The Inaugural Weekend of the Festival Kicks Off with a Bang

The first Coachella weekend featured luxury guests, a varied list of Latin artists, and a revival of indie rock, along with the inevitable fashion quotient of the most famous festival in the United States desert.

Here is a summary of the weekend’s highlights:

Latin pride: Shakira, Featherweight, J Balvin…this year’s edition of Coachella featured a significant presence of Latin American artists from various countries and genres.

The Latin representation has been growing in recent years at Coachella, and its substantial presence in 2024 indicates that it will become less of an exception.

Last year, the festival made history by featuring Bad Bunny as the first Spanish-speaking and first Latin American artist on the main bill.

This weekend, the Argentine producer Bizarrap surprised fans with a performance with Shakira as a collaborator, while Featherweight brought his unique blend of Mexican corridos with Latin rap and reggaeton to the main stage.

The Puerto Rican Young Miko, the Cuban Cimafunk, the Ecuadorian Hermanos Gutiérrez, and Mexican artists such as Son Rompe Pera, Carin León, and Girl Ultra were also part of the long list of Latin artists who performed at the festival.

Besides, Balvin surprised the audience by bringing out Will Smith, who performed the song “Men In Black” wearing dark glasses and a suit.

Swift appeared: Before the start of Coachella, rumors circulated that Taylor Swift might take the stage during King’s Wool, Ice Spice, and his producer, Jack Antonoff’s shows, with whom she has collaborated.

Although the megastar did not perform, she was present as an audience member, watching from backstage at the rock band Bleachers and the rapper Ice Spice from the VIP section.

Swift and her boyfriend Travis Kelce, an American football player who recently won the Super Bowl, were seen dancing and kissing while enjoying the show.

Other celebrities who made surprise appearances at Coachella included Billie Eilish, who performed as a guest at Lana Del Rey’s concert and premiered three new tracks from her upcoming album at the festival’s Do Lab stage.

Olivia Rodrigo joined the No Doubt presentation, with other cameos such as Ke$ha and Katy Perry.

The return of indie rock: Will Smith and his image as a neutralizer of alien memories set the tone for a Saturday programming full of alternative rock that harkened back to the roots of the festival.

Bands like No Doubt, Blur, Sublime, and Vampire Weekend performed, bringing nostalgia for the 1990s to the desert with hits like “Just a Girl,” “Don’t Speak,” and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.”

Between jeans and punk: The desert fashion at Coachella featured country aesthetic, punk, and skater attire along with a return to the 2000s style with leather, plaid, gothic lace, sheer dresses, thongs peeking out of low-rise jeans, and rimless wrap-around glasses.