Hordes of music followers had been arriving in California’s Coachella Valley for the premier arts pageant that started Friday and options headliners Lana Del Rey, Doja Cat and Tyler, the Creator.
No Doubt — the group fronted by Gwen Stefani, which reached peak fame within the Nineteen Nineties — are additionally reuniting onstage for the primary time since 2015.
And rumors are flying that none aside from Taylor Swift, the megastar at present on break from her blockbuster, billion-dollar Eras tour, might make a shock look on the pageant grounds dramatically flanked by the San Jacinto Mountains.
Swift isn’t on the lineup however hypothesis is abuzz that she might seem on stage with good friend Lana Del Rey or with rock band Bleachers — which is fronted by Jack Antonoff, her longtime producer.
It would even be the right second to promo her forthcoming album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” which drops April 19.
But hopeful fan gossip apart, it is from Coachella’s buzziest yr.
Ticket gross sales had been sluggish in comparison with seasons previous, though costs have remained within the $500 vary for normal admission and over $1,000 for VIP passes.
A decade in the past, Coachella entries had been snapped up inside an hour. This yr, weekend one took a month to promote out, whereas the second spherical — for which the lineup primarily stays the identical — nonetheless has tickets up for grabs.
The 2024 version follows a tough act. Last yr, Bad Bunny helmed a historic yr wherein not one of the main acts had been white for the primary time and the place the reggaeton titan was the primary Spanish-language and Latin American act ever to headline.
And one other group with an insatiable fan base, Okay-pop group Blackpink of South Korea, was in 2023 the primary top-billed Asian act.
Meanwhile, reclusive R&B artist Frank Ocean notoriously dropped out of the second weekend after his preliminary set was inordinately delayed over a leg damage, angering many followers.
Virtual star, Latin revolution
Despite the stoop in gross sales, Coachella 2024 options an eclectic line-up together with many worldwide acts, a constant development on the pageant initially centered on different rock.
Japan’s famed digital singer Hatsune Miku — a Vocaloid software program voicebank whose personification is a teen woman with turquoise hair — will make a Coachella debut after initially being booked for 2020.
The “artist” — who isn’t actual — started as a digital instrument in 2007, and has grown right into a cultural icon, touring since 2014.
The stage manufacturing will embrace visuals and a stay band.
“We do not know what to anticipate from the gang…and the gang does not know what to anticipate,” stated Riki Tsuji, who’s on the business staff of Crypton Future Media, the corporate behind Hatsune Miku.
“I’m certain we will have a ton of people that… have most likely by no means heard of Hatsune Miku earlier than,” Tsuji advised AFP.
The Grammy-nominated Cimafunk will grow to be the primary Cuban-born artist to ever play Coachella, bringing his model of Afro-Cubano funk inflected with disco and horns to the desert.
He is among the many plethora of Latin acts that additionally embrace Puerto Rico’s fast-rising star Young Miko together with Peso Pluma, the Mexican celebrity who broke into the worldwide mainstream with a string of hits over the previous yr.
Both are among the many artists who’ve collaborated with Argentina’s Bizarrap, probably the most streamed Latin American artists on the planet whose recording partnerships have additionally included Shakira and Residente.
Saint Levant, the Jerusalem-born artist of Palestinian, Algerian, French and Serbian origins — who spent a lot of his childhood in Gaza — will take the stage after discovering fame throughout social media, together with for his 2023 hit “From Gaza With Love.”
Britain’s influential grime star Skepta may also carry out, his second flip on the pageant after debuting in 2017.
And none aside from Sublime — the Nineteen Nineties stoner reggae rock group beloved for hits together with “Santeria” — will carry out, with the late frontman Brad Nowell’s son Jakob main the way in which.
Coachella 2024 takes place April 12-14 and 19-21
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