THIS is a CLOSE-UP?

When I saw that Coachella 2012 was rolled out for two consecutive weekends as the   exact same festival , I immediately set aside time and cash for both – one with my friend Brian, and one with my lovely girlfriend Coco.  (We even called the weekend Cocochella, for maximum cuteness.)  Brian and I signed up for the first cold-as-ice weekend, and I flew out of and back to Detroit; it made for a bit of a drive there and back, but a flight with no stops was what I wanted.  However, Coco and I made the innocent mistake of flying out of Pellston, which ended up pushing back our arrival into Palm Springs the night before by at least five hours, which made for a series of unplanned pains in the ass.  (Seriously, our asses hurt from so much sitting.)  The only benefit was at Hertz, who put us into a new white Mustang instead of the car I’d reserved.  Once we got out to Palm Springs, however, I noticed it was warmer than when I’d left it a few days ago.  Quite a bit warmer. There's no

I am now officially old enough to say "back when I started going to Coachella, it was only a two-day, one-weekend festival."  This year, the production company Goldenvoice put on “Coachella” (the three-day festival) for two consecutive weekends as the exact same festival , but there must be something to make each weekend memorable as a unique entity aside from the bands shifting up their set lists (which they were discouraged to do).  So how about offering up two weekends of extreme weather to fuck with the patrons?  Sounds like a plan. There's no way around it -- Coachella 9.1 (my ninth straight year of attendance, first weekend) was cold.  I’m not just talking about “cold for California” cold, but actual Michigan -level cold.  (In fact, there was one day where the afternoon temperature in Petoskey and Indio was separated by a few degrees.)  So cold that I wore a thermal undershirt and hoodie with the usual Coachella gear and was still struck by the biting wind and