Desert Daze 2018, Day 1: Pond, Warpaint and a festival that proved hard to enter and harried to exit
Kevin Bronson on
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■ See: Desert Daze shortened by storm, plagued by problems
Desert Daze advertises itself as more a ritual than festival — and once Friday’s arrivals survived the gridlock of getting in, the event lived up to expectations, onstage and off. The grounds at Moreno Beach on Lake Perris were easy to negotiate; the alternating set times on the Moon and Block stages ensured fans could catch all the big stuff; and the art installations (more samples at bottom of this post) scattered through the park and on the beach gave the event a visually whimsical vibe. Oh, and there was not a single misappropriated Native American headdress in sight.
Here are some highlights from Day 1, over which Mother Nature eventually wielded a heavy hand, forcing an early end to the night:
► The first music many heard Friday afternoon was Yonatan Gat & the Eastern Medicine Singers — engaged in a pow-wow drum circle that fans could hear from their idling cars on Via Del Lago, awaiting entry to the festival parking lot and campgrounds in the waning hot afternoon sun. It was soothing.
► Pond could have headlined. The Australian band, who share members with Tame Impala, turned in a spectacular hour on the (main) Moon Stage at sunset, their Bowie-meets-Jethro Tull-meets-Floyd set achieving a warm grandiosity made even warmer by Nick Allbrook’s genial banter. Included was the new song “Burnt Out Star.” They ended with the Desert Daze-appropriate “Man It Feels Like Space Again.” Their next-to-last song, though, was perhaps a portent of the night’s events: the title track to their 2017 album “The Weather.”
► As D.C. punker Ian Svenonius exhorted blessings for the opening ceremonies of the festival at the Block Stage, L.A. Witch turned their incantations up to 11 at the Theatre tent stage with a full-on garage-guitar assault. Fans trying to catch both were cursed with being stuck at the line outside during L.A. Witch’s set.
► Jarvis Cocker and his new ensemble “JARV IS…” (representing “an e-volution and a re-volution”) rocked a set of mostly new songs back at the Block Stage as old-school mod fans dressed in black looked on thoughtfully (or perplexed). With a dazzling colorful liquid light show on the massive semi-circular stage behind him, Cocker fans at least enjoyed the eye candy. And vice versa. “”I can see that you’re very fresh,” he said, noting that the festival had just gotten underway. The singer got intimate as he asked fans what their deepest fear at Desert Daze was, then climbed down from the stage and embedded the first rows at the barrier to get their answers. To close, he sang a 2010 single, in which he was sensitive to American sensibilities and current times to adjust the title and chorus to “Pricks Are Still Running the World,” hoping that they soon won’t be and encouraging people to register to vote with the organization HeadCount at the festival.
► British punk-rockers IDLES were simply scorching in the Theatre tent. “Joy As an Act of Resistance” is the title of their album, and that concept could not have been more welcome at 9 o’clock on a Friday night as the weather turned wet and blustery.
► Desert Daze faves Warpaint blew everybody away at the Moon Stage, blazing their power chords and heavy drums, projecting their high energy far back while appearing on the pair of huge screens framing the stage. Even those walking between there and the Mystic Bazaar stage (where such events such as “Divine Dating: Witch Hacks for Love” and a “Shamanic Reiki Healing Circle” took place) heard the band, filling the valley of Lake Perris with their electric grooves.
► Speaking of electric grooves, flashes of light began appearing in the sky as Tame Impala began their amazing set on the Moon Stage. After a massive blast of confetti shot into the crowd, raindrops began falling. At the close of their third song, “Sundown Syndrome,” the band abruptly exited the stage as vicious winds kicked into high gear, even tearing out sheets of mylar from the stage set. Festival staff announced that all needed to leave the grounds and take shelter in their cars or the medical center, which was an enclosed space, until the storm subsided. The festival was effectively closed for the night.
Photos by Samuel C. Ware
We didn’t have any trouble entering or leaving on any of the three days. Friday we got there at 11:35 AM because we wanted to get the whole day in. It took us less then a 1/2 hour to get from the street to the parking lot. People who arrived later had more trouble. Message there. Leaving, even on the night when Bloody Valentine got lightninged off the stage, was just as easy.We walked to our car, got in, and left. Yet I have seen multiple reports of how tough it was to get in and out. It wasn’t a universal experience. There were people WAITING to get in each day at Noon. Couldn’t have been that tough to get in. I feel bad for one-day spectators who wanted to get there mid-afternoon. Did they look at the roads leading into Moreno Beach on Google Maps beforehand? Or did a lot of people just figure that someone else had done all the thinking and that a magic Interstate had been built overnight? Just joking there. As for the “spotty WiFi” I heard about, hey, guess what? Moreno Beach isn’t Downtown LA. Over-relying on cell phones for everything leads to, well, what happened to some people. Got to have a plan. folks, just sayin’. The phone is an assist, not a plan.