Well, Georgie and I figured, what the hell, I’m leaving LA soon, so let’s go for the three-day pass. Grueling as it is out there in the desert–I’m so glad we did. No surprise there, of course, as Coachella always pulls in a jaw-dropping lineup. While I did meet up with some homies out there, this year was a little different–the farthest we strayed from the electronic tent was the beer garden, and then right back. Was a little disappointed to have missed Mark Ronson, Cut Copy, Portishead, most of Calvin Harris and others; but it was great to have also missed the circle-jerk sessions where the group tries to decide where to go every half hour. Wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it, Bob…

In trying to reflect on everything that we saw, my brain has been jumping around between what left the biggest impact, positive or negative. So without further ado, here are the 2008 Out of Coacheller awards!

Most Debate-Ending Performance

Let’s just get this out of the way now. I knew I had to maintain all the way until Sunday night for the grand finale that is Justice. They have been number one on my list since crossing off MSTRKRFT, and damn did they deliver. There has been a lot of comparisons between Justice and Daft Punk–who is better, who is harder, who is…faster. (sorry) Daft will always be on their own special level for me, but Justice really is the real deal. Their show was so hard, so intense. Comparisons between the two cast Justice in Daft’s shadow somewhat, and these two other Frenchmen are driving the hard electro sound right now.

Most Impressive Performance

With all the great DJs tearing the roof off the Sahara tent, I was most impressed by Booka Shade’s live act. “Live” DJ sets can mean different things nowadays, but these guys were up on stage playing their music. Was so cool and different to see an act make EDM with actual electronic drums, keyboards and vocoders rather than strictly knob-twiddling and sampling like Simian Mobile Disco et al.

Most Banging Non-Justice Set

This is tough since everyone was so good, but I’m going to call it a tie between Boys Noize and DeadMau5, with Erol Alkan running a very close second. These two sets were perfect for the festival setting–big, big, big. Both producers, they were using a lot of cool effects to make builds-ups come crashing down on the crowd even harder. We had seen Boys Noize before when he played at the Echoplex with SMD, but he had laid down more of a house classics set. Both sets were very hard and techy, and didn’t let up for a second. Each new track kept the energy level peaking–pretty good for 2:00 in the afternoon!

Best Stage Setup

Finally seeing all the Marshall amps stacked up on top of each other was fucking awesome. But Fatboy Slim’s towering platform in front of a huuuuuge display on Friday night was the best. The elevated DJ booth has always been part of my Superstar DJ fantasies, and he was prancing around at least 30-40 feet above us. And the visuals going on behind/around him were sweet–huge swirls, EQ levels, clocks. It was quite a long wait before they finally drew the curtains, but opening up to that and his Willy Wonka track was worth it!

Best Stage Personality

Again, big props to DeadMau5 for really bouncing around and grooving up there… But award goes to Danny Tenaglia. He’s just such a goofball, and he really does embody his whole “Be Yourself” moto. He was wearing a shirt with a big E on it…he caught some of the beachballs flying around and played with them…he came around in front of the decks and started dancing…he even turned the stage monitors to face more out toward the crowd. He also yelled out at the crowd on the mic far more than anyone else. His marathon 14-hour sets aren’t as big a mystery to me anymore because dude really is at home on stage.

Most Disappointing Performance

Has to go to Aphex Twin. His music and even music videos are so crazy, and I had heard stories about him bringing out trippy shit like guys on stilts at prior shows. I figured he would shock the crowd with some really gnarly techno shit since he hadn’t been up to much lately. But no. He sat down behind his table of gear and proceeded to play really slow and boring stuff, never once looking up to the crowd. Was almost like he was being made to do this gig and this was his big middle finger in exchange…

Worst Act That Finally Made Up My Mind

MIA! Everyone loves her. I have listened to her cds and not really gotten into them. Everyone loves her more. Ok, I figured maybe her live show is really killer. Negative. I kept thinking I was supposed to like her, and I would come around eventually; but now it’s official that MIA is not for me. Her beats are like slowed-down hard house/epileptic seizure shit. Yelle and some others can pull off the screechy voice thing well, but MIA’s whole show just gave me a headache. Thumbs down and reassuringly so–no more questioning my OoC instincts.

Easter Eggs and Honorable Mentions

So many peeps rocked that I couldn’t just leave them out entirely; so here goes: Freeland’s mix of breaks, rock and politics was as on-point as ever. Erol Alkan wins the ribbon for coolest t-shirt with his “L.O.V.E. to keep kids dancing” DARE spoof. All the Ed Banger peeps dropped the gnarliest, nails-on-the-chalkboard beats–very cool to hear that kinda stuff at that volume. I thought Hot Chip would be mellow, but they were booming out of the tent! SMD, with their lazy susan of gear, rocked as hard as ever–I was screaming “I’m a hustler, baby!!” probably louder than anything I’ve ever sung along to. Since their set felt a little routine after seeing them at El Rey, my personal Chromeo highlight was P-Thugg doing California Love on the vocoder……..

I’m sure I’m leaving some other great Coachella memories out, but that’s probably more than anyone wants to read anyway. Lastly, when am I going to get my hands on a damned Ed Banger t-shirt already, dammit? Why is that so damned hard?!?