In what has become an annual custom, Coachella kicked off the U.S. Festival Season April 27th, 28th and 29th, with a wide variety of artists ranging from The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bjork, Manu Chao, Willie Nelson, Arctic Monkeys, Sonic Youth, Interpol, Stephen Marley, and Kings of Leon. Rage Against The Machine's extremely volatile performance was their first in seven years, and was easily the most highly anticipated set of the fest. The sell out crowd had been anxiously awaiting the return of Rage Against The Machine, and we were eager to see them in the context of 2007, which is a far cry from what the times were in 2000. With over 60,000 music fans converging on the Polo Grounds in the Californian desert each day, fans were left with many musical options to choose from.

Those arriving early on Sunday were treated to a surprise guest performance by System of a Down's Serj Tankian, who thrilled the crowd during a performance of 'Walls of Jericho' with up and coming Texas rockers Fair to Midland. Fair to Midlands full length debut, 'Fables from a Mayfly' is set for release June 12th via Serj's own Serjical Strike Records. We caught up with Fair to Midlands keyboardist Matt Langley and vocalist Darroh Sudderth to discuss their performance with Serj, who also is producing the group's full length debut.

"Yeah that was fun. Yeah! That was his idea. Yeah, we spent about a month and a half talking about it and let him know what ever song he felt most comfortable with doing, we we're happy to do it and it turned out good. I don't do spontaneous stuff like that. I always like going into the live shows knowing exactly how it's going to go and I don't like a whole lot of improvisation and I think Serj is the opposite end of the spectrum. But it went surprisingly well and smooth. Thank god it did."

Festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo have borrowed successful ideas from European festivals that have been around for a long time, like Glastonbury, Roskilde, Reading and Leeds, and expanded on them with an American twist. We caught up with Ryan and Gary Jarman of the English band The Cribs, who performed at Coachella on Saturday, to find out what Europeans think of Coachella.

"People in England see Coachella as really exotic I think. They think it's going to be a great holiday I guess. But as far as using it for a platform, we just treat every gig the same. We'll just like play and throw everything out there. People like that and I'm sure some people will get it but we're certainly not going to get paranoid about the show. We don't see it like a big break because everything is kind of the same. Just treat one gig as you would another."

With Five stages and music held over three days, fans had many options of great music to choose from, but by late Sunday night it was evident fans were flooding the mainstage in droves as the extremely political Rage Against The Machine's set drew near. Tom Morello, Zack de la Rocha and the boys haven't been around for George W Bush's presidency and the entire musical community has been waiting to hear the band's thoughts on the state of the world. With Zack's tirade clearly directed at Bush's cabinet he compared those in office to war criminals and Nazi's from World War II and mentioned some in office should be tried, hung and shot! 'Some of those that hold office are the same that burn crosses!' quipped a angry and serious De La Rocha.

We caught up Warren Oakes of Against Me, who are also gearing up for their new album 'New Wave' and who are also known for their scrappy attitude, to get their thoughts on performing just before Rage Against The Machine's reunion performance on Sunday (April 29th).

"Yeah we were really stoked when we got the offer to play Coachella. It's actually kind of funny because they put our bands name up on the website for the festival before they asked us if we wanted to play. Which is kind of interesting. But we actually saw it and like 'Oh, I guess we're going to do Coachella! They have our name up on the lineup, so.' But yeah, we knew about the date and we were hoping to be able to play it, so it's kind of a funny way to find out. But it was definitely really exciting. I mean, I love Rage Against The Machine so we found out that was the day we were on, to play with the reunion for them and it was totally cool. We're kind of a little bit of a scrappy band and I know that it's an indie sort of festival historically, so for them to let our dirt bag selves on to the festival grounds was pretty nice of them."

So as the dust literally begins to settle on another tremendously successful weekend in the desert, it was clear Coachella, once again didn't disappoint. A wide selection of bands from different musical genres kept fans interested all weekend long. With Hip Hop acts, The Roots and Lupe Fiasco; singer songwriters Amy Winehouse, Regina Spektor, Rufus Wainwright and Lily Allen; House and Techno DJ's Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk, DJ Shadow and David Guetta; and rock acts like Perry Farrell's Satellite Party, Kaiser Chiefs, The Decemberists, Fountains of Wayne, The Kooks, Silversun Pickups and The Rapture, it was clear Coachella has a lot to offer for any fan of just about all types of music.

(Photo Zack de la Rocha at Coachella photo courtesy Brian Miller)

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