So, if someone asked you to headline Coachella, you’d do it, right? Like let’s say you were in a moderately successful band — a band with a colossally outstanding debut album, even! — and you were from nearby Las Vegas, and your frontman suffered from delusions of grandeur that sometimes (sometimes) he could even back up. Let’s say that five years ago, you’d sweated through an early set on one of Coachella’s smaller stages, and dreamed of the day when you’d get to play after dark with all the lights and the video and the bing-bang-boom. And then one day, someone came to you and asked if you’d like to have your name on the very top of the bill. You’d do it, right?
I cannot help but think that the Killers, despite everything they have going for them, should have said no. But I also cannot blame them for trying.
Today, the desert was hotter, and the crowds thicker, and the music louder than yesterday. There was a stretch in the early evening that was so laden with choices it was difficult to move in any one direction at all: TV on the Radio flooded the air with artistry. The Fleet Foxes hypnotized the masses into silence. Thievery Corporation put the mainstage in a dancing mood, and M.I.A. took that party over the top when she stood in the center of the pit to shoot off the blazing bullets of “Paper Planes.” When Brandon Flowers and his bandmates kicked off their set with “Human” and “Somebody Told Me,” the packed field was full of dancing bodies and waving arms and singing voices, making me think I’d vastly underestimated their current draw.
Less than six songs later, however, those bodies would almost literally diminish by half, leaving only the faithful thousands standing between the soundboard and the stage to continue the celebration — about the same number of people who’d sell out a basketball arena. Not bad… but not enough for this environment. Yes, hits were played; yes, fireworks were set off. Yet people kept streaming for the dance tent and the exits, some without so much as turning their heads. In my opinion, if you can’t hold down a captive field of people until midnight, you have no business headlining Coachella. For a variety of reasons, the Killers didn’t even come close.
After the jump, all the aforementioned bands, plus Bob Mould, Liars, Joss Stone, Paolo Nutini, and Amanda Palmer. Plus more on this awkward Killers situation, and an invitation to submit your ideas on how to fix the problem of too many festivals vs. not enough bands to headline them — because I spent my night talking to a number of really smart people, and none of us could come up with the answer.
After reports that 
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Good morning, Mixers! It’s 62 degrees and warming here in Indio, California — time to pack the trusty backpack and hit the fields of the Empire Polo Club for yet another exciting rendition of Coachella. I’ll be blogging daily digests from the festival this weekend, bringing you all the excitement of a lineup that is, in my opinion, a bit odd: Paul McCartney, The Killers, and The Cure, supported by Morrissey, Leonard Cohen, My Bloody Valentine, and the Winehouse-replacing M.I.A., who finally gets a spot on the mainstage where she belongs. (
Last month, EW’s Jason Adams put up a post on the Music Mix asking 
