By Adrian Spinelli
Coachella is a week away, folks. Can’t you just feel the desert sun on your skin as beautiful music comes at you from every direction? Or the scattered dust storms that make wearing a bandana across your face totally acceptable? Coachella weekend(s) loom and we’ve handpicked a few “fine-print picks” from each day of the festival. These bands appear on the bottom three lines of each day’s lineup, you know … in that really small font that you can barely read?
Keep scrolling to get to our home run calls for the day, that one act above the fine-print lines that you just can’t afford to miss. Enough babble, here’s the picks:
Friday
Sylvan Esso
The North Carolina electronic pop duo splashed onto the scene in 2014 with their self-titled debut album. “Coffee” was one of the most soothing tracks of the year and a comforting foil to their otherwise catchy and danceable jams like “Could I Be.” Count on Sylvan Esso to be your afternoon spirit-lifters.
Vic Mensa
The Chicago rapper is fresh off collaborating with Kanye West and Sia on “Wolves” and has a lot of buzz in the indie-rap scene. His critically acclaimed Inannetape is solid gold with jams like the energetic “YNSP.”
Allah-Las
LA’s Allah-Las bring a classic surf-psych rock vibe. Feels like they’re channeling the legendary Dick Dale at every corner.
Saturday
Phox
This Wisconsin folk-pop collective feeds off of singer Monica Potter’s powerful vocals. “Slow Motion” was a standout track and their earthy vibes will play nicely on a sunny desert afternoon.
Perfume Genius
Perfume Genius’s Michael Hadreas became a lauded voice for the LGBT community with a spellbinding performance of his single, “Queen,” on the Late Show with David Letterman. The Seattle singer cooing the song’s chorus, “No family is safe … when I sashay!” on live national TV was nothing short of a triumphant moment and his music just flat out rules.
DJ Harvey
Ready to get weird? Then this is the late night dance set you want to catch. The disco house legend puts on a spectacle complete with dancers and lots of amazing weirdness.
Sunday
Angel Olsen
Angel came up as a back-up singer for Bonnie Prince Billy and dazzled with last year’s amazing solo LP Burn Your Fire For No Witness. Check out the video for “Forgiven/Forgotten.”
Sturgill Simpson
Psychedelic country. Seriously. Simpson pulls it off like a champ and made an album called Metamodern Sounds in Country Music. Nuff said.
Kaytranada
If you wanna feel really cool, then go check out the producer that everyone’s talking about. The Canadian Kaytranada has remixed tracks from Erykah Badu, Disclosure, Beyonce, and TLC. Dude is on top of his game.
Home Run Picks
Friday
Alabama Shakes
Because their performance of “Gimme All Your Love” on SNL is everything.
Saturday
Father John Misty
Because you gotta see this man shake his hips in person.
Sunday
Drake
Because you know you wanna. Just go…Do it!
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Photo by Carl Nenzén Lovén/Flickr
