Kevin Bronson on April 14th, 2018

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Bronson’s Day 1: Perfume Genius, Jean-Michel Jarre, TroyBoi, Dreams, the Blaze, the Buttertones, the Neighbourhood, Tank & the Bangas, Greta Van Fleet, the Marías, Moses Sumney, Elohim

Coachella always plays hard to get — and every opening day in recent years, the festival has played hard to get into. Gates didn’t open until 1 p.m., two hours later than announced, the sun punishing true-blue Coachellans (and fans of Francesca Harding, who was billed at 11:45 a.m. in the Mojave Tent).

Not that observers noted much in the way of angry uprisings. Though sold out, Day 1 of the first weekend of Coachella 2018 felt Friday Night Polite. There’s a long way to go, of course, and the especially among first-time attendees, the desert party always starts with a general feeling of “just happy to be here.”

Or, as Moses Sumney said later in the afternoon, “I’d like to thank Beyoncé for letting us play her festival.”

There were some gems on Coachella’s undercard on Friday, topped by New Orleans sensations Tank & the Bangas, who more than anybody we might see this weekend make you feel happy to be alive (and somewhat dialed in). Perfume Genius, Sumney and the Marías moved the dial, too. Here’s how it went, from start to finish:

12:30 p.m. — Checking email while waiting for gates to open, we get a “hot tip:” Mason Ramsey, the 11-year-old whose yodeling in a department store went viral thanks to a YouTube video, will be joining his doppleganger, DJ Whethan, in the Sahara Tent later. The pulse quickens.

1:11 p.m. — The already sun-baked early birds spill onto the newly-expanded field, quickly getting oriented. Sahara Tent by the Ferris wheel, check. Mojave Tent by the Rose Garden, check. Coachella Stage and Outdoor Theatre unchanged, check. Indio Central Market, home of the $15 cheeseburger and other delectables, in the middle of everything. Impossible to miss is Spectra, a seven-story structure with a ramp spiraling past tinted windows to the top. The view is dizzying and cool, and probably even better at sunset or after dark.

2:05 p.m. — Not to plagiarize our Coachella 2017 work, but: Mysterious and alluring and obscured by her hoodie, Elohim kicks off a thunderous set in the Sahara Tent. At this time last year, SoCal native Codi Caraco was doing the same at Coachella’s Do LaB stage; her legend and arsenal even bigger, it’s as if she graduated overnight from doing backyard parties to desert raves.

2:24 p.m. — It’s either the air-conditioned room or Brazil’s Boogarins — everybody here in the Sonora Tent is smiling. No, no, no … you know what? Credit Boogarins. Their psych-rock is like a rubdown for your soul.

2:35 p.m.: — First crushing decision of the festival — yodel boy or Moses Sumney?

2:52 p.m. — Victimized by technical difficulties, Moses Sumney, starts late in the Gobi Tent. “Sorry we’re late,” he says. “Hope it’s fashionably.” Due to an annoying sound bleed from the Knox Fortune set at the Outdoor Theatre, Sumney’s nuances are all but lost at the beginning. Eventually, things get dialed in, and there is much love in the one-third-full Gobi for the songs from his album “Aromanticism.” He dedicates a song “to everyone who has never been kissed,” cheekily pointing out the likely “virgins” in the crowd. His live-looped incantation “Lonely World” gets accelerated into urgent territory. And at the finish, with two songs remaining but only time for one, he asks the crowd to choose between “Doomed” and “Plastic.” They cheer louder for the latter — although, Sumney says, “It’s hard to play this at festivals because of whoever the fuck is over there,” pointing to the origins of the external noise. “So if you could sing along …” The crowd did, not many hitting the notes he did.

3:16 p.m. — OMG #yodelboy.

3:30 p.m. — The guy standing in the middle of the field laughing uproariously is laughing at himself. Because he just realized that instead of grabbing sunglasses to put in his festival backpack, he grabbed a pair of Flying Lotus’ 3D glasses from FYF Fest.

3:56 p.m. —  The Marías are simply “Superclean” in the Sonora Tent, transformed into a psychedelic soul lounge for the L.A. quintet’s set. They play torchy songs from their EP of that name. Maria Zardoya coos “I Don’t Know You” like she does. They cover Tina Marie. The trumpeter on “Basta Ya” slays it. They seduce with a new song titled “Cariña.” In all, a perfect respite from the afternoon sun.

4:35 p.m. — Over on the main stage, somebody named SuperDuperKyle is repping the 805, and in a wildly inelegant manner at that, sounding not unlike the kid at the drive-through who’s messed up your order. Not even a drop-in by Chance the Rapper can save this.

4:50 p.m. — Greta Van Fleet are straight-up homage. They’re more than a Led Zeppelin cover band, defenders of the Michigan rockers proclaim, but … well … not by much. Vocalist Josh Kiszka’s yowling, guitarist Jake Kiszka’s shredding, the poses and stage garb — all fun, moreso for a generation who didn’t grow up with Zep’s albums in heavy rotation. Jake Kiszka does a three-minute guitar solo, at one point resting his guitar on his left shoulder, facing away from him, noodling blindly. That’s entertainment.

5:10 p.m. — “Oh my God, I am here,” Tarriona “Tank” Ball shouts to a Gobi Tent that is not as full as it should be for New Orleans’ Tank & the Bangas. The 11-piece, performing with two blue-bodysuited dancers, are simply the freshest act of the day, a dizzying blend of jazz and soul and funk and rap and rock and spoken word. And maybe some forms that haven’t been assigned names yet. Tank’s shape-shifting, horn-juiced narratives — she’s soul siren one minute, chanteuse the next, preacher after that and wicked freestyler on top of it all — win the crowd, who enthusiastically participate when asked. Thanks, Tank.

5:44 p.m. — Second crushing decision of the festival — $15 cheeseburger or $15 chicken-and-rice bowl?

6:04 p.m. — Jesse Rutherford of the Neighbourhood is making out with a huge crowd at the main stage. Well, in a manner of speaking. It’s their second Coachella appearance, and tunes from their new, self-titled third album earn the same adulation as songs from their 2013 breakout. It was early in the set, during “You Get Me So High,” that the cell phone buzzes with a message: “Hope you’re enjoying the festival. We’re bombing Syria.” Reality bites.

7:15 p.m. — Cousins Guillaume and Jonathan Alric are filmmakers as well as electronic musicians, and as The Blaze, the French duo were making their U.S. debut at Coachella. Their Gobi Tent set began with a film being projected onto two white panels onstage. The panels then parted to reveal the Alrics, doing their trancey thing. It was, at the very least, visually riveting.

7:55 p.m. — A quick stop in the Sonora Tent reveals only a small crowd for L.A.’s the Buttertones, who nonetheless got bodies banging to “A Tear for Rosie.”

8:30 p.m. — A regular cuppa coffee is up a buck, too, to $6.

8:40 p.m. — Fans of Australian bands Empire of the Sun and Silverchair apparently did not get the memo about Dreams, the new project from Luke Steele and Daniel Johns. Or not enough of them, anyway. To a small crowd, they ratcheted up the bombast in the Mojave Tent, at times oppressively vocoded and at others just oppressive. Or maybe we were just expecting instant karma from two guys with their resumés.

9:10 p.m. — The explosion that is TroyBoi detonates in the Sahara Tent, newly relocated adjacent to the Ferris Wheel and as usual looking every bit like a hangar that houses a spaceship (just fixate on the roof sometime). As promised, there were two aerialists, though their talents might have been lost amid the rapacious light show on the LED panels that line the tent’s east wall. Bones were rattled, eyes were dazzled.  

9:35 p.m. — Mike Hadreas, whose experiences as a gay man are poignantly and eloquently projected as Perfume Genius, spent the time leading up to the festival calling out Eminem, taking potshots at his headlining status. He was feeling it in the Gobi Tent, and by “it” we mean everything, because Perfume Genius emotes his emotive emotions with emotionality nonpareil. A nice bonus were the special “PG” shades floating around, which weren’t quite 3-D glasses, but when you put them on they turned all the stage lights heart-shaped. Perfume Genius’  songs, especially those on his most recent album “No Shape,” are great, too– smart confessionals turned into spectacles, as elastic in form as his pliable frame. T’was a shame that the tent was only about a quarter full, because by the time we headed for the Outdoor Theatre and an ambient music nightcap, we felt all emoted out in the best possible way.

10:55 p.m. — Sixty-nine-year-old electronic music legend Jean-Michel Jarre was fantastic, especially in the context of the outdoor desert setting. The crowd, though, probably could have fit in the Frenchman’s backyard. Alison Wonderland was that good, huh?

11:15 p.m. — Since our Coachella 2017 blisters have now developed 2018 blisters, we fade into the gathering dust.