Busby: ‘One of the Best Events I’ve Ever Attended’
By BOB BUSBY
Roger Waters kept his politics in check during weekend 2 of Desert Trip, but did basically tell the crowds that he would still support the Palestinian people and their causes.
Nobody yelled anything at him. There was no discomfort in the crowd. Some people left a little earlier; he finished at 12:35 a.m.
Bob Dylan opened and he was great, of course.
The people said he was better than last week. He was really good, he opened the first set and the show in fact with “Everybody Must Get Stoned,” he did “Tangled Up in Blue” and he did five or six songs that were popular. The band sounded great.
The Rolling Stones: Still Smokin’
The Rolling Stones were The Rolling Stones, of course they were great. Mick made a funny joke to the effect of “I know people are calling this ‘Oldchella’ but maybe they should call it ‘Who’s gonna croak first?’ He also said, “I can’t help call attention to the fact that we’ve never shared the stage with a Nobel Prize winner before,” referring to Dylan.
On Saturday night Neil Young opened with classic acoustic songs and the favorite, “Sugar Mountain.
By coincidence it was a full moon, which rose huge with great light to the side of the stage while he was playing, “Harvest Moon” and the cameras went to the moon and put it on the screens. It was a crystal clear moon, it was very emotional. It was literally magical. Other people were affected in the same way. It was the most magical thing. Neil was just really on.
Sir Paul With Neil Young at Desert Trip
Then Paul came on, and these guys are not retired, they do this all the time and it shows. Then he brought out Rihanna. I didn’t know the song, “FourFiveSeconds” but she was really good. Then she left. Right after that he brought Neil out and they did “A Day in the Life,” and it was a fantastic version. Neil just rocked. Paul was like, “This is Neil fucking Young!” Neil went apeshit on the guitar and Paul looked at the audience like “I hope you realize what you’re watching.” And Neil was saying “This is Paul McCartney!” It was two icons.
Saturday was the best. The Who complained before they sang a note. Roger Daltrey said, “Can somebody please turn off the fan?” That’s because it was windy and like 90 degrees at 6 o’clock still. Not only was the heat holding, the heat held all the way through the night, it cooled down and then at 10 o’clock it warmed up again.
The real star of the show was the venue. And the screens and the speakers. The screens were at least 10 stories tall and 100 yards wide. The screens were so big. We just kept remarking on how incredible the video production was. It was so crystal clear. The real star of the whole thing is the venue for sure.
The Venue at Coachella
You know you can put thousands of people into Giants stadium it’s tiered so it doesn’t look like this. Believe me, 85,000 people on a flat surface goes way the heck back. My friends were in the back. They had four giant screens in the back too. Four huge screens, and there were amazing speakers every 25 yards in every direction and Roger Waters made full use of those speakers with sound coming from all directions. You’d be hearing sounds like a taxi cab coming from a thousand yards to the left.
All in all, musically it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever attended.
