Coachella Sells Out

On Jan. 9, the Coachella Music and Arts Festival announced its lineup, which, for those of you who've been living under a rock, will be identical for both weekends. The festival will span six days over two weekends in April (13-15, 20-22), and Radiohead, The Black Keys, and Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg are all headlining. Dre and Snoop Dogg, who will be performing on Sunday nights, haven't performed a proper show together since the Up In Smoke Tour back in 2000, so this should be a treat.

And then there are actual reunions. Brit-pop icons Pulp are on the bill, as are Texas hardcore act At the Drive-In, who announced their reunion hours before the Coachella lineup was released. Swedish hardcore punk band Refused was the biggest surprise; they were only together seven years (from 1991 to 1998) but released three full-length albums before calling it quits. Their album The Shape of Punk to Come—a cult favorite—is considered one of the best punk albums ever, and fans never thought they would play together again. Hours after their reunion was announced, they offered the following explanation on their site: "We never did The Shape of Punk to Come justice back when it came out, too tangled up in petty internal bickering to really focus on the job. And suddenly there's this possibility to do it as it was intended. We wanna do it over, do it right. For the people who've kept the music alive through the years, but also for our own sakes."

So, yeah, the lineup is amazing—and maybe we expected the festival to sell out. Despite using a new ticketing system and complaints of getting booted from the system by various ticket buyers, Goldenvoice sold about 120,000 tickets (the whole festival!), costing $330 each, in less than three hours. Coachella one-upped it's own ridiculous record of selling out in six days, and once again, Goldenvoice has turned the concert-festival experience on its head and produced something no one has ever done before . . . a demand for a re-created, live experience. From Jan. 9 and 13 Heard Mentality posts.

This column appeared in print as "Coachella Sells Out In Three Hours."