YouTube’s annual Coachella livestream is the single best place to experience new and contemporary music on the Internet: For three days, it is packed with career-defining sets for some of the most important, influential and up-and-coming artists in the world, exquisitely choreographed, stage-managed and filmed, and broadcast all over the globe. It’s essentially a giant Grammy Awards, but with full sets, seven stages and three multi-hour nights of entertainment.
“Couchella” is dramatically different from being at the festival, and if you care most about the music (as opposed to the scene or being seen), it’s better: There’s no dust, wind, distances to drive and walk; there’s no waiting outside a packed tent; there’s no sprinting across a crowded field to catch a set (or get into one before it’s too crowded); and most of all, there’s no trying to figure out the annual dark art of obtaining a coveted “artist pass,” which guarantees good views.
However, for legal reasons, those videos are available for only 24 hours before essentially vanishing forever except in janky clips on social media and deep in dark web territory and on private hard drives (although excerpts from some performances can be seen here, along with super-annoying commercials). So, every year, many of us plunk ourselves down in front of the laptop for almost the entire weekend, scrolling through multiple feeds of incredible performances before they disappear, and circle back for Weekend 2 to catch the sets we missed, or the ones that were so great we had to see them again.
The weekend one streams were neuralyzed by YouTube at around noon ET on Monday, but there’s always weekend two! For people going or staying on the couch, here are our picks for the best shows of the first weekend, and the must-sees (or must-streams) for weekend two.
We’ve already written about headliners Sabrina Carpenter, who brought a whole new production and special guest actors to her “Sabrinawood” set on Friday; Justin Bieber, who largely performed solo and with minimal production but whose singing was absolutely stunning; and Karol G, who soared through a stunning, female-and-Latin-empowering celebration of multiple genres of music to close out the festival on Sunday; we also covered Huntr/x’s surprise appearance during Katseye’s set on Friday and David Byrne’s brilliant show at an earlier date. But here’s the best of the dozens of other performances we caught — which by no means is to say that these were the only great performances, just the ones we caught before the livestream disappeared on Monday.
FRIDAY
Dijon was one of the most buzzed-about acts of the festival and his solo set on Friday did not disappoint (he also joined Bieber for a song on Saturday). Accompanied by an eight-piece band — which meant that at one point he had five people playing guitar, including himself — Dijon’s songs take on an added dimension in a live setting, especially the ones from his latest album, “Baby,” which here transcended their intentionally lo-fi recorded versions. Most unusual is Dijon’s stage presence: With a headset microphone, he paces around onstage while he’s singing as if he were talking on the phone, barely looking at the audience.
The xx’s somber, electronic-based music is so low-key that some may find it hard to imagine them being compelling in a live setting, but the reunited group — which first played the festival in 2010 — showed just how compelling they can be. A trio, singer/guitarist Romy, singer/bassist TK and master DJ-producer Jamie xx (who was anchored behind a desk on decks and percussion) commanded the stage with a dazzling white light show and a set that combined the best tracks from their three albums along with highlights from their solo projects (with the most exciting being a medley from Jamie’s excellent 2024 album “In Waves”). The group was visibly overwhelmed by the ecstatic response from the crowd.
On record, Missouri native Slayyyter is basically an electro-pop artist, vaguely in the vein of Charli xcx — but in a live setting she’s a straight-up rock star, stomping across the stage in cut-off shorts and big boots and belting in a powerful voice (and at one point, unleashing a total death-metal roar). With a set heavy on songs from her latest album, “Wor$t Girl in America,” she had the crowd jumping, and it’s safe to say she finished her set with a lot of newly converted fans.
Not for Radio, the solo project from Maria Zardoya of the Marias, was a perfect late-night set to close out Friday. Her songs are gentle and ethereal, not worlds away from the Marias but with a more prominent trip-hop influence (although she did play her main band’s hit, “No One Noticed”). With a forest theme to the staging and a dramatic moment where she performs surrounded by a sheer curtain that then abruptly falls, Zardoya is a first-class performer with a presence that’s hard to look away from.
SATURDAY
It should no longer come as a surprise that Addison Rae has fully blossomed into one of pop’s most promising stars. Her Saturday afternoon set at the main Coachella stage was one of spectacle and splash — a meta-text commentary on the nature of fame and the lengths one must go to achieve it, all done with a wink and a Colgate smile. Rae has built her persona on the lengths that one must go to attain celebrity, from the boa made of dollar bills that she strung around her neck mid-performance to her delectable closing song “Fame Is a Gun.” It recalls the assuredness of her forbearer Britney Spears and the ambition of someone who really wants it — not to mention that she looked like she was having an absolute blast while doing it. Remember when pop music used to be fun? — Steven J. Horowitz
Largely due to Cameron Winter’s deeply polarizing singing, Geese can be an acquired taste, but the drama around him and the group’s status as biggest-NYC-rock-band-since-the-Strokes (who played their own set later that night) obscures the fact that they are an extremely tight, powerful and innovative rock band. The guitarist grind and shriek and gnarl as the rhythm section thunders away, with Winter’s voice often acting more as another instrument rather than the focal point. The band’s extensive touring around their latest album, “Getting Killed,” has clearly paid off: This set crushed their Brooklyn show last fall.
We’ve been able to witness Sombr find himself on stage over the past year or so, becoming a more confident performer on tour or at award shows like the Grammys and BRITs. It’s why it felt like a fully realized moment to watch the 20-year-old emerge like a new prototype for the modern rock star, with one toe dipped in the pop world and another drawing from alt-rock convention. His hits — now amounting to many — rang like a bell through the teeming audience at the Outdoor Stage, prompting singalongs to tracks like “12 to 12” and “Undressed,” as well as the Smashing Pumpkin’s classic “1979,” which saw him joined by Billy Corgan. Sombr himself looked like he couldn’t believe that he finally got to this point, one where he could tangibly, and perhaps in disbelief, see that he made it. — Steven J. Horowitz
“Beloved,” Giveon’s latest album, is such a tribute to the lush early-‘70s soul of Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes and Teddy Pendergrass that it was uncertain how his deep baritone and the heavily orchestrated arrangements would go over in a festival setting — but he and his elaborate band were stellar. Performing in a suit and tie, with a giant band and orchestra arrayed behind him, Giveon brought Coachella to church with an elaborate set that still felt human and, relatively speaking, spontaneous: Kehlani made a special appearance and duetted with him on her Grammy-winning hit “Folded.”
SUNDAY
Clipse, aka brothers Thornton (Pusha T and Malice), have settled gracefully into their role as elder statesmen in hip-hop, a genre where age can often code as currency. But it’s that wisdom and experience that made their afternoon set on the closing day of Coachella so electric. Not only do they have a catalog full of songs that have had decades to resonate across generations, but they know how to deliver them as if they’re fresh off the stove. They kept the flash and bombast to a minimum, save for a mega-watt appearance from Travis Barker on the drums for the first few songs, but that’s the power of Clipse: To know them is to understand that skill and showmanship are your greatest weapons when you cultivate them properly. — Steven J. Horowitz
Wet Leg’s almost accidental fame from their 2021 hit “Chaise Longue” seemed to poise them for one-hit-wonder status, but their Coachella set on Sunday proved that there’s much more to the group than first met the eye and ear. The songs from their new album are burlier and more versatile than their debut, and most of all, frontwoman Rhian Teasdale has transformed into a full-on rock star, with a powerful and unabashedly sexy presence — the opening moments of their set, which find her marching toward the microphone with her arms raised in bicep-flexing posture, communicates clearly what’s coming.
Similarly to Giveon, it was unclear how Laufey’s jazzy, at times 1940s-era songs and singing would translate on the Coachella stage, but the singer — one of the biggest talents to emerge in the last five years — was more than up to the task. With a flawlessly executed performance that saw her accompanied by an ace jazz group, a string quartet and a troupe of dancers, she moved with ease from frontperson to piano to guitar — peeling off complex jazz chords while singing very complicated melodies — and even, at one point, cello. She’s not only making the old new again, she’s making it cool, and with captivating charm.
Finally, FKA Twigs delivered what has to be one of the longest sets in Coachella history, exceeding two hours and extending far into Monday morning (on the East Coast, anyway). Listening to her music is half the story and sometimes less than that: She’s an intensely visual performer and a world-class dancer — as well as an opera-trained singer — and this set featured mind-bogglingly complex choreography on nearly every song from a small army of dancers, but primarily a group of limber-limbed men who, interestingly, were often doing choreo that one usually sees from female hip-hop dancers: lots of booty-bouncing, synchronized moves, arm-fluttering and even a full-on vogue segment. Yet most impressive of all was Twigs herself, who led the dancers with moves even more complex than theirs — while singing. The set ended with her spinning on a stripper’s pole, upside-down, in a split, then she lowered herself and sang impossibly high melody flawlessly. She is a truly multidisciplinary performer who must be seen to be comprehended.
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