This year I’ll be attending my first Coachella Festival, which means three days in the California desert watching the likes of headliners Bjork, The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rage Against the Machine, but also the more hip of college and indie radio, including The Black Keys, Of Montreal, Rodrigo y Gabriela, The Roots, Amy Winehouse, Peaches and Kings of Leon.

A few things strike me as a make last minute preparations for the trip. 1) No band looks cool once you’ve wandered through their MySpace—reading the Kings of Leon MySpace, for example, makes me think that they’re trying to psyche up for a forthcoming high school reunion. 2) Didn’t we need Rage Against the Machine in 2004? Explaining their reunion, Tom Morello told NME that “”It occurred to all of us that the times were right to see if we can knock the Bush administration out in one fell swoop, and we hope to do that job well.” 3) In a few hours, I’ll be watching bands I’ve been listening to for years, (through albums, not, mercifully, their MySpace pages), but I’ll be seeing these icons in the unforgiving California sun while lining up for bottled water. There’s something geeky and pure in that.