Timothy Norris

Here's everything that bothered us about Coachella's second weekend. Hey, at least there was no dust storm!

Native American Headdresses
These have still not gone away. In fact, one particularly irritating woman (not pictured) wore a towering feather mohawk weave, a sartorial statement that combined racism with rave gaudiness. On Friday, she pushed her way in front of us, obstructing our and everyone else's view of the show. Congratulations, lady, you're Coachella's worst person! -Andrea Domanick

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LP Hastings

Butterfly?!

The Visual Stimulations for People Who Were High
Coachella's art installations -- the ones designed to impress you while you're high, aka all of them -- were particularly impressive this year. There was the tesla coil, the crane that was formerly a flower but now a praying mantis, the giant florescent snail, the golf cart that looks like a jellyfish, as well as remote controlled sharks and butterflys (above). There was also a structure designed to look like a mid-century, Palm Springs modernist mansion, called the Mirage. Projections onto the house created the illusion of a swimming pool, and a swinging cocktail party. Then there was the "Coachella Power Station," at which guys in hippo masks and white lab coats stood in a glassed room, like mad scientists, playing around with computer, video, and stereo equipment. Occasionally, they danced to Ricki Martin. -Ben Westhoff

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LP Hastings/OC Weekly

Whether it's with your exhibitionist girlfriend, a friend you took too much Molly with or that handsome British man you just met in the beer garden, there are always plenty of places to do the dirty at Coachella. Looking back at a fun filled weekend of flesh, we remember some of the secluded (and some not-so secluded) places where people were able to get hot and heavy while you're hot and sweaty at Coachella.

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LP Hastings/OC Weekly

Whatchu gonna do when they come for you?

As Coachella attendees, we've all had brushes with security, whether they're frisking us down, checking our wristbands or telling us to put out our joints. Fewer of us have experienced a full-on security detention and arrest at Coachella. But for those of you who are curious what may happen if your bag of Mollys fall out of your bra during a security check or if you accidentally sell bud to an undercover, we met up with a young modern hippie, "Derek" who spilled the details of what it's like to get arrested at Coachella.

It was 2 p.m. on a Friday in 2009. Derek hadn't even made it in to the first day of the festival yet. He had returned to his campsite from going to the restroom, entirely too stoned to notice a group of plain-cloathed men rummaging through his belongings. The men noticed him first, and quickly pretended they weren't riffling through the unattended bags. The group approached Derek and said they had a report of a man of his description selling pot.

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Ryan Cox

Christian Bowers

By: Ryan Cox
It's near triple digits in the hot Indio sun and there's a brown dust haze filling the sky from the continuous foot traffic. You pass your first round of security, weak from exhaustion and dehydration when out in the distance you catch glimpse of a group of men in blue. Are they cops? Nope. Superheroes? Sorta. These are Coachella's pedicab drivers and they're waiting to taking you to your next destination on their man-powered chariots.
Meet Christian Bowers, a 37-year old pedicab driver from Scottsdale who's been in the business for about a year. I find him with the rest of his fellow drivers next to the security check-point adjacent to the campgrounds. He's got a pair of 70's style glasses covering half his face while a well-groomed mutton chop covers the other. Tattoos adorn his legs, and he's laughing and smiling while conversing with his colleagues.

Trying to coerce some juicy details about the underbelly of pedicab rides at Coachella, he assured me that it's pretty uneventful with the occasional drunk person or misunderstandings. Nothing too crazy. But when I asked him about some of his other experiences, that was a whole other story.

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Colin Young-Wolff

The EDM-focused Sahara tent is twice as tall this year, and much wider and longer too. It's now roughly the size of an airplane hanger. The arched mega-tent is not just a dubstep paradise, but a behemoth of truss and LED panels. The visuals are otherworldly, with kaleidoscopic light and graphic displays built on thousands of precisely orchestrated lasers, strobe lights and ADD graphics. They flash on the hexagonal visual displays hanging over the crowd and comprise a pyramid-shaped structure around the stage.

Forget the music -- the visuals are a show onto themselves, something akin to a lazer light show combined with an IMAX film combined with whatever ODB was smoking. We talked with the dude behind it, and we've got video and more pictures below if you're in the mood for some Sahara tent porn.

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LP Hastings

Jimmy English (left) and Tidas Friday: Two champions of day drinking at Coachella

In full grips of the dry desert heat, the fine art of day drinking at Coachella becomes a game of survival of the fittest. Sweltering temperatures in the high 90s aren't necessarily ideal conditions to bombard your liver with alcohol. And unless you've been used to trekking through sand in the Middle East in full combat gear, it's very possible you're not ready to do the amount of guzzling that you think you are. Fortunately for Jimmy English and Tidas Friday (two Marines who thought it best to keep their real names a secret), they're already used to such conditions. Less than two months ago, they were lacing up combat boots and shouldering 60-plus pounds of equipment in a rumbling military convoy in Kuwait. It's hard to believe now--considering neither one of them is old enough to legally rent a car--that they've been repairing tanks and other military vehicles as mechanics in the Marine Corps for several years each.

But for the last couple years, two weeks of their leave time while they're in the service is dedicated to one thing: A roadtrip to Coachella. They didn't seem psyched to see any artist in particular this weekend (though we did follow them around to check a few acts like Dam Funk and Alt-J ),but they are definitely serious about was blowing off steam no matter who was playing. And by that, we mean drinking as much as humanly possible--brutal sun be damned.

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Ryan Cox

Zia Records

By: Ryan Cox
While we're covering weekend two of Coachella, it's no surprise that the Zia Records' pop-up store was swarming with eager music lovers on Saturday for Record Store Day, hoping to scoop up some of those re-released and hard to-find aural gems. Hell, people were just eager to spend hard earned cash on something tangible to commemorate a weekend dedicated to raging in the sun with their favorite bands.

The festivities also brought out a variety of signings from artists like Phoenix, Two Door Cinema Club, Moby, and The Wombats that caused a flurry of record sales since that's the only way to participate in such meet and greets. Clever marketing as most of the high want items sold out fairly quickly.

We stalked a few people throughout the day to see what they were acquiring in the desert. Some got luckier than others.

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Credit: Marco Torres

This guy didn't bring any drugs into the festival, but his blasé attitude was not embraced by security officials.

If you're at Coachella, chances are you experienced full throttle security measures attempting to snatch any drugs you might have. As usual, these include three tiers of security checkpoints, at which eventgoers are frisked and searched. It can all feel a bit personal, particularly considering that drugs and Coachella are practically synonymous.

See also: Doing Drugs at Coachella? Here's How to Avoid Trouble With the Police

But the on-site cops' attempts to snatch our crops haven't, of course, stopped many people from trying to have the best darn weekend of their lives, pharmaceutical-style. Here are some stories about attempted smugglings.

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Alejandra Loera

Last Weekend thousands of music fans gathered at the Empire Polo Fields to soak up the Coachella Valley rays, sink their feet in the lush grass and enjoy three days of sensory visuals, a sense of freedom, adventure and most importantly and eclectic mix of music. Though the festival offers revelers everything from rock, indie, hip hop and electronic music there are plenty of other activities, art installations and place to roam around and get lost in. With week two upon us we decided to break down the top 5 most underrated Coachella hang-outs to cool off, people watch and maybe score some free shit.

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