10 Best Moments of Coachella: Day 2

Day two of Coachella’s second weekend brought some good news: I’m not nearly as sunburnt as I expected! Saturday again brought the heat, with temperatures climbing towards 108, so the artists brought a little heat of their own, especially EDM acts like Kaskade and Miike Snow. Read about the day’s 10 best moments below.

1. Kaskade’s anti-Radiohead dance party: They started prepping early: one dude walked over to my grassy corner near the Sahara Stage to find a little "privacy," as he put it, to strip down and slip into a black-and-white-checkered, face-covering unitard, which his girlfriend kindly positioned for him (hey, it’s hot and sticky, okay?). He looked like some sort of rave-bound insect. Another guy nearby started counting down the time ‘til Kaskade took the stage. First it was in five-minute intervals. Then he counted down a full 10 minutes. In seconds. Apparently the drugs worked. And when the Chicago-bred DJ-producer born Ryan Raddon hit the stage, it was explosive. Flat LED screens positioned on the underside of the tent, stretching from one end to another, flashed kaleidoscopic color patterns while a sexy woman's voice huffed "Look into my eyes” ad nauseam. Then—Boom! Crash! Sirens! Jet engine sound!—and the party was underway. This was the other side of Coachella—and it felt a world away from Radiohead, who were playing the main Coachella stage on the other end of the Polo Fields. You could hear the Oxford band kick off their set, but soon they were silenced by Kaskade's dance party. I’m a huge fan of Thom Yorke and Co., but this was hard to leave.

2. Miike Snow’s inaccessible dance party: By the time I made it to the Outdoor Stage for this Sweden-based electro trio featuring Britney Spears producers Bloodshy & Avant and U.S. singer Andrew Wyatt, it was hopeless: the crowd was so massive that there was no chance of penetrating it. So I shimmied on the fringes, taking in the epileptic seizure-inducing light show that looked like that one scene from Contact—it was that bright and eye-boggling. Make a note: If you’re gonna see Miike Snow at a festival, show up really, really early. The hands-in-the-air-and-they’re-never-coming-down groove fest that was underway near the stage was envious. Also: “Paddling Out,” from Snow’s psychedelic new EDM LP Happy to You, is a fantastic collision of pop beats with jangly piano and I love it. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the band has gotten this big.

3. Manchester Orchestra’s hilarious, then powerful, entrance: While waiting for the angst-ridden Atlanta hard rockers' set to start, the camera servicing the main LED screen scanned to a dude hugging the front rails, who gave the crowd one of the zanniest googly eyes I’ve ever seen. It was… HILARIOUS and everyone roared in laughter. Good timing: just then the quintet walked onstage and the crowd's chuckles turned to wails as Andy Hull led the band in the twin guitar riff-a-palooza “Everything to Nothing.” Keyboardist Chris Freeman turned away from his instrument and headbanged along so intensely that I worried for his neck. Whiplash!