Desert Daze 2018: a sonic oasis

It is hard to find the right place to start any narrative of this year’s Desert Daze; one could try to start chronologically, but they would be forced to start with a four-hour long wait in the car to just get into the festival grounds. Beginning with anything of that kind would leave an immediate negative first impression, one which would necessarily have to be corrected soon after: Desert Daze was surreal, incredible and unforgettable. By the time Ty Segall and White Fence ended their show at 2:30 AM on Sunday, everyone was hugging, smiling, jumping around in pure exhilaration: no one was ready to accept that the dream was over. The end of the festival says more about Desert Daze than its start – the organizational difficulties encountered on the first chaotic day were forgotten by the breezy morning of the second.

Another problem one inevitably has to face and address as they attempt to recount their Desert Daze experience is its inherent difference to everybody else’s, depending on budget, drugs, music preference, and company. Different experiences, however, share common features, which grant each single one an odd universality. I was lucky enough to be one of the volunteers: I spent six hours on Friday directing angry and not-so-sober people to the right lines to collect their wristbands. I didn’t see any of the bands: I saw the people, the lightning and caught much of the rain.

A woman came to me distraught by the fact that she had missed Jarvis Cocker’s performance because, as his set started, she was still waiting in the car to be allowed in. A bunch of people came up to me with humorous questions: their wristband was too tight, could I get them a new one? They forgot to download their ticket before entering Lake Perris, where there’s no signal whatsoever, could I give them access to the staff Wi-Fi? Others just high-fived me, and danced their way into the main area – their dance eventually interrupted by security for bag check. The general mood had already changed: from bitterness it had turned to excitement.

As I stood there, I could hear Pond playing from the main stage, and the crowd’s enraptured cheers. The same happened with Warpaint, and with Idles’ spectacularly loud set: one did not need to be right by the stage to feel the energy; it permeated through the entire festival grounds, it spread through the soil and possessed each and every one of us. Everyone was a friend, and there was no more anger: strangers struck up conversations with each other, danced together, shared drinks, drugs, and music recommendations. It only took a few hours for everyone to forget the long, initial wait: all that time belonged to the real world, and no one was in there anymore.

Now for a biographical snippet, it is worth mentioning for the sake of comedy that I had never camped before – ever. The moment Tame Impala took to the stage and began to grace the audience with their well-known tunes, rain also decided to descend upon the precious earth we were all standing upon. Nothing to worry about: no rain could have ever broken the spell and freed everyone from the enchantment of the moment. No, maybe not rain, but lightning, a lightning storm, managed to counteract the magic. Tame Impala were rushed off stage: everyone had to evacuate the area immediately, and find refuge in their cars or in the bathrooms (the campground did, indeed, have real bathrooms – a detail worth mentioning). With the volunteer T-shirts on, people stopped us to ask for information, directions, clarifications: we were clueless, we were supposed to run away with them.

Now, to digress again into biographical: you can imagine what an experience it was for me, on my first camping trip, to find myself and my sweet, little, borrowed tent in a lightning storm. Anyway, while the storm might have seemed like a travesty, surprisingly, and ironically, it was not at all: people began to take refuge in the bathroom in groups, sharing food, water, clothes, blankets and music. The sober ones took care of the not-so-sober ones, and made sure those high on acid continued on their mind travels safely. Strangers were invited into others’ cars, vans, and campers: the storm seemed to have created an instant sense of community that would have otherwise taken a few more hours to develop. Music resonated through the campgrounds; people were talking, laughing, supporting each other. I, for my part, ran through the rain with two other volunteers and took refuge in a car: drenched from head to toe, every inch of our clothes dripping rainwater, we sat there, the sound of the rain hitting the roof of the car, lightning illuminating Lake Perris every few minutes, feeding off the heat released by the AC vents. By 3:00 AM, the rain had stopped: slow and drowsy swarms of people moved back into their tents, and quiet now reigned.

Now, my tent neighbours were fantastic: they helped me set up my tent, fed me, gave me water and made me feel at home in a roofless place. They also enjoyed playing music through their speakers in the morning. By 9:00 AM. the camping grounds were already alive: everyone floated around, sweaters on, trying to take in the events of the previous night, and staring at the cloudy sky hoping for a sunnier start. No one was in a particularly negative mood, just exhausted: how could one blame the organisers for a lightning storm? Comments on social media read: “I apologise on behalf of Moreno Valley,” no one seemed to have seen anything quite like that in a very long time. Events went on as planned in the morning at the Mystic Bazaar, a reasonably-sized tent in the campgrounds: what better to restore the general mood than meditation and a modular soundbath? What even is that? It is exactly what it sounds like: two artists, father and daughter, asked everyone to lay down, find a comfortable position, and just listen. For an hour they then proceeded to lull the small crowd with ethereal and otherworldly sounds. I am still not sure what happened in that tent, but we all left renewed, relaxed, and ready for the long day ahead.

I had no shifts on Saturday: finally, I had the whole day to explore. Reunited with my two lightning storm buddies, we made our way into the main grounds. A neon sign reading “Desert Daze” welcomed us in. The area wasn’t excessively big, but it wasn’t small either: everywhere you walked, you stumbled upon random art installations, vintage clothes pop-up stores, and kombucha vendors, of course. Then there was the beach, and no shoes were needed. Three stages were scattered around the site: “The Theatre,” a massive rectangular tent by the entrance, “The Moon,” the main stage, placed right by the beach, and “The Block,” just opposite the moon, on the grassy area. Six kombucha samples and a shot of fireball later, Cut Worms took to the main stage, and their gentle ‘60s sound slowly woke everyone up.

Describing every artist who played that day would be impossible: live music began at 2:00 PM and went on until 7:00 AM the next day. I wish I could say I made it until the end, but at 6:00 AM, after an incredible and surreal Wand set I got to enjoy with about fifty other brave souls, my wet tent called. Obligatory honorary mention goes to Boogarins, who played the moon stage in the afternoon and set the bar much higher for the rest of the bands. The Brazilian psych rock band called to arms the whole crowd: people came running towards the stage at the sound of their music, and raised their hands, beers and fellow-festival goers in reverence to the bewitching tunes that danced through the air.

Kevin Morby and his band, in which Hand Habits plays the guitar, later took to the stage, and kept everyone’s spirit up. And that was just the beginning. Ex-Cult tore down the theatre: the ground was trembling at their loud and unashamed post-punk revival. Not one person stood still: bouncing from side to side, the most outrageous mixture of people in the mosh pit, the room burst with pure and untamed energy.

JJUUJJUU followed at the block, and no description could ever do justice to that show. It was a party, a sound feast, a celebration of life and music: liquid light show surrounding the band, gigantic white balloons bouncing on everyone’s heads, a collective rebirth. As ironic as it might be, with members of JJUUJJUU being some of the organizers of the festival, their set was the only one in which technical problems were encountered, with the speakers going on and off every few minutes. Audaciously, JJUUJJUU never stopped playing: speakers on, speakers off, the crowd cheered in support; nothing could get in the way of the ecstasy of the moment. Chelsea Wolfe, Kikagaku Moyo, Slowdive and Wooden Shjips gave everyone the time to recover in preparation for the madness of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. A sequence of dream-like sets, paced and mesmerizing, enrapturing.

By the time King Gizzard took to the stage, everyone was reinvigorated and ready for more: but no one could have possibly expected the absolute insanity of their set. Every song melted into the other: they could have easily been playing the same song for two hours, and no one would have noticed. I certainly wouldn’t have. Their songs did all sound pretty much the same, but the vigour and exuberance with which they delivered them was extraordinary. No one was dancing: the whole crowd was moving in unison, one common movement, like a wave, oscillating from one side to the other at the rhythm of the music. By the end of the set, no one could say a word: mouth agape, we had just witnessed a miracle. And, again, it was not even over yet: six more hours of music awaited.

A Place to Bury Strangers were the glazed cherry on top of the sweetest of cakes. I walked in a few minutes after the start of their set and found myself a few steps away from the bass player: not because I was close to the stage, but because he had decided to play half of the set on top of the audience. The crowd was diligently holding him in place, on top of their heads. Lights from the stage were handed out to the audience, who were left in control of their use – temporary anarchy, revolution contained in a room. Needless to say, it was cathartic

The last day began with the sun: it was the first day of pure heat since the start of the festival. People quickly relocated from their tent, to the beach, to the lake: the water washed off the exhaustion from the previous day, and renewed everyone’s spirit. Bound to volunteer, I missed most afternoon shows that day. From the catering tent where I was serving “fajita tofu” to artists and staff (Steve Albini did not want anything to do with my tofu), I could hear Death Grips’ uncompromising and thunderous sound overlapping with Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made For Walkin,” which was playing from a small speaker in the staff area.

Preoccupations deserve a mention, too: utensils left on the tables were shaking from the vibrations released by speakers boosting their set. My Bloody Valentine later surpassed all expectations: an out-of-body experience, the whole audience was transported, no one was quite sure where. Ear-plugs had to be handed out before their set. One could feel the sound with their fingertips: a tingling sensation spread throughout the whole body, produced by the outrageous number of amps present on the stage. No one was sure what they had just experienced: purged from our sins, My Bloody Valentine returned humankind to Eden for the length of their live show.

Shellac followed, and they were as outrageous as they could have possibly been: after Albini promised to fuck us all, one by one, with simultaneous love and hate, however long it might take, everyone joined their “Prayer to God,” a ritual, a secular sacrament. King Khan and the Shrines rode the same current: a celebration of love, any love. Their set was out of time: it was an experience more than a live show. When it ended, no one could quite accept it. It was ok, though, Ty Segall & White Fence soon filled the hole in everyone’s hearts. With their show, the adventure came to an end. A circle pit had formed in the middle of the crowd, but no one was really moshing, people were just clashing one against the other, gently, smiling, then dancing, then holding on to each other’s shoulders and jumping together. If one had to define what being alive must feel like, one only needs to look back at those last few moments.

Desert Daze started on a low and ended on the highest of highs: moving back into the real world afterwards was painful to say the least. It was a collective dream, a temporary isolation from anything external. An oasis in the desert that was not a hallucination. I, for my part, have not quite recovered yet.

Written and photos by Marta Meazza