Coachella, The Mecca of Motion

Los Angeles sits just westward of the site of an epic desert music festival, The Coachella Music Festival in Indio, CA. I recall this past year, my first year in attendance, which was an experience I will never forget - but for reasons other than the painfully obvious. My life goal is to seek out and obtain perspective, culture, and knowledge. The festival was packed with culture as much as it was with feet, hats, water bottles, and soundwaves - there was as much to learn from the groves of Palm trees as there is on an international vacation. In an effort to recreate the environment, the culture, I completed an exercise in voice:

"There’s a culture here” I thought to myself as I continually split and re-split the waves of people, marching in the masses, from area to area. Something happens, a collision of sorts; the muffled sound of live music in the distance bleeds into the under toned shuffles of sun-warmed feet on the grassy desert carpet – all the while curiously bringing to light the untold excitement tucked away behind pleasure-creased faces which hide deep behind the funniest brim I’ve ever seen. The air, the desert air, in all its aridity, has gained some substance, and now cradles, albeit suspends, the life of the festival.

There were faces, oh too many faces to forget. Seventy thousand noses ran into seventy thousand upper lips, although I only saw fifty thousand smiles flashing about. Thirty thousand water bottles means 3,000 free waters, 20 of which I am personally responsible for picking up. Who needed to buy a shirt with some iconic rock legend’s face when I have 70,000 strangers playing facial-chess with my memory bank? Faces - the kind which popped out at you when you’re not looking, the face which scares you away from becoming a pill addict, the face which has you asking why meth-heads like Muse. There was no distinct face of Coachella, too many faces I would say, all of whom, at one moment or another, found their place, found their stage, in what seemed to be the Mecca of motion." - From Ryan Cavalier's "Mecca of Motion"

-- Ryan Cavalier

Photo: "Signposts in Indio" by Ryan Cavalier