(Crowd) Surfing. Photos: (L) Richard Kotch/ (R) Shutterstock
You may not realize it, but music festivals are a lot like surfing. With Coachella taking over the world for two weekends a year since the turn of the century, the line between sunburned and surfed out and sunburned and “get me the f*** home” is becoming fuzzier and fuzzier. Which is why those that are attending should approach 2015’s six days in Indio just like their next Baja sojourn.
1. The Spot Check
You know all those mornings you try to play forecaster? Driving to the pier, then up to The Point, then jumping on the freeway to check Indicators because the rising mid-tide will be perfect for this swell angle, only to end up back where you started at the pier? Does that really sound any different than navigating Brochella’s plethora of stages and performers? Florence + The Machine and David Guetta are on at the same time Sunday night, you say? Shit! Better not get skunked and make the wrong call.
2. If You Don’t Live Here, Don’t Crowd Surf Here
Thought the boys on Westcliff Drive knew how to box you out and keep all the best waves for themselves? Well, Coachella, CA residents aren’t letting every drunk 18 year old from the Bay Area to Boulder crash their town without paying their dues. While hordes of tourists fight to score last second tickets for an event that sold out within its first 20 minutes of ticket sales this year, locals get to sit back for the special ‘locals only’ sale. But don’t get any ideas of befriending a resident and snagging one of the 2 tickets they’re allowed to buy, just one thousand wristbands are set aside for anybody who can prove they reside in the 93226 zip code.
3. Hipsters! Hipsters everywhere!
He’s easily become my least favorite dude in the lineup. The Macklemore haircut accompanied by the lumberjack’s beard and/or a mustache that looks like it was snagged off the front bumper of a Lyft driver’s rig. He’s too irritated with the fact that so many kooks have infested his lineup/music festival to actually stop and enjoy the act at hand. Plus it would make the moment much less cool if he let on that surfing/going to Coachella is really just a check mark on the to do list of being cool. Because it’s not worth doing in the first place if you can’t tell everybody else you did it. Yeah, you’re gonna run into that asshole again.
4. Just go, bro
It’s inevitable. You’ll debate whether or not to go. You’ll wonder whether spending the time and effort is worth it unless you know it’s going to be completely epic. Maybe you can catch up on stuff around the house instead. You know, do something productive? Sometimes we all have that internal battle and can’t get juiced enough to get out of the house, convinced that we’re not missing anything big. Then we run into the amigos the next morning and it starts to flood in. “Dude! You missed it! Super fun!”
Don’t stick yourself with that kind of regret. Just go.
