The Brazilian navy has officially given up the search for last week's airborne Brazilian priest, and Father Adelir de Carli is on the verge of being declared dead. But another floating object was a little more lucky. An inflated pig which drifted off from this year's Coachella music festival has come in for a landing, albeit in pieces.
The pig, seen here in action at Coachella, belonged to Pink Floyd and was aloft during Roger Waters' Sunday-night set when its two-story heft broke away from the cables.
It turned up in La Quinta, California, in two neighbors' driveways. While the pig is probably not replaceable, the lucky homeowners to find its remains will split a $10,000 reward and get Coachella tickets for life. (Alas, free bacon for life wasn't included.)
Music lovers endure the desert conditions at Coachella festival every year to see acts like Prince and Portishead perform long, sunny sets. Celebrities probably go there for more of the same, with the option of waltzing into the VIP tents when things get too steamy. (Scarlett Johansson even sang there last year, with The Jesus and Mary Chain.)
Joel and Benji Madden of Good Charlotte weren't performing, but they both brought girlfriends Nicole Richie (with 3-month-old daughter Harlow) and Paris Hilton to Palm Springs for the weekend. (If anyone knows what the hell Joel and Nicole are doing in this photo, please let us know!)
Kelly Osborne queued up to see Kraftwerk, and Sean Penn eschewed the VIP section. And '90s star Rosanna Arquette caught '90s indie rockers the Breeders.
The 2007 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, the giant Indio California music festival featuring everyone from Rage Against the Machine to Willie Nelson, went off with plenty of hitches this past weekend.
While Scarlett Johansson (who joined the Jesus and Mary Chain to badly sing the chorus of "Just Like Honey"--according to reports), Drew Barrymore, and Lindsay Lohan were all spotted amongst campers and concert-goers this past weekend, the real question for those considering road tripping to this festival in the future is where are the bottlenecks?
After listening to tipsters and surfing the message boards here are our quick and dirty post-Coachella tips:
· Take half the 200 or so daytime parking staff workers and have them direct exit traffic. This was the worst thing ever. Yes, worse than the Silversun Pickups' set and mid song banter. After two hours of bedlam, an attendee finally showed up to direct traffic.
· Double the number of Female pat down/bag check lines--this should not be a hard job to fill.
· Will Call is a mess. Avoid it at all costs.
· If you are considering going to the festival alone, go for it. There is a popular Onsite-Camping-All-Alone-Club, which starts up on the Coachella message boards months before the festival.
· Those looking for a camping alternative should try Palm Spring hotels like the Desert Moon Resort, where rooms were available as late as last Friday night.
Parking and traffic issues are going to happen when an estimated 180,000 people attended a music festival. In general, police reported few problems, and most festival attendees felt the weekend was extremely well organized, aside from the parking issues.
If you're planning a trip to Coachella and don't want to go the camping route, you'd best reserve that overpriced hotel room soon. Rooms around the festival book up fast before the eventual disaster ensues, in which fans desperate to avoid the campsite heat scramble for alternatives. Coachella recommends Southwestrooms.com for booking, and we pulled up a $179-a-night motel rate there for the "Deluxe Inn." Coachella also recommends calling Desert Hotel Reservations. Competition is fiercest for cheap hotels in Indio. You might have better luck 25 miles away in Palm Springs, where a still-open room at the Ramada is going for $260 a night, and bars for partying in are more plentiful.
A complimentary internet cafe is planned for the camping area this year, so perhaps that could draw you in. At $45 for a three-day permit, the camping fee with included internet access is just about equal to the highest of reported European hotel WiFi charges. But there's no air conditioning in camping.
As far as airports at which to spot celebrities, Palm Springs International Airport is your best bet--it's the closest to the festival. Ontario Airport is further away, but also has the benefit of JetBlue service, and those new flights from ExpressJet Airlines, which will be starting in early April, just in time for the party.
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by egw
