Thought I’d drop this story since Coachella stole my heart again this year I will try to keep it simple -I was a few years out of high school and had always been a die hard daft punk fan. Knowing they were playing this new festival 6 hours from my house I knew I had to go —the issue was it was literally 4 days before the festival and I had no tickets. I got on eBay and outbid everyone that same day only to realize I bid for Sunday tickets and not Saturday! At this point one could purchase either two days or you could buy 1 day tickets — needless to say there was no camping there was no lake el dorado-Just a festival, just a ticket. I reached out to another seller who said he would be at the festival and would be able to sell a ticket at the gates for my friend who I was able to take with me. Together we ventured off with enough green to sneak in for the whole day and zero expectations - and now to this day it’s something we still talk and bond over
As far as the grounds go I def remember the entrance being on the left side of the Ferris wheel bc we got there early and heard Madonna rehearsing (that’s a whole other story) in what they called the dance tent which is now the Sahara tent —security held everyone in a long line until she finished to even let anyone in the gates. Headliners that Sunday night were TOOL And right before massive attack on the main stage —we started the day with plenty of vodka and red bulls lotta smoking and walking around able to enjoy different acts like matisyahu,digable planets, scissor sisters—we were young then and compared to my age now I’m not sure how I was able to drink so many vodka red bulls As the day proceeded it didn’t seem as packed as it was this year( I know the size of the grounds are now bigger), but in all honesty the elephant in the room most people were talking about was Madonna in the dance tent-the tent was also smaller and the direction it faces wasn’t sideways it was positioned vertically with the stage at the top- Paul oakenfold was in the tent before Madonna went on and that’s where we found our drunk selves dancing. It was during his set noticed more and more people crowding us towards the front of the stage By the time he finished his set we were literally at the front of the Sahara tent stage —-and now this is where things got different compared to the years I’ve seen online and this year.

Almost immediately within minutes all Monitors in the tent changed to a huge disco ball and that’s when the surge of the crowd started to push us but there was nowhere to go. After about 20-30 mins we started noticing that there wasn’t any other music playing on the other stages and when we looked over far in the distance, I’m not sure which stage it was, you could see the huge disco ball on that screen too- we would later find out that during her set she shut down Coachella to play her set on all stages on all screens so the whole polo field was only her during her set—then for what seemed like eternity a clicking noise like a time clock was going off and hordes of actual police officers showed up and stood on the speakers overlooking the crowd on both sides of the tent. I remember smoking a joint right before and a cop giving me a thumbs up. Watching me Lmao

I had never been in a crowd of 60,000 people and especially didn’t expect to be near the front end— when that music started and the crowd roared it literally shook the ground. With zero expectations I can now attest to why madonna is legend - she danced her as off, cussed at us, told someone to stop throwing water on her fucking stage! And then proceed to climb the scaffolding and dance w her finger in her pants and then take her pants off —then like 25 minutes and like 5 songs into her set-it was over. It was weird but it felt like she had just got started but it really left everyone wanting more — to this day thats the best crowd I’ve ever been in We dispersed toward massive attack and found ourselves realizing the main stage was to far and ended up taking a nap next to some beer garden

We awoke to tool playing, but there seemed to be a lot of commotion going on near the stage so we decided to call it a day and leave —we would later read that the Coachella swat team had to be called in bc of the crowd—crazy right? It seemed people were moshing to hard for chella!!

Watching Coachella grow all these years and being there toward the beginning/having my expectations blown away not only made me a fan of new music then, but it fascinates me that’s still in 2023 Coachella has stuck to its roots (somewhat) and able to spark a fire in this heart again-even after all these years. Thank you Coachella