Oh, and here's my Coachella experience in a brief nutshell:

SATURDAY: THE DAY OF THE HEADLINER
TEMPERATURE: 100+ DEGREES
$$$$ SPENT ON WATER JUST TO STAY ALIVE: $10

12:30 - Dios. Very cute.
1:00 - Erase Errata. A little annoying art-punk chick band.
2:45 - The Stills. They were better than when I'd seen them open for Interpol, and seemed much younger than I remembered them.
3:55 - Trail of the Dead. One of the biggest disappointments of the weekend, they only played one song from Source Tags and Codes (Another Morning Stoner); otherwise they basically seemed to be testing out new material they'd barely practiced. Also had two drummers for some strange reason.
4:35 - Sad attempt at seeing Beck. He was a last minute replacement, so for some reason the man who headlined the first Coachella was in a tent in the afternoon doing an acoustic set. We couldn't get even remotely close to the tent, and since it was acoustic we couldn't hear crap from outside the tent. Instead we went to watch Death Cab for the second time in two weeks.
6:00 - Sparta. We only went to see Sparta because they were before the Pixies. Apparently we weren't the only ones with that idea, because there was no way all those people were there to see Sparta. They were ok, but unfortunately began the long weekend of annoying Bush bashing. Now I'm a big Bush hater myself, but I don't go to shows to see musicians spout politics, I go to hear them play music, and rarely have I seen a musician talk about it who sounded like they had any clue outside of "Fuck Bush."
7:20 - PIXIES. HOLY FUCKING SHIT did this rock. All 50,000 festival-goers were clearly at this stage at this time for this show and good lord was it awesome, even though I was smushed somewhere off to the side. They played everything, Here Comes Your Man, Velouria, Debaser, Monkey Gone to Heaven, Where Is My Mind, etc, the band was really excited to be there and Kim Deal totally rocks my world.
8:20 - 20 minutes of the Rapture before Radiohead, spent sitting on the ground instead of dancing because I thought I was going to die of exhaustion at this point.
9:00 - Radiohead. Nothing different from what I've seen the last two times, though good as always. Until the encore when they played . . . OMG they played CREEP. I never in a million years thought I'd ever hear that song live, and Thom Yorke busts it out and sends me into tears. He prefaced it with "I don't know if I even remember this one" and it was charmingly rusty and so totally amazing. This plus the Pixies made this night totally unforgettable.
11:00 - Oh my gosh the night isn't over yet because it's time to see: KRAFTWERK. They just put out their first album in 17 years recently and what a creepshow. Both Kim Deal and Ben Gibbard said they'd be there. They were in a tent on a stage with a screen behind it, four guys in suits with creepy masks on standing eerily behind laptops while strange images ran across the screen and robot voices sang in German about radioactivity. Then a curtain closed around them and reopened to reveal . . . ROBOTS behind the computers, moving around while a song about robots was played. Totally freaky and totally awesome.

Then I went home and passed out to do it all over again on:

SUNDAY: THE DAY OF THE GROUND STAGES
TEMPERATURE: HIGHER THAN SATURDAY
$$$ SPENT SO FAR IN GENERAL: UNGODLY AMOUNTS

1:30 - Got there late and only saw three songs of Pretty Girls Make Graves, which saddened me deeply. I'm clearly not destined to see this band as every time they come around something doesn't work out for me.
2:05 - !!! ("Chik Chik Chik" or "Pow Pow Pow" or "Uh Uh Uh"), who totally dance-punked my ass off. These guys need to tour with the Rapture for the ultimate indie dance party. The singer was one of the funniest people ever and made an amusing attempt at talking about world issues, then went back to dancing like a maniac with the band. If he had red hair he'd be Carrot Top.
3:20 - BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE, and the absolute most amazing performance of the day and one of the most amazing performances I've ever seen. With their 11 members their sound was just so big and beautiful that you got totally lost in it. They played all the best songs off of You Forgot It in People and best of all, Emily Haines of Metric was there to sing "Anthems for a 17-Year Old Girl" and "Almost Crimes," both of which sent absolute chills through my body. Then just when I thought I couldn't get any more emotional, the cute guitarist proposed to his girlfriend on stage before closing with KC Accidental. Everyone in this band clearly loves music and loves playing it and it totally showed in their performance. Good lord.
4:30 - Took a break to sit down and heard Atmosphere in the distance, doing his Minneapolis rap thing and of course, talking about politics at the beginning. Will it never end?
5:45 - No it won't, because Cursive is there headlining the Plea for Peace tour, which is *supposed* to be promoting registering to vote in a totally non-partisan way. Except Tim Kasher keeps telling everyone to register, then vote for Kerry. Hmmmmmmm . . ..
6:35 - Heard the end of Belle and Sebastian doing their incredibly twee thing, though they ended with this song I love but have no idea what the name of it is, though I found out it's on Boy with the Arab Strap. If you know the name of that song, let me know.
7:35 - Air. What better way to watch the sun set than while listening to the atmospheric sounds of Air. They played mostly from Moon Safari and Talkie Walkie. The best part was when one of them used the robot-voice microphone to say "I am a French Robot. The night has come. It is time to dance." Gosh that's great. It was awesome to hear their music in a more rockin' setting with some live instrumentation.
8:55 - The Flaming Lips. Good lord. Wayne Coyne delayed the show about 10 minutes to set up a giant bubble. He later got in the bubble so he could crowd surf in it. Then the animal costumed people came out to dance around with lights as usual. Finally they played a song. Then Fight Test. Then Wayne went off on Bush for seemingly forever. Then Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. Then we sang happy birthday to Beck's future baby. Then it was over. 3 songs!!!!!! He could easily have cut out the Bush diatribe and the strange bubble thing to actually play some music. I didn't mind because it was funny as hell, but if I were a bigger Flaming Lips fan I would have been livid.
10:20 - The Cure, who also started about 25 minutes late. I had high hopes for the Cure- after all these years, never thought I'd actually get to hear "Just Like Heaven," which always makes me go crazy. Robert Smith finally came out looking like he was electrocuted. They played all the hits off Galore and Staring at the Sea. Unfortunately and extremely disappointingly, they played them so uninspiringly and with such lackluster that even "Just Like Heaven" made me want to just sit down. People started leaving by the droves.

So that's my weekend, if you made it this far you are a trooper! I gotta go to this thing every year. It was one of the most exhausting yet wonderful experiences I've had in a while, and there were dozens of bands I wasn't even able to see! I need a time machine, like Hermione, so I can go back in time and see the bands that play at the same time.

I'll have pictures up sometime when I get the chance.