This weekend I have been on a road trip to Indio, California. It hasn’t been too rough on my car, only had to eat a couple of truck stop hot dogs, I’ve been able to get pretty decent lodging and parking hasn’t been bad at all, even though this was for the super crowded Coachella Festival. I’ve been in the same space as probably a few hundred thousand other hippies, but then in reality I have been holed up in my TV room with the heater cranked up (cold, late winter freeze in Utah) and plugged into the YouTube broadcast at coachella.com. Every year in April I idealize about how I should actually pack a tent in my car and drive down to Palm Springs to get in on the big party but it’s hard to rationalize the time away from responsible life, but more honestly it’s a grueling gauntlet of discomforts. I did join in for one day in April 2002, and with the relatively short drive from San Diego, the day pass only costing about $70, the lucky find of an open motel room, and temperatures not pushing past 90 degrees that day, I was thoroughly wiped out after seeing Bjork, Siouxsie, and the Chemical Brothers late into the night. I was heat fatigued, dehydrated, and wedged up into some massive, sweaty Samoan’s ass the whole time.

A few years ago I accidentally discovered that the whole of the event is broadcast live on YouTube for free. This is now in full HD with excellent sound quality and zero six foot six assholes in front of you holding their iPhone over their head recording horrid video. The YouTube channel has professional camera crews and pristinely mixed audio feeds deployed across the different stages, and this year your choice of three concurrent shows. (I don’t get what the business angle is; this should be pay-per-view.) As anyone who has been wedged up in the hot, sweaty depths of a crowd of assholes can attest… well… watching the whole thing in HD and with the stereo cranked up can be more pleasant. Whithout rationalizing so much, I feel like this has allowed me and the rest of the connected world to join in, to endure for the full three days, and to maintain my cover as an indentured mortgage servant. At least I have been there once before so I can appreciate the camaraderie and absence of personal space. Now I’m really enjoying the coverage and up front access without the travel.

Having three live channels allows you to hop around and look into a lot of different bands, even if you go in with a bit of prejudice against them. There were a few bands that I had dismissed for being pretentious or whiny that made an entirely different impression when I could see them live and up close. With the video streaming I felt the personal immediacy and I get a sense of their talent and spontaneous spirit. They sounded a lot more electric than on the radio, shared some saucy personality, and put on a rockin’ good party. These bands were sharing a special high point; a milestone in their tour and even in their whole career. I really got a kick out of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Modest Mouse, Jurassic 5, Tegan and Sara, and The Postal Service (and others too many to mention). The XX came across as vulnerable and caught in the spotlight, but they nailed it like the whooping Swan Stance in the old Karate Kid. I haven’t finished watching the bands and I haven’t made it back home from the long road trip, but I’m sure I’ll be ok to make it into work on Monday morning.