Recapping Day 2 in slightly more digest form. Woke, ate a little breakfast, and enjoyed the mega-Osco/Jewel. There was just a bit of morning rain so, we waited to head in until about 2. We again had a couple early beverages to warm up for the day, and a couple might’ve become a couple too many for Justin – he was completely lit 🙂
Good thing our first act was one where he could some blanket time. We watched Skylar Grey, who is best known for singing the hook on hits by Eminen, Lupe Fiasco, and Ditty Dirty Money.
I’m not sure if her own songs are quite as strong as her six pack abs, but her cover of “Zombie” by The Cranberries was fun. All in all, a nice set on a small stage to start the day.
As a crew we weren’t moving quickly, so I decided to skip running over to catch indie act Dom, and we worked our way over to claim a good spot at one of the main stages where we’d hang the rest of the day. First for us on that stage was the reunited Big Audio Dynamite. I watched their Coachella set online so I had a good idea of what to expect. And they delivered. With Mick Jones and company on stage, the mid-80s sure didn’t seem 25 years past, as they rolled through hits like “The Bottom Line” and “E=MC
After B.A.D. we waited at the same stage for an unusually long amount of time until Ceelo Green finally came out. The crowd had grown bigger (and denser) during the wait, so people were getting pretty anxious for his set to start.
In his intro his all-female band dressed in S&M outfits took the stage; they were kinda cool, but also kinda awkward. Then Ceelo came out and they launched into a rocking, but sloppy cover of Danzig’s “Mother”. Ceelo himself was dressed like one of the Road Warrior professional wrestlers (or an extra from the movie of the same name).
He made it through megahits, “Crazy” (by Gnarles) and “Fuck You”, and a few other covers, but his set was apparently plagued with sound issues. It clearly upset him and even led up to one song restart. After about twenty minutes he cut things short, which didn’t sit well with the crowd which had waited so long.
Last up for the evening was Eminem. Kinda like Gaga the year before, I was looking forward to seeing such a massive act that I wouldn’t normally go to. His set filled the just the prescribed 90 minutes, but it packed in a lot of music, a lot of power, and damn, a freakin lot of words! I figured I knew a couple Slim Shady songs, but I was really blown away by the fanatics surrounding me in the crowd, who could spit the lyrics word for word the entire time. He had a live band which really gave the show a great presence, and he was joined by several guest on stage during the night. First was Royce, then Bruno Mars, and later Skylar Grey for “I Need a Doctor”. The crowd was massive and thoroughly hyped. He closed with “Lose Yourself” and it was crazy.
