The American way can be described with any number of clichés, but Coachella has rapidly taken to heart one of the most obnoxious: bigger is better. Bigger artists; bigger stages; bigger crowds; bigger tolerance of alcohol, drugs, and generally seeing who looks the most fucked up; bigger vendors selling bigger fries with bigger amounts of curry mustard, sriracha, pickled onions, pork belly and other gastropub fetishes all over the festival. As the preeminent festival in North America and, Goldenvoice would argue, the world, Coachella should be applauded for taking the initiative in all aspects of its operations, but its seemingly relentless expansion has had its downsides. The addition of a new stage this year in the Sonora provided a blessedly air conditioned arena for a series of up-and-coming punk, garage and indie bands, as well as old fogies Guided by Voices and T.S.O.L., and the re-orientation of the various stages improved sound bleed problems and helped with traffic low.

But it also extended travel times around the festival by significantly expanding the size of the size of the grounds (by 41 acres) as well as creating some impossible to navigate blockages for certain anticipated acts. With the festival at capacity with 125,000 fans attending Weekend 1 (an increase of 25,000 by most estimates) and only so much room and personnel to go around, it’s perhaps inevitable that Coachella may not always get to have it both ways. Then again, Goldenvoice likely doesn’t care too much: gross…