California day 7

We learned the lesson. Fuck the crappy bands, we said, they're not worth our sweat. We're too old. So in the morning we went where the streets have no name -- Joshua Tree National Park. El'ad was very strongly impressed by it, me -- a bit less, but still something to remember. Those trees look very human. Like everything in America, the park is huge, and its sheer size is overwhelming. El'ad developed a conversation with a 35+ woman, who apparently saw the Pixies on the Doolittle tour, and was particularly fond of Kim Deal and even met Kim's mother in person. We were kids then and haven't even heard about the Pixies; she was younger; the Pixies themselves were younger, but -- the songs stayed the same. This put me in a very philosophical mood. She also told us about her love for Gram Parsons and his love for the Joshua Tree Park. I should check him out.

In the evening we went back to Coachella to catch good places for the Flaming Lips. We saw Belle and Sebastian doing the last few songs, then Air (French Band), which were kinda good, but not too amazing, and then the big wait for the Lips began. They were probably the first band on the entire festival which started the show late. Their excuse is that they had a lot of stuff to prepare. So -- not only they had lots of people in funny costumes (animals, Santa, the Sun, etc.) waving flashlights and doing silly stuff, as they do on most of their shows, this time they went one step ahead: Wayne Coyne descended on the crowd from the outer space in a giant bubble and tried some stage-diving to the sound of his band playing an almost Wagnerian overture. The very short setlist: Race for the Prize, Fight Test, The Gash, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots p. 1. In between the songs Wayne tried to teach the crowd about democracy, Bush, Kerry, Schwarzenegger etc.; a notable quote: "I'm not saying 'Fuck Bush', because he was elected by the people, so i'll just say 'Stop Bush'. Let's say it, let's wake all of Palm Springs saying it!!" Actually Bush was not elected by the people, but who remembers that now.

As the show went on, Wayne kept saying the crowd not to worry, as the Flaming Lips will finish on time and let the Cure begin. However, i didn't care about the Cure so much, and right after the Lips finished, i ran to see Mogwai on another stage. Mogwai were smashing and it's a shame i missed the first few songs. The Cure were total trash. Everyone knows that Robert Smith can't really sing, but this time he didn't even try. And they didn't play so well either. Bollocks. Oh well.