Coachella 2013 Photos & Review: Phoenix, Puscifer, Reignwolf

The undercard ruled the day on Day Two of Coachella 2013, the sequel, with intensely memorable performances from Reignwolf, Portugal The Man, Maynard James Keenan’s circus of the bizarre Puscifer, Janelle Monae and more.

Sure, Phoenix was great as a headliner, but the lack of gusto in the day’s conclusion – we didn’t even get an R.Kelly live mashup this time around – meant that the most powerful musical impact was found throughout the day, among various acts that weren’t championed as the real ticket sellers of the event but wound up providing more bang-for-buck value.

Check out our Coachella Weekend 2, Day One Photos & Recap!

Take Puscifer for instance. The Tool frontman’s side project has a remarkable collection of talent in its ranks, and they just so happen to be dressed as beer-swilling rednecks and escaped convicts. After a solid twenty minutes of ridiculous video comedy lamenting Keenan’s romantic missteps as “Reverend Billy,” the band entered the stage through the door on the silver hitch-cab sitting onstage. Formidable accompanying vocalist Carina Round had a gigantic, bulging fake pregnancy belly, with a sign on the back to match reading, “Buy me a shot and I’ll let you name it.”

Keenan, rocking a bright orange prison jumpsuit and clearly enjoying the fruits of his demented labors, threw handfuls of Swedish Fish to the crowd – as well as packages of Vagina Airlines peanuts. “Who wants candy?!” he offered through a beaming grin, throwing personalized Puscifer treats to the eager, outstretched hands in attendance.

Goofiness aside, the music was a feast of layered harmonies, pulsing erotic grooves and excellence in precision. From the brooding tease of “Dozo” to the grinding throb of “Toma” and the jaw-droppingly powerful “Undertaker,” the multi-faceted vocal approach allowed Maynard to fully explore the beautifully absurd manifestation he designed, while Matt McJunkins held down a throbbing low end. A highlight was the vocal orgy during “Man Overboard,” a creeping bug of a song that grew to a dangerous pendulum, as Keenan contorted and swayed in signature fashion.

GALLERY: Images of Puscifer live at Coachella 2013

Getting out to the fields before noon is no easy task, particularly when you have 800 photos to sort through from the previous day. However, sometimes the best moments are the ones you have to work for – this one being an early arrival for a righteous day-kickoff musical beatdown from Jordan Cook, aka Reignwolf.

Opening with his strongest rocker “Electric Love,” Cook set the bar impossibly high for the performances that would follow on the Outdoor Stage with a stomping blues inferno. Climbing behind the drumkit to hammer out a beat while singing and still playing his guitar, the impressively large noontime crowd roared their approval as Reignwolf took a Paul Bunyon-sized axe swing at the nonsense that rock n’ roll is dead. The roars got even louder when he pulled out an electric mandolin for a searing take on Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain.”

GALLERY: Images of Reignwolf live at Coachella 2013

New Coachella set closer champion: Portugal The Man covering “Hey Jude”. So completely awesome. Beatles covers always tend to do well, particularly at festivals, but this majestically versatile crew from Sarah Palin’s hometown delivered a sunset performance that sealed the deal for any remaining skeptics of the idea that PTM has the goods to run another two, even three decades in just enough limelight to keep them from burning out.

The group’s set relied heavily on material from In The Mountain, In The Cloud, as well as highly promising selections from their upcoming fourth album, Evil Friends, which is set to arrive June 4.

GALLERY: Images of Portugal The Man live at Coachella 2013

The lack of surprises at Coachella thus far has one green asterisk: despite the 4/20 occasion and the passing marijuana leaf-embroidered hat or shirt, the stoner Christmas largely passed without much fanfare. Even at 4:20 p.m., the most holy moment of the year for all potheads, not much smoke was found wafting through the fields. At 4:21, however, I overheard a telling line as I sacrificed my own cured plant in tribute to the fire gods:

“I can’t get high in this heat – it’ll ruin the entire day.”

Perhaps that was it. After all, indulging in the sweet leaf can leave one a bit exhausted and even disoriented in such unrelenting heat. We ran through some survival guidelines to make sure you have a good time a few weeks ago – looks like people paid attention!

Nevertheless, there was a clear dress-down in play between Friday and Saturday. Trendy outfits were traded out in favor of bikinis, bare chests and light material. Fanny packs ruled the day! So did some highly impressive aerial acrobatics, as shown above.

Danny Brown’s performance was abysmally bad, full of dumb cliches and the most uncreative, basic beats one could conjure with a beat-maker iPhone app and a half-conscious finger. With even poorer lyricism and a flow that roughly 94% of the attending crowd could outshine, it was time to move on. Thankfully Violent Femmes awaited, playing the entirety of their classic self-titled debut album on the main stage.

It was a gleefully ridiculous dance party throughout the entire crowd as we celebrated the reincarnation of a blizzard of classic Femmes jams like “Kiss Off,” “Please Do Not Go,” and “Add It Up”. The only problem? Looking at the stage. These guys aren’t just old – they stand out painfully as regular dudes. Frontman Gordon Gano’s “hey let’s go bird watching” fedora was doing no favors. But you can’t hold the ravages of time and style sensibility against a band whose ability to rock such timeless classics so well in live performance is still running strong, thirty years on.

GALLERY: Images of the Violent Femmes live at Coachella 2013

I missed the Postal Service in a fit of exhaustion and maniacal feasting. Four hours of sleep the night prior and an entire day without food will come at a price, boys and girls. It’s a loss I’ll accept without too much self-flagellation, because the consolation prize was an absolutely stellar performance by Janelle Monae.

Dressed in all white along with her band, Monae delivered a razor-sharp set of frantic neo-soul cuts from her album The ArchAndroid, dancing with a passionate fury as the crowd followed suit. A particularly high moment came during the dapper chanteuse’s cover of the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back,” hitting every note with seemingly effortless flow.

GALLERY: Images of Janelle Monae live at Coachella 2013

That brings us to the night’s standard headline run, Phoenix. No Daft Punk, no R.Kelly… but perhaps that’s a mercy. Either way, Thomas Mars and Co. brought out the expected standard hits for their headlining set, boldly opening with new single “Entertainment” from their new album Bankrupt! The crowd gave the impression that the band could’ve read the phone book and they’d have been just as enchanted; Phoenix tends to have that impression on audiences, somehow.

“This is the biggest crowd we’ve ever played for, this is a big deal for us,” Mars told the enraptured masses after a spot-on run through their biggest hit, “Lisztomania”.

GALLERY: Images of Phoenix live at Coachella 2013

With The Lumineers, Dinosaur Jr, Vampire Weekend, Nick Cave and Wu-Tang Clan leading up to the headlining closer set from Red Hot Chili Peppers today, we’ve got quite a day ahead of us – see you on the fields!

Coachella 2013 galleries!

Photos: Johnny Firecloud

Coachella 2013 Photos & Review: Puscifer, Reignwolf, Janelle Monae Make Day 2 an Undercard Showcase

Coachella 2013 galleries!

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