In the past, the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has been a rather testosterone-heavy event. Even though the fest launched way back in 1999, it took until 2007 for promoters to book a female headliner, Björk, and another woman didn't headline for another decade after that, when Lady Gaga finally graced the main stage. In 2016, the Los Angeles Times additionally complained in its op-ed "Coachella: Plenty of bros, but where are the female headliners?" that women, at that time, comprised less than 25 percent of any overall Coachella lineup, year to year.
This year, however, things look refreshingly different. For the first time in Coachella history (or herstory), there are two female headliners, Friday's Lana Del Rey and Sunday's Doja Cat, and the bill is stacked with amazing women like indie-rockers Suki Waterhouse, Brittany Howard, the Japanese House, Faye Webster, and the Last Dinner Party; pop stars No Doubt, Tinashe, Ice Spice, and Grimes; and even surprise guests Billie Eilish, Shakira, and Becky G.
And as Coachella 2024 kicked off Friday, April 12, in Indio, it was Taylor Swift associate and all-grown-up former Disney star Sabrina Carpenter, thrillingly campy bio-queen and all-around total delight Chappell Roan, and solo soul sensation Chlöe Bailey (of the Beyoncé-mentored, Grammy-nominated sister duo Chlöe x Halle) who especially brought much-needed feminine energy to the desert.
Carpenter, of course, is not a newcomer; she released her first album in 2015. But her Friday late-afternoon performance nonetheless felt a star-making and career-launching moment. Taking the main stage against a pastel vintage-postcard motel backdrop, flanked by jazz-handsy Broadway hoofers, and looking like a perfect pop-starlet pinup with her Psssst!-puffed, ice-cream-blonde bouffant and Baby Spice mini-dress (which she swapped during her pajama-party "Feather" finale for a "Jesus Was a Carpenter" sleep-shirt — a seeming reference to the recent controversy over her filming "Feather's" music video in a Catholic church )... Carpenter was a whole vibe.
Every retro-glamorous aesthetic detail of Carpenter's creative show was thought-out and curated at a Trixie Mattel/Dita Von Teese level, and certainly at a higher level than most of Friday's artists who actually received larger-font billing on Coachella's poster. This was theater, starting from the dramatic intro: a fake '50s TV drama called The Wreckage, depicting the singer crashing her classic car into the stage's heartbreak hotel, with her later popping open the dented vehicle's trunk to reveal a functioning piano inside.
Side note: I would totally binge-watch The Wreckage, as well as another between-song onscreen vignette, a fake '70s soap opera titled A Taste of Romance with Carpenter in full-on big-haired Barbizon mode, on MeTv if they were real shows. I'd also compulsively buy anything she was selling in her fake infomercial, and 100 percent believe anything she reported on her fake "Channel 10 News" show. She faked it so real, she was beyond fake. Suffice to say, if Carpenter is putting this much effort into a 6 p.m. slot, I can't wait to see what she does when she is an actual festival headliner.
Another Friday daytime performer undoubtedly destined for big-font greatness was Chappell Roan. The dance-pop darling over-spillingly packed the Gobi Tent with adoring fans — mostly young girls and queer kids — who mass-chanted her name before she even emerged, looking like a glam goddess in Siouxsie Sioux/Nina Hagen warpaint, boss-babe Burberry plaid, and wild red pre-Raphaelite crimped curls. (Roan quickly ditched that executive-realness/corporate-Goth look, disrobing to reveal an "EAT ME" onesie, S&M harness, and '80s-video-vixen studded leather thong. Get you a girl who can do both!)
Chappell delivered the vivacious performance of an already-arrived superstar, with booming diva vocals and full command of the practically openly weeping crowd, who readily heeded the "Y.M.C.A."-reminiscent dance instructions for her festival-ready banger, "Hot to Go." ("H-O-T-T-O-G-O/Snap and clap and touch your toes/Raise your hands, now body-roll, dance it out, you're hot to go!") There's no need to spell this one out: Chappell is one to worship. She'll probably be on the main stage next year, so practice your "H-O-T-T-O-G-O" choreo now.
And finally, Chlöe Bailey was bringing baby-Beychella vibes to the too-small Gobi Tent, with a fierce, fun set complete with advanced choreography, triple-ponytail hairography, and attitude for days. Many of her scathing songs targeted two-timing, totally unworthy men (including "Cheatback," the live debut of new single "Boy Bye," and a cover of Missy Elliott's "One Minute Man"), and when Chloe revealed that her ex had cheated on her, she posed in her curve-clinging cutout stagewear and gasped incredulously, "Can you believe it? Cheated on this?" The girl had a point. I hope that jerk was home alone, watching Chloe kill it on Coachella's livestream and eating his little heart out.
The 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival continues Saturday with No Doubt reuniting for the first time since 2015, along with anticipated sets by the above-mentioned Ice Spice, Grimes, and Last Dinner Party.
