Coachella 2014 - reviews
Coachella 2014 was littered with outstanding performances, but was also surrounded by high profile disappointments.
The Coachella Festival has closed its doors for another year, leaving a bunch of sweating Californian hipsters and celebrities to pack up and dream of 2015. It was one of the most interesting and diverse shows yet, for many.
"Who was Sunday's Coachella headliner?" asked the Los Angeles Times in its review. "The band that played last, to wrap up the weekend on the main stage? Or the act that drew probably the weekend's biggest crowd, and certainly its most fevered rush of fans?"
"If the answer is the former, it's indisputably Arcade Fire, which closed out the festival with a set drawing from the downtown disco of its latest album "Reflektor." But if it's the latter, then it's probably Calvin Harris, the Scottish EDM producer whose main stage set around 8 p.m."
"Beck opened with a pair of hits from two decades ago - Loser and Devil's Haircut - which sounded as fresh as if they were cut last week, before moving chronogically to material from his acoustic-driven recent album, Morning Phase", wrote the Telegraph, "As the sharp-suited showman relayed to the audience, he played Coachella at its inception in 1999, when only 8,000 people attended, around 5 per cent of the numbers that now flock here annually".
One band that ultimately failed to impress critics was freshly-reunited headline act Outkast, who suffered from poor sound and a bizarre looking setlist.
"Poor sound, poor production values, poor choice of guests - Outkast's return to the stage at Coachella was a crushing disappointment", said the Guardian.
"It was one of the most anticipated musical reunions in years: Andre 3000 and Big Boi would be performing together as Outkast for the first time since 2002. Yet their Coachella headlining slot, which saw them at the top of Friday's bill, proved underwhelming for many fans, with a large amount of the audience deserting the performance before it reached its climax of Hey Ya!" wrote Rebecca Nicholson.
