In 2016, Goldenvoice put on a festival for the ages (and the aged) when they filled the Empire Polo Fields with Baby Boomer favorites like Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, and The Who for Desert Trip. In 2023, seven years later, the organizers of Coachella returned to Indio for another three-day, six-band, Generation X mega-fest they dubbed Power Trip.
Gone were the feel-good oldies so enjoyed by America’s purveyors of peace and love. Instead, they were supplanted by the fist-pumping, ear-deafening, head-banging sounds of metal—from the heavy 1970s British variety of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, to the hair of Guns N’ Roses and the kilts of AC/DC, to the psychedelic stylings of Tool and the thrashing of Metallica.
The weekend began with a Friday evening set from Iron Maiden. With Bruce Dickinson on vocals, Steve Harris on bass, Nicko McBrain on drums, and the trio of Adrian Smith, Janick Gears, and Dave Murray on guitar, Maiden made their way through a 15-song setlist laden with tracks from 1986’s Somewhere in Time and 2021’s Senjuku, along with a handful of deep cuts. Such was the same general combination of songs that fueled Iron Maiden through The Future Past tour this year. Their scintillating show in the desert, which finished off that tour, was no exception.
View this post on Instagram
Guns N’ Roses were exceptional in the late-night slot on Friday as well—certainly better than their previous appearance in Indio, when they headlined Coachella in 2016. Axl Rose sounded much more like his old, screaming self, with Duff McKagan holding it down on bass and Slash and Richard Fortus wailing away on guitar. All that held the band back was a 35-minute delay to their start, which put a crimp in their setlist as they came up against curfew.
Nonetheless, GNR managed to squeeze in 29 songs before they got the boot. That run featured a whopping eight songs from the iconic 1987 album Appetite For Destruction—including “It’s So Easy” as the opener, “Paradise City” to close, and “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Sweet Child of Mine” in between—along with classic covers like Velvet Revolver’s “Slither”, Wings’ “Live and Let Die”, and Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”.
View this post on Instagram
Saturday featured a pair of highly anticipated comebacks on the bill. Judas Priest opened the day’s proceedings, ably filling the shoes of Ozzy Osbourne after the 74-year-old bowed out due to health problems, though lead singer Rob Halford is not all that much younger at a spritely 72.
Halford leaned into his age, walking with a cane for the first of the show before shedding the assistance entirely—and emphatically. He and bassist Ian Hill may be the lone remaining members from Judas Priest’s original lineup, but that didn’t stop the band from rocking out with fan favorites like “Heading Out to the Highway”, “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming”, and “Hell Bent For Leather”. Nor did it keep Glenn Tipton, the band’s original guitarist and songwriter, from braving his battle with Parkinson’s Disease to perform “Metal Gods”.
Even with health-related shifts in its lineup, Judas Priest continues to showcase its creative faculties. In fact, Halford and his group used the occasion in Indio to announce their forthcoming album, Invincible Shield.
View this post on Instagram
AC/DC closed the day’s proceedings with the band’s first live performance since 2016, and its first trip back to the Empire Polo Fields since headlining Coachella in 2015. Though guitarist Malcolm Young remains retired, two of the band’s previously sidelined members—singer Brian Johnston and bassist Cliff Williams—rejoined Angus Young and company for a performance that was heavy on the hits. Yet, among radio favorites like “Back in Black”, “Thunderstruck”, “Hell’s Bells”, “Stiff Upper Lip”, “You Shook Me All Night Long”, and “Highway to Hell”, AC/DC left ample room for tracks off 2020’s POWER UP, while hinting at touring plans to come. The hard-rocking Australians ended the night with an encore of “T.N.T.” and “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)”, along with fireworks and a 21-cannon salute.
View this post on Instagram
Come Sunday, throngs of metalheads returned to the Polo Fields to worship first at the alter of Tool. From time-tested standards like “Forty Six & 2”, “The Grudge”, “Stinkfist”, and “Aenima” to newer favorites such as “Jambi”, “The Pot”, “Fear Inoculum”, “Pneuma”, and “Invincible”, Maynard James Keenan and his not-so-merry band of rockers had tens of thousands of attendees questioning the nature of reality with each riff, lyric, and drum beat. The trippy visuals and mesmerizing lasers played an important part in that, as well, as they often do at Tool shows.
Nary a mosh pit was spotted on the polo fields during the 100-minute outing, though not for a lack of effort on the band’s part, with Adam Jones, Justin Chancellor, and Danny Carey carrying the load on guitar, bass, and drums, respectively. That subdued response may have had something to do with the triple-digit heat that struck the Coachella Valley over the weekend, or, more likely, the fans were saving their powder for Metallica’s spectacular finale.
View this post on Instagram
Fresh off their rousing M72 World Tour, James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett, and Robert Trujillo finished off their latest blockbuster run with a blistering two-hour set. The opening run of “Whiplash”, “Creeping Death”, “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, and “Enter Sandman” had the masses crashing into each other from the jump. The band gave voice to 2023’s 72 Seasons with “Lux Aeterna” and “Too Far Gone”, and made room for Hammett and Trujillo’s masterful instrumentation with their bespoke instrumental composition, “Funk in the Desert”.
All told, Metallica’s set did the most of any at Power Trip to bridge generational gaps, if not obliterate them entirely. Younger fans flooded in to fill the general admission section with many a mosh pit kept active by hard-driving classics like “Fuel”, “Seek & Destroy”, and “Master of Puppets”.
View this post on Instagram
That a band that’s been around for 42 years can still draw newer generations to the party the way that Metallica does is a testament to the power of metal. For all that music has morphed into over the years, courtesy of digital production and a broader brush of feelings, there’s still no substitute for the raw power and emotion of guitar, bass, drums, and screaming vocals, and with all that’s going on in the world today, there’s no shortage of angst—and it’s still best described by bands that cut their teeth in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s.
The post Metallica, Tool, Guns N’ Roses, AC/DC Bring Generations On A ‘Power Trip’ To Coachella Valley appeared first on L4LM.
