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Iggy Pop reunited with the Stooges for a show of classic proto-punk songs at this year’s Co

Coachella, taking place in scenic Indio and featuring scores of bands on four stages, was this spring’s biggest music festival in Southern California. Naturally, dB was there to give you the best coverage of the event.

Saturday 4:25 p.m. While negotiating the several-miles-wide parking lot – not to mention the line of thousands waiting to enter the festival – the dB team can hear the end of N.E.R.D.’s set. Before breaking out into “Lapdance,” lead singer Pharrell Williams informs the crowd that they’d “better lose (their) minds on this one.” Still not inside, the reporters can only guess at the crowd’s compliance. 5:15 p.m. The Hives – in between bouts of silly, self-aggrandizing banter and audience polling (e.g. “Who here likes The Hives?”) – play a great set of pure, fast rock ’n’ roll, the perfect opening to the festival for the late-arriving dB reporting team. Jack White’s got nothing on them. 6:00 p.m. Endless technical problems and the worst live Mick Jagger impression this side of, well, Mick Jagger these days conspire to ruin the vaunted live performance of the otherwise-excellent Vancouver ensemble, the Hot Hot Heat. Some in the crowd express the desire to punch the lead singer in the face. 7:10 p.m. Talib Kweli makes a shout-out in remembrance of the late Nina Simone, and the set is appropriately spirited. Flying solo, Kweli only adequately captures the attention of the massively sprawling crowd, but the wordsmith’s rhymes are, as expected, impeccable. 8:15 p.m. Funnel cake is delicious. The dB crew makes this crucial discovery while waiting through the longest line for gyros that the world has ever known. “This had better be the best damn gyro I’ve ever eaten,” said one reporter nearly 40 minutes later as he took the first bite and then was heard to mutter, “You got lucky this time.” 9:40 p.m. Boasting the most visually impressive performance of mediocre cover songs these reporters have ever seen, Blue Man Group provides a wildly entertaining, if somewhat musically uninteresting, show. Reporters laugh at candy kids with pacifiers on drugs. Ha ha ha. 10:45 p.m. Though operating under the misconception that this band was, in fact, The Libertines, the team enjoys the brilliantly loud, dub-influenced electro-funk of Groove Armada. This is where the party is at. The crowd rocks out in-kind. 11:30 p.m. Having somehow gotten themselves invited to a far cooler party than they had any business attending, the dB team mingles inside a small club just outside Coachella’s Empire Polo field and watches the beautiful people dance to an incredible set by Felix da Housecat. Open bar, baby!

Sunday 3:05 p.m. The team prepares for Coachella in the parking lot while listening to one columnist’s famed mixtapes. Deaf to the efforts of his companions to prevent him from contracting SARS, one editor proceeds to eat broken pretzels off the grass. 5:15 p.m. Halfway into the group’s crowd-rousing set, the members of Sonic Youth break into the song off their upcoming seven-inch split with Erase Errata, called “Mariah Carey and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream.” The song (as well as the rest of the set) is as ridiculously awesome as the title. 6:40 p.m. Primal Scream’s set is abrasive, deafening, lovely. A far cry from the easygoing Madchester stuff that propelled them to the top of the British music scene, the group is content to plug in their guitars and tear up some eardrums. 7:50 p.m. Those without enough illicit substances inside themselves to dance to the ever-jittery and disorienting DJ set of Mouse on Mars, stand around confusedly with IDM blaring through the speakers. Those with enough illicit substances appear to have a blast. 8:35 p.m. With trepidation, the team enters the Sahara tent (read: candy raver central) for the first time to see the world’s greatest live electronic act, Underworld, make its appearance. Ever-hopeful reporters look for a reunion with ex-Underworlder Darren Emerson, who performed the day before. It didn’t happen, but the set was intense enough to keep the packed crowd completely hypnotized. 9:10 p.m. The main stage hosts the first-ever reunion of the canonical Detroit proto-punk outfit Iggy and the Stooges. The crowd finds Iggy having, perhaps, lost a step but still performing with the incredible stage performance that made him a legend. The classic songs couldn’t help but please the appreciative crowd. 10:15 p.m. Team members, with their socks adequately rocked, decide they have no pressing need to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers nor the grossly overrated Interpol. Instead, they get a jump on the traffic. So, with the sun having set on another successful festival, the writers pile into their station wagon accompanied only by the sounds of aluminum cans rattling around in the back, they think of Coachella; they think of the memories; they think of Coachella.