Emergency Coachella issue

Fran Magazine: Issue #144

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Dudamel x Coachella

I agree with

Clare

that “Coachella” as a concept is basically done: its death rattle was last year’s festival wherein Sabrina Carpenter did her live debut of Espresso (still goes) and Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, and Barry Keoghan were all in the crowd. This year, we had Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner, a couple I wrote for but don’t need to see beyond awards season and the odd blurry pap photo.

I wrote one blurb and one blurb only about Coachella for Vulture this past weekend about Gustavo Dudamel and LA Philharmonic’s set:

The Los Angeles Philharmonic played their first ever set at Coachella this weekend — or rather, they played in the background for a number of featured artists like Zedd, Becky G, and LL Cool J. It’s not the first time Coachella has gone for big, loud classical music, but the wide-opened nature of the program was like putting two diametrically opposed playlists on shuffle. The L.A. Phil got to play some Wagner, Beethoven, and John Williams for a few minutes at a time before the set would give way to a poppier feature. Some of those cameos, like Laufey and hip-hop duo Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso, felt like a genuine collaboration, but the rest was scattered and anti-climactic.

Let’s back up.

Hans Zimmer played Coachella in 2017, a preview of the show he now tours with that I saw last summer.

Danny Elfman played Coachella in 2022.

Most notably, neither Zimmer nor Elfman are conductors. They are composers. There is a unified sound to their work whether they stand in front of an orchestra (or band) or not, and they both come from pop background.

Gustavo Dudamel, who has been with the L.A. Phil for a number of years, is a conductor — a pretty solid one! — and not a composer, which meant he and the L.A. Phil, making their Coachella debuts, had basically the entire canon of world music from which to play. Here’s their setlist from last Saturday.

That’s five pieces from the Western classical canon, one theme from a movie, and nine pop features. I felt like I was going insane!

Now I do not think all pop features with live orchestras are a bad thing. As I wrote in the blurb, Laufey was great, “Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso” (news to me) were great, both in part because their songs already feature some degree of orchestration. This is also true of Zedd, who I typically like, who sounded totally fine but played a song that was completely uninteresting to me. The rest of these songs ranged from inoffensive (Maren Morris) to are you kidding me? (LL Cool J). Becky G and Dudamel are friends — that’s nice to me — but I do not need to hear a ten year old song that no one liked that much to begin with. Had the set only included Latin and/or Spanish artists, I also think that might have been a more cohesive vision for what the programming was, and while there were some vague gestures to that — Dudamel seemed happiest with Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso — nothing that really cemented any firm sense of identity for orchestra, conductor, or feature.

The set was a bizarre and dull swan song for Dudamel who transfers to the New York Philharmonic this fall. Who chose this program? He seemed to be having fun, but the set was burdened with self-consciousness. These L.A. Philharmonic musicians out there in the desert, trembling and excited, waving to friends in the audience, to play backup for contemporary artists. I don’t really see the point in this, though I’d admire Coachella’s attempts to broaden the type of artists who play there. Part of what annoyed me about the set as well is something that can sometimes drive me nuts about Dudamel in general — his poptimist spirit, while seemingly well-meaning, which has muddied the water of what classical music can and should be. He’s a lively conductor. I liked seeing him do Tchaikovsky’s Fifth a few years ago at the Hollywood Bowl; he brought much-needed energy to a piece that can sometimes be a slog. But on the opposite side of that, Dudamel can also go way too far, bringing unnecessary speed and urgency and lightness to pieces that may not benefit from it.

What to say of the classic pieces the L.A. Phil did play? Not unlike Zimmer and Elfman, they went all in on movies, picking highly recognizable pieces mostly known from other bits of pop culture (hmm… someone should write a book about that…). A friend said the classical aspect of the program was “a bit fascist” which I don’t agree with though I do think opening a Coachella set with Ride of the Valkyries goes to show how far that piece has fallen in terms of its cultural cache and greater significance. That aspect of the set is overwhelmingly German, but what can you do? Not unlike me when I go see the Bob Dylan biopic (forgot the title), people want to hear songs they know played loud. The L.A. Philharmonic delivered that and then some — I just wish they aspired to more.

If I had programmed the L.A. Philharmonic with zero pop features

No one asked for this but I think the strategy would be to play energetic, hummable music and arrange for the most obnoxious light show you could imagine. This would require a later timeslot, but it’s a fantasy, so go with it. Beethoven 9 is too long but would go so crazy. Symphonie Fantastique is compelling, and really goes out with a bang. Mendelssohn 5 or Dvorak 9 are both easy wins. Philip Glass’s Aguas de Amazonia would be fun, but isn’t written for a full orchestra.

The best-case scenario is film-related, but much less tired which would be going “full Fantasia”: Rhapsody in Blue, Night on Bald Mountain, Rite of Spring, Pines of Rome, Sorcerer’s Apprentice. They were already playing Toccata and Fugue in D Minor!!! Knowing you have to appeal to a crowd of people content to stand and listen to violins while on drugs or zyns (or both) requires a foresight into what may be nostalgic or beloved by a crowd that doesn’t care about classical music but did have a childhood. I have a hard time believing the popularity of Andor is in any way connected to a nostalgia for the Imperial March.

I’ll be watching again this weekend to see if they mix it up a little. I can see myself softening if the set is completely different — obviously they’re gonna go for a mix of classical and pop once again, but I would be keen to see different classical pieces and new features — but I don’t know why they would do that other than me politely requesting they do. I’m glad the L.A. Phil gets to put this on its website, but it sure doesn’t look like very much fun to play second fiddle.

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Have you been to Coachella? Is it any fun? I last went to Lollapalooza in 2017 and haven’t thought about it again since. (The best act I ever saw at Lollapalooza was probably Vampire Weekend in 2013 — or Muse in 2011. The worst was M83!!!) For the time and energy I’d spend at a music festival, I’d rather go on a rollercoaster and just listen to music at my house.