The annual Coachella Music & Arts Festival is awesome. But for us here in Boston, it’s also far away — just about 2,900 miles across the country. With the distance factored in with Coachella’s knack for ignoring New England artists — Soul Clap will be repping hard for the region this Sunday and next — chances are a lot of us won’t be making it to SoCal for this weekend’s kickoff or the April 22 to 24 do-over.
Thankfully, a lot of the performances from the first weekend will be live streamed straight from the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio, courtesy of YouTube and T-Mobile.
Just call it Couchella 2016.
Not all the performances will be broadcast, however, so it remains to be seen if Axl Rose and James Murphy allow us all to enjoy Guns N’ Roses’ and LCD Soundsystem’s big comebacks from the comforts of our own beds. But we don’t seem to remember many complaints about the stream in years past, so chances are we’ll all get to check in on most of the bands and artists we fancy the most. (Except British shoegazers Lush, of course, who bailed on the fest this afternoon due to via issues).
In total, there will be three YouTube channels working overdrive from about 6:30 p.m. local time on Friday and through the weekend. There will also be a video-on-demand hub to see highlights, in case you miss anything, and there is also a customizable schedule that will go directly to the performances you want to see most.
All in all, it’s pretty cool. Tune in and watch it below.
