually crush pretty horribly until it all dissolves around me. But I wonder if my only reason for this random thing was to pull me out of a slump. I told Yancy last night I felt like a could defeat a Yak in head-to-head combat. I really feel amazing. I'm moving out of Provo. I've got my old confident self back, and I'm really happy. So my life rules. I don't really understand it. I even forgot my happy pills this weekend. And yet here I am, more content with my life than I've been in years. Strange.