I was fortunate enough to win a seat at LudoBites 4.0 last Thursday through a raffle The Scenestar was having on Twitter. Whoever replied first would get the spot. I was shocked I won and was slightly worried it might be awkward to have dinner with a stranger I followed on Twitter, who was a pretty big deal in the music blog world. Turned out I was worried over nothing because the only thing the dinner lacked was wine (I forgot it was BYOB). Conversation was great, fun, and insightful. It was like chatting with a friend who loves music as much as I do, and I received a ton of tips on how to improve my own blog. He also told me about how the blog was built on him wanting to fill a void a previous blog left behind when it shut down. I'm so glad The Scenestar was created because, honestly, I find out all my info about tour dates, presales, and shows from him.
So, it was my third time attending LudoBites and The Scenestar's first time. It was a great meal and he said it was one of the best meals he's ever had next to his mom's cooking (awww, how sweet!). Since I can never take photos as good as food bloggers do, I will be borrowing pictures from kevinEats, Kung Food Panda, and Mattatouille. Here's a list of my favorite dishes of the night:
Tartine Plate, Warm Baguette (Honey Lavender Butter & Smoked Lard): like Kung Food Panda said, there must have been crack in that lavender butter because I love it. I even wanted to take some home with me. I could eat that every morning! The Scenestar mentioned it was tasty to mix the butter and lard together. Maybe I'm a purist, but I still prefer to eat the lavender butter alone.
Foie Gras Black Croque Monsieur, Cherry Amaretto Chutney: I have been dreaming about this sandwich since LudoBites 2.0 at The Breadbar. It might look alien with its black squid ink bread exterior enclosing a rich foie gras heart attack, but it is absolutely one of the best sandwiches I've ever had in my entire life.
Squid Carbonara, Pancetta, Poached Egg (63 degrees), Parmesan Snow, Chive Flowers: the egg was perfectly poached. Chef Ludo, can you please make me eggs for breakfast every morning? It was just unfortunate that I was so busy talking to The Scenestar that the egg started getting overcooked on the squid. The squid wasn't overly chewy and I liked the look of the dish. It did look just like pasta but with a slightly chewier texture.
Dark Chocolate Soufflé, Vanilla Whipped Cream, Hot Chocolate Ganache: I adore dark chocolate, so I had to have this. The souffle was perfectly light, fluffy, and rich. It was bigger than I thought it would be and halfway through, it was too rich for even my dark chocolate worshiping palate.
Strawberry, Macaron, Lemon Verbena Meringue: taking a cue from HC, we ordered a second dessert and it was absolutely worth it, especially after finding out there were Pop Rocks candy in it! It was kind of like having a deconstructed strawberry pie.
After reading the Yello! Smashbox interview with Ludo (I was especially interested in the part where Ludo discussed his musical interests. Also I loved the hip hop playlist he had at dinner), meeting The Scenestar, and having a discussion about blogs with Matt, I got inspired to make some changes to my blog. This is the first of a series of posts where I will be combining my two favorite things: food and music.
Seeing as I lost the battle to a fever that night, I'm a little fuzzy as to some of the details that occurred, so I figure it's best to let some real journalists do the talking on LAist and LA Weekly. From what I can remember, I really enjoyed the inflatable bat and found O'Brien to be in excellent form and absolutely hilarious. Reggie Watts opened for him and had a slow start, but towards the end was actually really funny.
More:
You can see bits and pieces of the show on 60 Minutes, as well as his first interview since he left the show.
FAIL: I was really hoping for smaller crowds for the third day, but I guess since people were forced to buy three-day passes, everyone just ended up showing up for the last day, so it was just as packed as Saturday.
FAIL: Despite Julian Casablancas' amazing voice (that somehow manages to like he's singing through a bullhorn even though he's not. He has some sort of naturally lo-fi voice), his solo stuff was kind of mediocre. The only thing that was good his most popular track, 11th Dimension, and that just sounded like a remix of a Strokes song. Speaking of The Strokes, I really enjoyed getting to hear Hard To Explain and I'll Try Anything Once live because I'll probably never be able to see The Strokes play in a small venue ever again.
WIN: I was so disappointed by Julian Casablancas that I didn't mind having to leave early to catch Jonsi. I've always thought of him as the male Bjork, and I was reminded of that once again when I saw him on stage with his elaborate Native American getup. It was nice to lay on the grass and listen to his music in the late afternoon, but his last song, Grow Till Tall, made me sit up and pay attention to it in all its epic glory.
WIN: I have to say Phoenix was absolutely one of the best acts I saw during the entire weekend. For playing such poppy music (which they played PERFECTLY, by the way, set list and everything. They just sounded fantastic live), they had one of the rowdiest crowds I had seen all weekend. There were tons of crowd surfers, giant beach balls, smaller beach balls, and an inflatable monkey. Just like LA Weekly, I was also really surprised that the audience knew all the lyrics to Phoenix's songs. Also they were in the best time slot: it was the perfect soundtrack to a gorgeous sunset. I thought the band was so simple in music and in lighting. I was kind of surprised that their lighting was so minimal for being on the second largest stage, but I really liked that it didn't distract from the band or their music. I was told later on that their lighting technician wasn't able to make it to Coachella, so they had to keep it simple. I don't even want to know how they usually illuminate the stage because in my mind, the show was flawless.
WIN: Thom Yorke's music was much better suited to the outdoor festival crowd than the indoor theater crowd at The Orpheum. The set was very similar to The Orpheum show, so it didn't seem that new to me, but what was new was the way Yorke really got the crowd going.
WIN: I was half-expecting The Gorillaz to be on stage as cartoon projections, but all their human counterparts actually came out, dressed like their characters. They put on a good show, got the crowd dancing, and sounded just like their albums. I was a bit disappointed there weren't insane fireworks or something because they were the last big band of the festival.
WIN: Band of Skulls may have played in the smallest tent (Gobi), but they performed like they were on the main stage. They sounded great live. I was surprised to find out there were only three band members, but they were all very skilled. Russell Marsden (vocals) was amazing on guitar. His voice blended perfectly with Emma Richardson (vocals).
WIN: I got so into Band of Skulls that I forgot Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros' set overlapped. We rushed over there and got to hear one other track before getting to hear my favorite song of theirs, Home. Gotta love songs with whistling and it sounded great live. I just wish I had gotten a chance to listen to more of the set. I didn't realize Sharpe was such a hippie until I saw him dancing barefoot onstage, looking like Jesus.
FAIL: Overprivileged high schoolers who think they can be rude and shove their way to wherever they want in a crowd just because mommy and daddy paid for their overpriced tickets.
FAIL: I heard SO much hype about The XX up until the very moment they came on stage. I agree with a lot of what LA Weekly said about them: The XX should have played in a tent after sundown. Maybe they should have also been backed by live drums instead of an extremely low drum machine. I admit to enjoying Intro and the last song because I could finally hear drumming from Oliver Sim physically on a (still electronic, but at least it was audible!) drum. At some points, I found myself wishing I had gone to see Corinne Bailey Rae instead. They seemed awkwardly shy as they left the stage with no goodbye, merely a whispered "Thank you."
On CD, I gave the XX another chance and they did sound much better than they did live. I understood the kind of sound they were going for and it's just something that would play better in a small club. I enjoyed the dreamy new wavey music, actual audible beats, and Romy Madley Croft's breathy (as opposed to live whispery) singing.
WIN: Hot Chip was fantastic live, as expected. They got everyone up and dancing and brought in a huge crowd. They were just as good as when I saw last them at The Wiltern.
WIN: MGMT sounded clean and professional, VERY different from the last time I saw them at Hollywood Bowl. I have to admit they sounded really good. I guess their just-like-the-CD sound comes from all the touring they've been doing and from actually having a band back them up instead of just them two on a big stage, but I found that I kind of missed their previous nervous awkwardness and found it endearing. I enjoyed hearing all the old songs. I'm not quite sure how I feel about the tracks off the new album. They don't really have that same electro pop feel that I fell in love with on their prior album. The new songs just sound like the usual pop songs. I'll have to listen to their album some more to get a better feel for it. Either way, I think they put on a great show for anyone who was seeing them for the first time. My friend particularly loved the Brian Eno song.
WIN: Everyone says Muse is douchey, but you know what? They know how to put on an amazing show. Everyone knows their songs and it's impossible not to go wild over their excessive, hilariously pretentious, entertaining performance. They are definitely a stadium band that knows how to put on a flashy show with flamboyant clothes and stage antics (like spinning a guitar around and playing behind his head. At one point, Matthew Bellamy just finished up a song and merely held his guitar in the palm of his head, into the air, and people still cheered!). Bellamy knows knows how to arouse the crowd. I guess the band can get away with this kind of absurdity because really, every member is just ridiculously talented at what they do.
FAIL: The same annoying lights I hated back when I saw The Dead Weather at The Wiltern seem to be a permanent part of their act. If it weren't for the screens, I'd never know what they were actually doing on stage. The lights were horrible, flashing in people's eyes, blinding them. WHY?! The band doesn't want to be seen on stage?! Otherwise, the music was good and they played some new songs from their upcoming yet to be released album that had a very similar sound to their previous album.
FAIL: Tiesto was SO loud that you could hear him even in the farthest corners of the field. He was at the main stage and managed to drown out Jack White's normally fantastic guitar solo during The Dead Weather set. We went to the Sahara Stage and FINALLY couldn't hear Tiesto anymore ONLY because he was being drowned out by whichever DJ was on at that tent. We could even hear him as we were leaving Coachella for the day because he went over his set time.
Because I like it so much, I'm going to follow LA Weekly's (who had fantastic coverage of Coachella, by the way) format of WINs and FAILs of Coachella.
WIN: The iPhone app was surprisingly useful. I checked it pretty much every day to see when bands came on. Improvements for next year's app: an alarm to let the user know when an overlapping band is coming on and an indicator for when bands you choose are conflicting.
FAIL: Lines into the parking lots and into the venue. Better traffic directing to parking could have prevented cars from sitting in traffic for hours (for us on Jefferson) starting north of the 111 freeway. We sat in traffic for about 20 minutes before we finally got out of the car and walked 4.5 miles to Coachella. It was ridiculous. When we finally got to the entrance, the lines were disorganized and not well labeled. Plenty of people got into the Purple Wristband Only line by accident, making it twice as long to get in.
FAIL: Ticketmaster selling Coachella VIP tickets without questioning the user about purchasing an actual ticket along with it. This happened to someone in my party and he mentioned that it happened to tons of other people who thought the VIP package included the price of the ticket because it was the same price as a ticket plus $240. That package was so outrageously overpriced it's no wonder people thought it included the actual ticket. Coachella's solution: go to the ticket window and ask for your money back; tickets are completely sold out. What they should have done was give him the actual Coachella ticket. I'm sure he wouldn't have minded if he lost some money and didn't get the VIP wristband. What kind of shady business sells a VIP package without ensuring the buyer has already acquired a ticket? Apparently, Ticketmaster, who wants to make extra money off people who unknowingly buy it by accident.
WIN: Them Crooked Vultures (made up of Led Zeppelin bassist, John Paul Jones; Nirvana drummer / Foo Fighter frontman, Dave Grohl; Queens of the Stone Age singer, Josh Homme; QOTSA collaborator, Alain Johannes) rocked the main stage. I was aware that they were a supergroup and I liked what few tracks I had heard before Coachella, but actually seeing and hearing them live blew my mind. They're all so astonishingly, individually talented, it's hard to believe they could all be contained on a single stage. Their set rock and rolled through the 80s, 90s, to present times, tinged with amazing solos from every band member.
FAIL: LCD Soundsystem didn't even play the one song I wanted to hear, Daft Punk is Playing at My House. Instead they played all the stuff that I actually dislike, all the beats and him just talking or repeating himself in a monotonous voice. BORING! LA Weekly said, We still take issue with LCD's anti-DJ, bearded-hipster melieu... It's strange to see a band whose leader has dissed contemporary dance music as tired but at the same time promotes a strangely retro sound driven by incessant hi-hat tapping and electric bass-lines that belong in a 1978 Dodge van. For someone who kept whining about his set time being cut short and how DJs all suck nowadays, he didn't really seem to pay much attention to what his fans actually wanted to hear and just played a bunch of his new, and apparently bad, tracks.
WIN: Despite his fading voice, Jay-Z put on a fantastic show with back-to-back songs, an Oasis singalong, an Obama reference, surprise guest appearance by Beyonce on Young Forever, and fireworks. I felt like he really knew how to cater to his fans by trying to fit in as many songs as possible and trying to give personalized shout-outs. It almost felt like a cult when I was surrounded by people throwing up diamonds in the air. I can't even imagine how he must have felt seeing a sea of diamonds. I heard people saying Jay-Z put on the best performance at Coachella and that people were amazed at how many of his songs they actually knew. My favorites: Dirt Off Your Shoulder, Empire State of Mind, Young Forever, Hard Knock Life, Can I Get A... If you can't tell already, I like me some classic Jay-Z.
More: 360 Views of Coachella 5 Ways Organizers Can Improve the Coachella Experience
Coachella 2010 Day 2
Coachella 2010 Day 3
