Fashion Lifestyle Travel

Coachella 2018

By on Thursday, April 26, 2018

 

What a time to be alive! Coachella 2018.

 

There is so much I want to say about my first Coachella experience so I obviously had to blog about it!

First, a little backstory. I basically decided I was going to go to Coachella this year 9 days before the start of the festival. 9 days! Which is kind of insane when you think about how early people start to plan to attend. I loved the spontaneity of it all, and I basically thought to myself “You’ve been wanting to go, so what are you waiting for?!?!?”

 

 

I booked my plane ticket and got my hotel and festival wristband all sorted out with my friends that I went with. Then everything was set, besides sending emails to get collabs set up and get entry into the parties.
One thing I always heard about Coachella was that the festival is awesome and the music is great! BUT. Most people actually go for the parties, which is so so so true.

 

The way it works is that the festival essentially starts at 11 am each day, which is great! You can have a full day at the festival and discover a ton of up-and-coming brands. OR you can go to the parties if you’re lucky enough to get an invite.

 

Now that I’ve been to Coachella I can say, without shame, that I much prefer to spend the days at the various parties around the Palm Springs area then head to the festival around 4 pm, depending on what time the acts I want to see go on. Most of the time the scheduling works out so that the bigger names go on stage later in the day with the headliners closing the shows for that day.

 

 

If you were living under a rock you might not know who the headliners were this year. So, I might as well tell you. The Weeknd, BEYONCE, and Eminem were the headlines for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday respectively. In all honesty, I went for Beyonce. The Weeknd and Eminem were good, but the other standouts to me were actually Cardi B, Kygo, Vance Joy, and SZA.

 

 

My friends and I arrived in Palm Springs in the early afternoon on Friday, were running a little late but that’s cool. After checking into our hotel and getting ready we arrived at the first party we were attending, which was hosted by Rachel Zoe and Paris Hilton!

 

There were several famous folks at the party, which included Olivia Culpo, obviously Rachel Zoe and Paris Hilton, and Little Mix who are pictured above!

 

 

Basically, all of my 90’s dreams came true during this party when I met Paris Hilton! The girl is brilliant, in her own way, and is always on. I congratulated her on her engagement and she actually gave me a hug!

 

 

Directly from this party we made our way to the Coachella festival grounds. We made it in time to see SZA, Kygo, and of course The Weeknd.

 

 

During the night, the grounds are actually amazing! You basically feel like you’re at an amusement park.

 

 

This rainbow tower was one of the main attractions of Coachella. When you went in it refracted light in many different ways and gave you a solid view of the grounds once you reached the top.

 

Another very popular stop on the Coachella grounds is the famed ferris wheel.
We of course went on it! And note for Amex card owners, if you have one and are registered via the Coachella app your ride is free!

 

Then it was the main headliner’s turn to rock the stage for the night. The Weeknd put on a solid show and we really enjoyed it. To be completely honest his set was REALLY long and his songs started to sound similar to one another. Overall though, amazing first day!

 

 

We then flash forward to day two, Saturday. And let me tell you, Saturday is THE MOST LIT day of the festival. No matter what.

 

I think the hype was extra real because Beyonce was the headliner for Saturday and people were pumped!
I was definitely excited, but not excited enough to spend my entire day at the festival. Instead it was party hopping Saturday!

 

 

Our first stop was the SUPER lit Lucky Brand x Nylon party! They had the best drinks and a performance by Charli XCX!

 

 

 From there, we made our way to Indio Invasion where there was a special performance by Dillon Francis!

 

 

After that, we went over to the Golden Soiree gifting party, which featured massages that we were in dire need of.

 

 

After that, we went back to our hotel to quickly change then made our way to the festival to stake out our spot for Beyonce!

 

We got there around 5 I would say. Beyonce went on at 11. Yes, that is 6 hours early. And we got a great spot. But if you wanted front row you basically had to be there at 11 am when the festival opened.
The lineup before Beyonce was interesting… To say the least. Tyler the Creator went on at 7 I think. Was not a fan to be honest. But to each their own!

 

After he wrapped up it was Haim’s turn to take the stage.
I preferred them to Tyler, but it is tough being Beyonce’s opening act.
After Haim finished their set around 10 there was literally a 1 hour window of nothingness before Beyonce went on. One of the most uncomfortable hours of my life. So much shoving and jockeying for a good spot.

But it was worth it when Beyonce finally took the stage!

 

 

The woman is amazing! No argument about that. She put on an amazing show and pulled out literally ALL the stops. She brought out Jay Z!

She stood above the crowd and sang to all of us!
She brought out Solanges. She brought out Destiny’s Child. She sand so many hits. She went over on her set.
It was just incredible. After watching it I knew that going to Coachella was worth it. I literally think it was a history making performance.

 

After that we started to make our way back to the hotel. We probably didn’t get back until 4 am. BUT IT WAS WORTH IT.

 

 

And just like that we arrive at the last day of the festival. It is crazy how slowly certain parts of the experience go by, the waiting mainly. But then it also feels like the entire weekend flashes by in an instant.
We decided to spend the entire day at the festival on Sunday and really get a feeling of what it is all about. It was great! But after we did this we knew we had made the right decision of prioritizing parties over spending every hour at the festival grounds.

 

We saw some great smaller acts on Sunday and actually got to explore the entirety of the festival grounds.

 

We went up the rainbow tower!

 

We rode the ferris wheel. We went shopping for merch. We sampled the wonderful food options. And did stopped at several of the activations that were across the festival grounds.

 

When it came time, we made our way over to the mainstage. We knew we would have to get there early to get a good spot for Cardi B, and we were lucky that the act before her was Vance Joy.

 

I knew who he was beforehand but wasn’t a huge fan or anything. But after this performance I am a big fan! He was wonderful, his voice sounded great, and all the vibes around the performance were so good!
Now Vance and Cardi obviously have very different vibes. After Vance I was so relaxed and chill. But then I got SO hype for Cardi. Her set was LIT. She was so pregnant but she was still awesome! She brought out G Eazy, Chance the Rapper, and Kehlani! Her dancers were incredible and I think she completely killed it! Her set length was the perfect time!

 

For me, Cardi was the last act that I was really interested in seeing. So after that I basically floated wherever my friends wanted me to go. That meant that Migos, Odesza, and Eminem would be the last main shows we would watch.

 

 

Again, to be super honest I wasn’t blown away by any of these performances. Odesza isn’t exactly my type of music and Migos went on like 30 minutes late.

Eminem was probably the best. He had some great throwbacks and really showed that he is actually a talented rapper, even if you don’t like his music. My favorite parts of his show were definitely when he brought out 50 cent and Dr. Dre.

 

And that brings me to the end of my Coachella journey! That last night was spent at afterparties just soaking in everything that happened over the past few days and dancing into the late hours of the night! I loved every minute of the festival and I am so ready to go to more music festivals and hopefully go to Coachella again next year!

 

Plus, I’m excited to share my next blog post about exploring LA in the days after Coachella! Stay tuned!

 

JRL
Indio
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Joseph Lucido is a full-time strategy consultant, as well as a menswear, lifestyle, and travel influencer. He also works as a GQ & Vogue Insider, model, and social media consultant.

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