When a friend reached out looking for a festival partner in crime for this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, I ignored my natural “absolutely not” inclination and “before” attitude toward the festival and agreed without hesitation. I’d caught a glimpse of the lineup released that morning and recognized maybe a handful of the acts among the 150+ spread out over three days. So, I certainly wasn’t in it for the music. Leona planned to take her teenage daughters (Harry Styles fans), and I was willing to go along for the ride to spend time with my friend. I was genuinely curious to see what the first post-pandemic era iteration of the festival looked like and how I would feel 20 years after attending my first Coachella.
Like Leona’s 15-year-old daughter Morgan and her best friend Rachel no doubt will, I remember my first Coachella quite vividly. In 2002, I was a 24-year-old living in Santa Barbara, working full time at Visit Santa Barbara and side hustling as a waitress/bartender at Derf’s. My fellow waitress friends Amber and Corey joined me for that inaugural pilgrimage to Indio. The festival was so bare-bones back then — it was two days, four stages, the lodging-shuttle infrastructure was nonexistent, and the food pickings were very slim!
We hit the road early on a Saturday morning and checked into our weird makeshift campsite surrounding a reservoir near the polo grounds. We arrived at the festival just as the gates were opening. I remember seeing The Beta Band, G. Love & Special Sauce, and Jack Johnson that first day. The biggest highlight for me was Björk, who performed on the main Coachella stage under the moonlight. The temperatures had dropped, and it was very windy that night — we were freezing in tank tops without jackets, a mistake I would never make again!
