In America, Coachella is the festival to start all festivals. Not only does it kick off their season of outdoor music events, some claim such events didn't even exist in the US before organiser Paul Tollet presented Pearl Jam in a polo field back in 1993.
Yet despite being the desert king of festivals, Coachella was afflicted this year by flagging ticket sales, attributable to the fact that My Bloody Valentine did not play a much-anticipated headline slot on Saturday. Instead they got Prince, and what do you know, he blew Coachella's bloody socks off!
Even Idolator, the web's snarkiest music blog, is in agreement that the 49-year-old stole the show. This is thanks, in large part, to his cover of Radiohead's Creep. Who'd have thought that after all those years of refusing to play it out, Radiohead's embargo would be broken by Prince? Enjoy some shaky-shaky footage here.
Portishead's glacial trip-hop also proved a hit, with trendster's blog Brooklyn Vegan streaming the performance on their site and the equally hip Stereogum claiming their performance "kicked our asses".
It was left to ex-Pink Floyd man Roger Waters to bring the proceedings to a close, with what the Huffington Post called an "epic two-set performance" which included all of Dark Side of the Moon and the infamous inflatable pig, complete with graffiti saying "Don't be led to the slaughter" and "Obama" on it.
Elsewhere oh the schedule and the Black Lips played their drunkest set ever, according to the Fader and their excellent Coachella Wrap. This is a tall claim, but if true the amount of booze consumed by the notoriously party-hardy Atlanta four-piece in order for them to trump themselves must have been truly terrifying.
My favourite part of the weekend however, in a totally vicarious, wasn't-there-but-read-all-about-online kind of a way, was when the actor Sean Penn rocked up on Sunday to talk some "political shit" and encourage a boozed-up, sun-charred crowd to participate in his Dirty Hands Caravan protest that's heading to New Orleans.
The actual Caravan leaves Coachella later today (the Calis are eight hours behind BST) and is taking volunteers from the festival with it. If you were cynical, you might wonder whether a post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans really needs a busload of unwashed party-heads, with their ears still ringing, rocking up to offer a no doubt very dirty hand indeed. A lesser cynic might nod solemnly at Penn's words, that "Revolution is a young man's job and you can be the revolution", and heartily look forward to the first pictures of said young men coming round in New Orleans with no idea where they are and seriously compromised levels of Serotonin.
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