Kevin Bronson on April 15th, 2015

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Who: Swans in the Gobi Tent
In 3 or Fewer Words: Beyond words.
Memorable Because: Camera drones searched the skies of Indio all night as festival goers raged on, waiting for beats to drop, but a different kind of drone altogether spooked a small delegation in the Gobi Tent as Saturday night wrote itself into the books. Michael Gira and his reunited Swans, indifferent to decorum and the usual proceedings, started their late-night set … late. Had it been 2009, when noise curfew hit at midnight, Swans would have accrued a $10,000 fine before a single crystalline chord ever played. The majesty of the evening’s post-rock proceedings don’t translate to words, but let’s give it a go: Christoph Hahn, hunched over a lap steel, played the damn thing like a pioneer surgeon hoping to discover a new organ. Chris Pravidica, in visible pain by the end, crucified his finger across the strings of his bass. Percussionists Phil Puelo and Thor Harris lurked in the back like Frankenstein and his monster. Longtime guitarist Norman Westberg was there, perhaps only in body, for the sounds he made sounded of astral origin. Gira conducted this legion of horribles, without analog or precedent, with the grim determination of a man deranged set upon building a human centipede or its sonic equivalent. Coachella is no stranger to instrumental post-rock — both Explosions in the Sky and Mogwai are decorated alumni — but this was different. The absurd wall of Orange amps and god-knows-what-else sent probing repetitions of sound and violent noise straight into your body. Like the proverbial ugly duckling, the drone and noise would grow and evolve into, ahem, swans. Over and over again. Until you couldn’t take it anymore. It wasn’t just aged rock dads offering themselves up to the experimentation, either. Pitchfork has championed Swans’ latest run of albums, and the in-the-know subjugates looked to be a healthy cross-section of Coachella demo. Just past 1 a.m., when the bloody affair was ended, the onlookers ambled in a daze toward the laser-lit sky. Gira’s unforgettable work had been done.
What I’d Tell My Friend Who Went to Bed At A Reasonable Hour: Dude … DUDE. Like, man. Dude.
— B.M.