Yes, it is here. The recap has arrived. All the stars aligned, Google video decided to help me out when I wanted to kill YouTube and I didn’t fall asleep at 10 pm. We’re good to go, so let’s get this thing rolling…

Friday

Here’s what I saw, in order:

Midnight Juggernauts - Nice surprise.

Black Kids - Watched a couple songs. The guy’s voice is really whiny. Definitely did not live up to the hype for me.

Dan Deacon - We walked in the tent to see the whole crowd running in a circle. It looked like a ton of fun! We ended up leaving to catch…

Jens Lekman - So adorable. I wish I took pictures and video. They each had a color on and they enhanced the set with some lovely choreography. Jens writes f-ing great songs.

Cut Copy - Mellow dance music. Interesting.

Vampire Weekend - No hating, just love. Sounded great. They’re always a good time.

Tegan and Sara - Pleasant.

The National - Not what I expected. Left after a song or two.

Santogold - Holy shit. This is another one I wish I had videos and/or pictures of. But I was too enthralled. Her dancers were awesome. And she was amazing. You had to be there. Buy this girl’s album. She’s like a more accessible version of M.I.A. I think I prefer Santogold over the Sri-Lankan princess actually.

The Raconteurs - Sounded good from a distance while I ate my dinner. Yes, you can be mad at me.

The Swell Season - This mellow stuff doesn’t work in a festival for me. Love them, but this just wasn’t happening.

Datarock - I wanted to love it, but for some reason I just didn’t. Everyone I talked to did. Maybe I was hitting a wall at this point.

The Verve - Sounded good from the little bit that I heard.

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings - That woman can PERFORM. Wow.

Fatboy Slim - We were supposed to close the night with a dance party. Sadly the dance party was 45 minutes late so we left. Even more sadly, we sat in our car in the parking lot not moving an inch towards the exit for the entire duration of Fatboy Slim’s set. We took a nap at one point. Should have stayed for what I heard was an amazing show.

Saturday

VHS or BETA - They sounded awesome on the main stage. Nice job.

Uffie - She was really fun, but her rapper friends on stage with her suck.

Man Man - I don’t get it. My brother LOVED it though. To each his own.

120 Days - Completely different than I expected. Lots of noise. Naturally, my friend Dani LOVED it.

MGMT - We were about 3/4 back in the tent and it was not loud enough. They started off with some mellow songs, so we ended up leaving. I’ve seen them before and they’re great, but I didn’t have a ton of time to waste. Apparently I should have come back for the end when they played “Time To Pretend”, “Kids” and “Electric Feel” all right in a row.

Cold War Kids - They earned that spot on the main stage. They sounded SO great. The last time I saw them was at the Troubadour. What a nice jump

Bonde Do Role - Crazy dance party. I wish I’d seen more than 2 songs, but luckily I caught “Solta O Frango” which was all I hoped it could be and more.

Kate Nash - She went on after MGMT and had the same problem. Way too quiet. She sounded pretty though!

St. Vincent - Love this girl. She played a different version of “Paris Is Burning” than she usually does. I prefer the original, but it didn’t turn me away.

Hot Chip - They had a huuuuuge crowd. Sounded good to me from the back

Death Cab for Cutie - Maybe it’s a given. Everyone sounds good from the main stage? It looks that way at least from what I heard on Saturday. These guys were no exception.

Rilo Kiley - Hated them til the new album. I’m one of the weird ones. Luckily they played a lot of new stuff. I was happy, everyone else was not

Yo Majesty - Don’t believe the hype.

M.I.A. - People were climbing up the sides of the tent to try to get a view. It was insaaaaane in the Sahara tent for this one. I can only take so much of drugged out people falling on me so I left to go eat dinner… during which I heard the sounds of Sam Sparro in the distance. Mark Ronson brought him out. I suck.

Yelle - BY FAR the best thing I saw all weekend. The girls sings all in French and nobody cares! It’s that good! Such a fun dance party. I feel like this is like if you cross M.I.A. and Robyn or something. If you don’t know her, go buy her CD this isntant. She had a song in the season finale of Entourage, but she has so much more than that. I’m OBSESSED with “Tristesse / Joie” after this show…

“Je Veux Te Voir” (the song in Entourage)… Sorry it’s so short, my camera died.

More Yelle…

And some pictures I took…

Prince - I know everyone will hate me… but it was kind of a let down! Don’t get me wrong, he sounded AMAZING. The man is a genius. But he played soooooo many covers. Including Radiohead’s “Creep” and Sarah McLachan’s “Angel”. I wanted to hear “Raspberry Beret” and “Let’s Go Crazy” and “When Doves Cry”. I think Prince just wanted to mess with everyone. Well done Prince. Well done.

Sunday

The Cool Kids - I love them! They brought out super soakers and sprayed the crowd. They sounded awesome… Later at Does It Offend You, Yeah? I saw Mikey and almost took a picture with him, but the band went on stage just at that moment. Aw man… Oh well, their performance was spectacular.

I’m From Barcelona - This was exactly what I needed to start the last day of the fest. They were so happy and fun. Look at all their balloons! And they sounded beautiful together all umpteen of them

Shout Out Louds - Nice.

Duffy - I still stand by the fact that she needs some better songs. She’s got “Mercy”, “Rockferry”, and “Warick Avenue”. After that it’s just a little too mellow. Probably b/c they were trying to avoid the Amy Winehouse comparison, but it makes for a sleepy set.

Does It Offend You, Yeah? - One of my favorite sets of the weekend. These guys were craaaazy. This is also one of my favorite videos I took. It’s of the single “We Are Rockstars” and I started filming right before the crazy part of the song. You can just see the crowd go from fun to MAX FUN in 2.5 seconds.

Metric - That girl lead singer is a spark plug! haha I got to hear “Monster Hospital” so I was happy

Sia - Probably my second favorite thing all weekend. Who knew the girl could sing like that? She sounds better than she does on the record! I wish I would have gotten a video of the last song, obviously “Breathe Me” because everyone was cheering so loud that she had to wait to continue on singing. She seemed genuinely happy that people were loving the show so much. Here’s the song she opened with, “Buttons”:

Simian Mobile Disco - Thus began the dance trifecta of the evening. A little disappointing sadly. They didn’t do “I Believe”, “Hustler” sounded weird and not in a good way, and it was a little to rave-y for my tastes. It wasn’t bad, but just wasn’t amazing as I was hoping.

Chromeo - Still don’t like them.

Justice - Probably the best that I’ve seen them. They were definitely ON that night. Then the druggies took over, I left the middle of the tent, and then decided to make the drive back to LA.

All in all an amazing weekend. I survived the heat and heard some great music. See you again next year Coachella