Coachella Weekend 1 Recap

Let the festival season begin~

Kicked off my Spring Quarter by going to Weekend 1 of Coachella last weekend! It was my first time going and I decided to do a little blog post about it rather than vlogging it. Here's a recap on what happened this past weekend! 

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- FRIDAY -

12:40 pm: And so it begins!! My friends and I booked a lovely Airbnb but it was located in Joshua Tree, which is an hour away from Indio, so we headed out a little early to make it to the grounds on time. 

Here's a link to the place we stayed at & use this link to sign up and get $40 off your first reservation. I use Airbnb all the time and it makes vacations so much more fun!

2:30 pm: We (Jess & I) made it to the festival but it was suuuuuuch a mess to try to get in. It was incredibly disorganized and there was a clump of people gathered at check-in/security rather than single file lines. Once we finally got in, we were sweaty and annoyed, but we made it in time to see the last of Whethan's set.

Which means we made it in time to see the little yodeling boy from Wal-Mart. It was....so random. BUT INCREDIBLE. 

3:45 pm: We stayed at the Sahara stage afterwards to listen to Cash Cash ✨

5:26 pm: We had some time to kill before we went to the next performances (we were deciding between The Neighbourhood and Daniel Caesar...although I lowkey wanted to see Bleachers and LÉON too AH) so we went to the Indio Central Market to get some fuel food! We got a bowl for $13 from a korean place and it had rice, carrots, purple cabbage, beef, half an egg, and bean sprouts. It was pretty filling but honestly a little bland 😪

6:00 pm: We actually ended up hopping to Daniel Caesar after stopping by The Neighbourhood really quick, but then went back to The Neighbourhood (just in time to hear them play Sweater Weather). The vibes were just so nice and it was so much fun.

8:30 pm: Kygo came on and WOW WHAT A FREAKING SHOW. I think he brought out a guest for almost every song he did. He brought out Julia Michaels, Jamie Foxx, Ryan Tedder (OneRepublic), Rita Ora, Conrad Sewell, Parson James, and Justin Jesso. so. 

9:55 pm: SZA. AMAZING. INCREDIBLE. LOVE HER.

11:25 pm: oh my gosh The Weeknd's performance was so so good. I was dead tired and my dancing had resorted to swaying, but 😍

1:30 am: It takes. FOR-FREAKING-EVER for us to get back to the parking lot and to find my car. Not only that but we end up stuck in the parking lot for another hour. We get back to the airbnb at around 4 am and I am just exhausted 😵

- SATURDAY -

9:30 am: Woke up with my head pounding and very puffy eyes. but. IT'S FINE. DAY TWO LETS GO.

2:00 pm: Jess woke up with a stuffy nose and wanted to get some Vicks, so we stopped by Walgreens on the way to the festival grounds to pick some up. We ended up not buying it but, we did go to Subway so we could eat lunch! I don't think I've had Subway since middle school but it was really good and saved us a ton of money during the day.

2:50 pm: Did the smart thing and TOOK A PICTURE of where my car was in relation to everything else so we would be able to find it at night. 

3:30 pm: We made it in time to see a little bit of Ekali's performance! So we hung out around that stage for a bit before heading to Gobi Stage for SIGRID. WHICH. I WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT. 

4:15 pm: I was so excited to hear "Strangers" live because it's just such a fun vibe and I'm always dancing around my room to it. She also sang "Don't Kill My Vibe", which- ALSO INCREDIBLE. Her voice is so powerful and I had goosebumps the entire time (also almost started crying because it was just so good????) 

5:45 pm: After grabbing a (super refreshing) smoothie, we headed over to the Outdoor Stage to see BØRNS!! I've been looking forward to this performance since I saw him on the lineup and HE DID NOT DISAPPOINT. Can we talk about his outfit too? The red and pink hues together are just 👌

I'm not sure if Jess knows this but I have officially made "Seeing Stars" 💫 our friendship song, so I was just praying that he would sing it. AND HE DID. ALTHOUGH he sang the acoustic version instead. I'm...not mad about it, I just wish he also sang the original because that one is so fun to dance to 💃

6:35 pm: MØ was right next door so we popped on over there just in time to see her bring on Charli XCX! swag.

7:30 pm: Went to see Louis the Child

9:15 pm: We met up with our friend Niki at 9 pm so that we could head over to HAIM's performance together. AND OH MY GOODNESS. I think this was one of my favorite shows of the entire weekend. First of all, THEY ARE SO COOL. Second- the whole vibe and energy of the show was incredible. They sang my favorite song- The Wire :')

And it was so weird but I actually felt more energized after the concert and literally felt like I was on cloud 9 🙈☁️

10:05 pm: Then we (tried) to go to Post Malone but the crowd was just way too crazy and we could barely hear him. So we headed back to see the Queen 🐝

11:05 pm: Beyoncé. killed. it. Unfortunately we left early because we wanted to beat the traffic and we were SO far back that we could barely see her on the big screen. But I did go home and watch the whole performance in the comfort of my bed :~) 

oh today was awesome as well because I got to see so many familiar faces! My friend (Morgan) that I met while I was studying abroad was also at Coachella. After a failed attempt at trying to meet up with each other while we were both at BØRNS, I thought I wouldn't get to see her but she spotted me when I was walked around the food stands :')

And then my friend (Polyanna) from high school was there and it was so nice getting to see her! I think it's been almost 4 years since I last saw her :') ugh. FRIENDS. LOVE THEM. 

SUNDAY

1:00 pm: Ate a $4 sandwich from Subway again because gotta save that $$$

3:20 pm: Today started out with me being pretty emotional. I was super excited because one of my favorite bands, LANY, was going to be performing. AND YES OKAY, this would be my third time seeing them perform live, but it just felt more important than the others. This was in a festival and they were playing on the main stage! Crazy!

But anyway, we were still standing in the check in line when I got the notifcation

LANY will be performing in 15 minutes

And I just started getting so emotional??? Don't worry, I was really confused with myself too. I think I was just really sad that I wasn't going to make it in time to watch them start their set and it was one of the main performances that I was looking forward to seeing that weekend.

3:36 pm: We got in a minute or so after their set started and I just booked it and ran like the freaking wind. We got there in the middle of "4EVER!" and wow wow wow, music is magical. My mood lifted immediately and I just started skipping and dancing down the field. They were so so so so good.

We had some time to kill before going to Petit Biscuit so we got some watermelon popsicles from a nearby stand and 10/10 would recommend. It was the perfect snack and was so refreshing!! We snacked on those as Vance Joy performed behind us 😌

5:15 pm: Petit Biscuit 

6:00 pm: Cardi B was so good!! She only performed for 35 minutes but I feel like she performed so many songs. She also brought out Kehlani & Chance the Rapper!

7:50 pm: Illenium was insaneee. We were standing towards the center for this one and it made the experience so much more intense.

8:40 pm: ODESZA WAS AMAZING. We were further back from the main stage, but it was still such a good show. They also used drones to create their logo in the sky and I literally could not understand how such a thing was possible. It was so so cool. 

9:30 pm: We tried to go see Migos but the crowd was huuuge and we couldn't get through.

10:40 pm: Eminem was so good OH MY GOSH. I was excited to see him perform live because it's been so long since he did a concert near me. Unfortunately we left early because we were driving back home, but I watched it on YouTube the day after and his show looked amazing!

12:00 am: Time to head home!! We ended up back home at around 2:30 am and my dad dropped us off at school at around 3:30 am. I went to bed at around 4 am and woke up three hours later to go to my 9:30 am class 🙂

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Overall, such an incredible experience and I still can't believe it happened. The weekend just seemed to fly by and I'm still trying to soak it all in even though it's been a week now! I went to school on Monday half-alive, with my greasy second-day hair pulled up into a bun, and tired eyes. It was a struggle, but EDUCATION.

I'm not sure if I would go back to Coachella again...at least not next year because wow that was tiring.

Have you ever been to Coachella? Who would you be most excited to see from this year's lineup?

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