Three Days, Five Stages, 60,000 People, 100+ V-DOSC boxes and 19 PM5Ds
In its ninth year, the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival — located in Southern California’s desert town of Indio, 125 miles east of Los Angeles — the king of the American alternative rock festivals took place April 25-27 with attendance reaching 60,000 on each of the three-day mega concerts.
All-Star Lineup
With two stages and three live tents, concertgoers were treated to an all-star lineup consisting of second night headliner Prince performing at the Empire Polo Field, Roger Waters, Jack Johnson, Portishead, Kraftwerk, the Verve, the Raconteurs, Death Cab for Cutie, Love and Rockets, My Morning Jacket, Aphex Twin, the Breeders, Justice, Café Tacvba, Fatboy Slim, Spiritualized, Tegan and Sara, Goldfrapp, Serj Tankian, the Swell Season, Sasha & John, Digweed, Gogol Bordello, Rilo Kiley, Chromeo, Dwight Yoakam, M.I.A., the National, Metric, Hot Chip, Cold War Kids, Animal Collective, Kate Nash, Múm, Slighty Stoopid, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, Above & Beyond, Danny Tenaglia, Pendulum, DeVotchKa, Booka Shade, Simian Mobile Disco, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Murs, Stars, Flogging Molly, Mark Ronson, Redd Kross, Dimitri from Paris, Battles, Autolux, Aesop Rock, the Field, Les Savy Fav, Scars on Broadway, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Midnight Juggernauts, Islands, the Cool Kids, Does it Offend You, Yeah?, Enter Shikari, Sons & Daughters, Minus the Bear, Sia, Calvin Harris, Spank Rock, dan le sac Vs Scroobius Pip, Boys Noize, Diplo, Junkie XL, Black Mountain, Adam Freeland, Annuals, Cinematic Orchestra, Santogold, Jens Lekman, Kid Sister with A-Trak, the Teenagers, John Butler Trio, Duffy, I'm From Barcelona, Vampire Weekend, VHS or Beta, Deadmau5, Carbon/Silicon, Manchester Orchestra, Dan Deacon, Erol Alkan, Architecture in Helsinki, Man Man, Sandra Collins, Yo! Majesty, AUSTIN TV, Busy P, Little Brother, Cut Copy, Shout Out Louds, Bonde Do Role, Plastiscines, Black Lips, St. Vincent, Brett Dennen, Datarock, Akron/Family, MGMT, Professor Murder, Surkin, Para One, Orgasmic Curses, James Zabiela, the Bees, SebastiAn, Kavinsky, Porter, Rogue Wave, Dredg, the Bird and the Bee, Yoav, Modeselektor, Grand Ole Party, 120 Days, American Bang, Luckyiam, Electric Touch, Yelle, Uffie featuring DJ Mehdi, Lucent Dossier, Do LaB.
All-Star Crew and Gear
The decision to use PM5Ds (19 on one gig — a record!) was made due to the multiple acts performing over five venues, the small footprint of the console and its onboard effects. Rat Sound Systems Inc. provided sound reinforcement for the Coachella Festival this year with the company’s Head of Touring Jon Monson in charge of all aspects of audio production. “We decided to use Yamaha digital consoles across the board so that engineers could send in their files ahead of time and have their show come up easily," says Monson. Ronnie Kimball, front of house engineer for the Sahara Dance Tent, says he ‘likes consistency and the PM5D gives me that. It's also convenient and saves me a lot of time.’
Lee Vaught and Roz Jones served as front of house engineers at the Main Stage with George Squiers and Shaun Sebastian at monitors. Squiers is also monitor engineer for R.E.M. “The Yamaha 5D was a great festival console for the Coachella main stage,” he says. It’s not complicated, which means it’s easy for engineers to walk up and use. Storing sound checks scene-by-scene delivers awesome recallability for changeovers. The idea of e-mailing a file ahead of time is great for bands already set up to use the 5D. A simple soft patch lines things up nicely for a festival patch. Being that all the dynamics are on board and you have access to them on every channel there is no need for racks and racks of processing, which eliminates hard patching, saving time and helps avoid crosspatches that could cost precious minutes during a changeover. The same is true of the great sounding onboard effects to choose from, internally eliminating the need for outboard racks. The nice, compact size of the 5D saves on real estate offering more room at the mix positions for bands’ carrying their own production.”
Jamie Harris was FOH engineer for the Outdoor Stage and Dustin Delkar handled monitor duties. Jim Jorgenson handled front of house at the Mojave tent and Steve Walsh, monitors. The Sahara Dance tent was manned by Ronnie Kimball and Mike ‘Milk’ Arnold at front of house and Chris ‘GGG’ Rymarz at monitors. The Gobi tent was manned by Chris “Hoover” Rankin at FOH and Jared Woods at monitors.
Rat Sound used L-ACOUSTICS V-DOSC, dV-DOSC for three of the five biggest stages, with L-ACOUSTICS Kudo in the Mohave and Rat Trap 5 in the Gobi tent. Rat Sound also provided an eight-tower surround sound system for Roger Waters consisting of 48 L-ACOUSTICS V-DOSC and 12 dV-DOSC for the Sunday evening headliner. The EAW MicroWedge 12 made its debut at the festival. “It’s little, it’s light, and it’s loud. It sounds awesome!,” commented Tony Luna, who was taking time out of his monitor engineer gig for KISS and Trans Siberian Orchestra to be Rat crew chief for the Outdoor Stage. “By the feedback we received from the different bands and engineers, it definitely was used with great success.” The microphone arsenal consisted of Shure, Sennheiser, Neumann, AKG, Audio-Technica, Audix and Beyer. Crown and L-ACOUSTICS amps were used throughout.
Dirty Hands Caravan
On the morning after the final day of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, a caravan of bio-diesel buses transporting up to 300 people drove 1,800 miles in an effort designed to engage a new generation of activists. The Dirty Hands Caravan, as it is known, is the coming together of individuals who get involved by building houses for the homeless, protesting the war in Iraq while supporting the needs of veterans and their families, caring for the sick or needy, cleaning up parks or neighborhoods across America, taking part in clean water initiatives for foreign lands and engaging in whatever way they feel compelled to help others. The caravan, which is the brainchild of actor Sean Penn, made stops in numerous cities when it arrived at its final destination, New Orleans. The spirit of Coachella joined in on the close of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival to help better the Big Easy through their good works.
For a complete gear list from Coachella visit www.fohonline.com/Coachella
