Duffy

The young, soulful Duffy has a bigger voice than her fair complexion and blond hair would lead you to believe and the British press is gaga over another Amy Winehouse type performer on their hands. However unfair the comparisons to Winehouse, they are somewhat valid given Duffy's similar throwback singing style and approach. Unlike Winehouse, Duffy is far less interesting with little engrossing material besides the hit "Mercy" currently tearing up the UK charts.

Not The Field

[Disappointed Field fans decide to take in the rocking silence of the Shade]

"The Field will not be making it today. They were denied entrance into our fine nation by the US government." Then the disemboweled voice from the P.A. bantered back and forth with a second voice about the full name of the next band, the unfortunately named 'Does it Offend You, Yeah'.

My Morning Jacket

My Morning Jacket is a band prone to caricature. Writers looking for adjective injections can ensure covering of bases with any combination of the following: Bourbon, Kentucky, beards, roots rock, Allman Brothers, etc. Too often with critical parlance, the devilish details are glossed over for the obvious hits in the obvious storyline. Not that My Morning Jacket's talents are in doubt or anything, just that it seems rare to read anything substantive on the band besides the overt observations of geography and facial grooming. See what I just did there? I hit all the check boxes associated with My Morning Jacket in a circuitous way.

My Morning Jacket's sunset show on the main stage was a highlight on many levels. For starters it was far more energetic a performance than anyone else on Sunday and the new material sounded great. Really great. MMJ showed continued range and is clearly evolving with more adventurous sounds. The erroneously simplistic narrative of MMJ being the only hippie band that hipsters can get behind is being shattered as they become less of a roots band, or whatever sub-genre we create for them, and simply settle into their role as Grade A 'Rock and Roll' band. My Morning Jacket is clearly inspired by ambition to moving their art forward. To the surprise of nobody, they are inching towards greater heights as an incredibly cohesive unit and well on their way to becoming one of America's best. They may have already gotten there.

[M. Ward joins MMJ]

Sons and Daughters

The meager Sunday crowds were most evident at the tent venues. Sons and Daughters embodied this unfortunate truth better (worse?) than others. Too bad for those skipping out. They missed the excellent angular dance-rock these Scottish gals and lads do so well.

Roger Waters

Middle aged skewing couples with psychedelic Pink Floyd tees were a noteworthy minority in the sea of young fashionable hipsters taking in day three's festivities. If there was a distinct segment of festival attendees that made the trip to Indio for one act only, it was the Roger Waters crowd. Nothing really disparaging about it, it just was. No shortage of deer in headlight looks from the older folks with every neon heavy, American Apparel donning gaggle of kids that passed by. Made the already fabulous people watching at Coachella that much better.

Roger Waters appearance was a great bang for the buck considering his own concert ticket prices command upwards of $150. Two full sets and two plus hours of music didn't hurt either. Kicking things off with a route snaking through Pink Floyd classics as well as his solo material, monster hits from The Wall, Animals, and Wish You Where Here, were all touched. One thing about Roger Waters solo material that strikes anyone familiar with Pink Floyd is the similarity in paranoid, New World Order themes and song structures of classic Floyd. Shouldn't be surprising given Waters role in Pink Floyd, but since his own stuff is not as well known, a notable observation. His solo stuff sounds just like Pink Floyd would, much more so than the sham, sans-Waters Pink Floyd offering of 1994's The Division Bell.

Justice

Daft Punk lite gave people the party they wanted for a proper Coachella send off. It was enough to ignore our barking dogs for just a little longer.