The best day of the festival almost turned out to be a disaster. Those aforementioned clear paths from the parking lots and sweet, smooth walks through a security staff with light hands did not extend to actually getting to the festival. Indio and Riverside County police turn the warren of gated communities and golf courses and miles-long blocks that surround the polo fields into a frustrating maze of blocked-off streets and unintuitive one-way turns that had me doubling back and retracing my drive more than once. And by the time I finally found a way to a parking lot, the line to get in was absurd and poorly directed. Note to Goldenvoice: please put a GPS address on your parking directions that actually works, and preferably more than one, so that I don’t have to miss all of Shura, Mitski, and Local Natives.
I did manage to see the tail end of Icelandic rock band Kaleo, a group that is appearing more and more to be the next Black Keys in terms of arena headlining potential. The group’s muscular delta blues rock is nigh indistinguishable from their American counterparts, and with a hit single that already went gold on the Billboard chart, likely only to get more and more omnipresent. A lot of the credit should go to frontman JJ Julius Son, whose deep vocals complemented the band’s deft, rootsy work with a showmanship that seems already a decade earned. Easy contender for band most…
