Coachella day two: kidult silliness and Billie Eilish’s freaky vibes
Empire Polo Ground, Indio, California
J Balvin brings reggaeton to the main stage and Aphex Twin is on masterful form but it’s the kids who rule the day
The morning of the second day of a music festival usually makes for good people-watching, because everyone tends to get overexcited and take all their drugs on the first night, leaving them as sweetly fragile as a Kinder Egg the next morning. Except at Coachella, in the heart of bourgeois California, where everyone is either so sober or so permanently hale and hearty that the only hair of the dog needed is a matcha smoothie or organic kombucha.
All this means that Ty Segall and White Fence’s noisy psych guitar pop is met with joy rather than whimpering consternation, as jocks form a slow, jolly circle pit – a kind of Ring a Ring o’ Broses. A long-form freakout from the supergroup is like a warm sirocco blowing in from the desert, with beautifully impulsive soloing from Tim Presley.