Three songs into Teddy Swims set on the main stage at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Friday, April 10, the doorbell rang on a set designed to look like Swims’ broken-down back-alley apartment.
“I’ll get it!” the singer hollered to his band. “I wonder who that could be?”
He opened a door on stage.
“Oh my God, it’s the most handsome and talent Jonas Brother,” Swims exclaimed as Joe Jonas walked on stage.
Cameras snapped to attention all across the field in front of the main stage as Swims and Jonas kicked off the Jonas Brothers’ “When You Look Me in the Eye”, and Swims show reached for a higher gear.
As the first day of the 25th year got underway, music burst forth from stages all around the Empire Polo Club in Indio.
In addition to Swims’ hits such as “The Door,” “Bad Dreams,” and “Lose Control,” he answered the doorbell two more times as well.
The second time, singer-songwriter Vanessa Carlton walked out in a Pogues’ T-shirt to duet with Swims on her hit “A Thousand Miles.”
And the third time?
“Oh my God, it’s David Lee Roth with the best (bleepin’) band in the world, Van Halen!” Swims announced as he and Roth, well, jumped into the Van Halen hit “Jump.”
Swims set was certainly a peak of the first half of the day, though our team rounded up even more. Here’s what else we saw on the festival grounds before nightfall on Friday.
Febuary
As the first act to take the stage at the Sonora tent, Las Vegas-based Febuary set the tone for the rest of the day and weekend. The young up-and-coming band dressed in all black screamed at the top of their lungs and channeled a visceral female rage that challenges the historical stereotype of a tortured artist being solely for men.
The lead singer and guitarist, Rila Ogawa, teared up on stage near the end of their performance, featuring “Slow Dance Tune For Abigail” and “Run Like a Girl,” thanking her bandmates for their support along with the broader communities that have welcomed her, including the LGBTQ+ community and others who have felt marginalized in broader society.
Despite their dark aura and stage presence, she ended the set by showing off her diverse music taste by inviting everyone to watch Justin Bieber‘s headlining set Saturday.
Bob Baker Marionettes
The Bob Baker Marionette Theater was this year’s unexpected yet delightful performance. The performances thrilled cool kids of all ages as the marionettes and their puppeteers danced inside the Gobi Tent.
A flocked of puppet geese performed to a song by the indie rock band Geese. A puppet Diva danced and sang to the showtime “All That Jazz,” while the Ben Platt cover of Addison Rae’s “Diet Pepsi served as the soundtrack to a dance by a quartet of flower fairies.
Carolina Durante
Those looking for proof that rock and roll acts can still make waves at Coachella need not look any further than Carolina Durante. The Spanish indie rock band based in Madrid has the rock-and-roll essence of the Ramones and the Runaways, along with contemporary influences and a splash of new-wave vocals.
If you caught them in the crowd, you couldn’t help but bop your head. The six-piece band was high-energy from the beginning, kicking off their set with the theme song from “The Office” before jumping on stage and tearing into songs like “Misil.”
Carolina Durante fit pretty well with the acts scheduled in the Sonora tent, but also gave rock lovers a taste of the next generation of bands carrying the torch from other trendsetters like The Strokes. Lead singer Diego Ibáñez was electric, jumping on the stage and singing between galloping guitar riffs, breaks and thudding bass drums.
The energy was so lively that the crowd chanted “¡Otra! (One more)” after the set concluded.
Dabuell
The French DJ Dabuell brought his live band to the Outdoor Stage at 4 p.m. His specialty is ‘70s and ‘80s funk and soul performed on vintage instruments while wearing period outfits. If the winged lapels on the male musicians were any wider they might have taken flight in the high winds that whipped through the festival grounds on Friday.
The fat bass beats of synths and bass guitar and squelchy keys had fans grooving blissfully in the afternoon sun.
Wednesday
“I have no idea what’s going on, but I feel good,” Karly Hartzman admitted early on, and that pretty much set the tone for Wednesday’s sun-drenched, slightly unhinged Coachella debut.
The band paused mid-second song when a fan near the barricade appeared to pass out, with security stepping in — a moment that briefly cut through the haze of fuzzy guitars and heat-drunk energy. True to form, they snapped back with dry humor, “that song sucked anyways, glad we didn’t have to play it,” before leaning into their North Carolina roots and the gritty charm of songs like “Chosen to Deserve” and “Bull Believer.
By the time Hartzman asked, “Does Coachella do moshing?” a circle had already formed up front, with fans crashing into each other under the afternoon sun.
BINI
BINI, the first Filipino girl group to play Coachella, drew a large crowd to the Mojave Tent which seemed smaller than usual with eight members of the group and male dancers on stage.
“Shagidi” and “Zero Pressure” kicked off their set with tight choreography eliciting screams from fans. They cheered even louder when the group played their singles “Blush” and “Bikini” for the first time live.
Joyce Manor
While Torrance-based alt-punk rockers Joyce Manor could’ve easily fit into Sonora’s tent, they opted for the larger stage next door at the Gobi.
They kicked off their set with songs such as “Beach Community” and “Constant Headache” from their self-titled album, and “Heart Tattoo,” “Catalina Fight Song”, and “Christmas Card” off of “Never Hung Over Again.” The set also included some tunes from albums, “40 Oz. to Fresno,” “A Million Dollars To Kill Me” and songs off of their latest release, “I Used To Go To This Bar.”
The latter included the countryish jangle “All my Friends are so Depressed” and the rerecording of their very first song, “Well, Don’t It Seem Like You’ve Been Here Before?,” which included a funny moment when lead singer Barry Johnson forgot the lyrics of the song halfway through and was able to laugh it off.
Lykke Li
Lykke Li delivered a set that felt tailor-made for the millennial heartstrings, drifting through a catalog of melancholic pop staples as the camera stayed closely fixed on her every move.
Dressed in a raincoat that added to the moody atmosphere, she leaned into the emotional pull of songs like “I Follow Rivers” and “No Rest for the Wicked,” letting the crowd carry the weight of the lyrics back to her.
There was a quiet kind of intimacy to the performance — less spectacle, more feeling — before closing with “Little Bit,” a full-circle moment that had longtime fans visibly locked in. It wasn’t flashy, but it didn’t need to be.
Slayyyter
Three minutes before Slayyyter even hit the stage, the crowd was already screaming her name. A packed tent buzzing with the kind of anticipation usually reserved for later-in-the-day sets.
Opening with a confident “my name is Slayyyterrr, thank you for coming to my set, this is my first Coachella,” she stepped into a hyper-pop dreamscape, backed by glossy, music video-style visuals that mirrored the high-shine energy of tracks like “Mine” and “Daddy AF” Fans in “WGIA” hats and full pop-girl regalia screamed along, turning the set into something that felt more like a late-night club moment than an early festival slot.
It was bold, chaotic in the best way, and a clear reminder that her cult following is only getting louder.