Coachella 2026: The 21 best moments from the fest's 25th anniversary weekend

Coachella’s 25th anniversary was more than just a milestone in the festival’s history. It’s a year that showcased its vitality and vision for the future — and yes, it’s still a great place to take a selfie. While the amount of great music we absorbed as a staff left us a little delirious, it ensured we’d have plenty of moments to recall for a highlight reel of Weekend 1. From Radiohead’s immersive bunker experience, to Sabrina Carpenter’s triumphant return, Justin Bieber’s YouTube karaoke set and Karol G becoming the first Latina to headline the fest on Sunday night, here’s our list of the 21 most memorable moments we caught during Weekend 1.

FRIDAY

Radiohead’s bunker is Coachella’s version of Disney’s Tiki Room

Finally! Coachella has its own version of the Enchanted Tiki Room attraction from Disneyland — and it comes from the most unlikely of artists: British alt rockers Radiohead.

Here’s what I mean by that.

Say you’re in search of an air-conditioned place to rest your weary feet while a visual and musical spectacle plays out before you. Where do you go? If you’re a parent taking your kid to the happiest place on Earth, you go to the Enchanted Tiki Room. If you’re a desert festivalgoer in Indio, you go to the Bunker.

Tip: The ushers appeared to be letting festivalgoers into the experience throughout the runtime of the movie, so there’s a possibility you’ll be able to get in even if you didn’t land one of the scarce time slots. And seeing as how the experience was only about a quarter of the way full by the time it ended, you might be in luck. (David Viramontes)

Devo performs at the Mojave Tent during Coachella.

Devo’s new wave dance party at sunset

Look, it’s a very different Coachella than when we last saw Devo here in 2010. The Mojave Tent should have been more packed for these legends.

However, those of us who hightailed it here were treated to a set of the band’s best. Early on in the performance, the band played “Girl U Want” into “Whip It,” and during the latter, Mark Mothersbaugh tossed a handful of red “energy domes” — you know them as the Devo flowerpot hats — into the crowd.

Similar to Bini earlier, Devo had a costume change from the navy worksuits into their signature yellow Devo suits for a rousing performance of “Uncontrollable Urge.” There was even some choreography. (Vanessa Fanko)

A Coachella sunset served as a cocktail

One of the best parts of Coachella is catching the sherbet-colored sunset at the end of the day, not just because cooler temps are ahead but because of the Lisa Frank explosion of colors that bleed into the horizon as it shifts to night. That event was made all the sweeter today when I paired the actual sunset with the Coachella sunset cocktail, which layers citrus and a speared kumquat with tequila, served in a branded cup that doubles as a souvenir. (Danielle Dorsey)

Indie minimalists the xx come back bigger, brasher than ever

The xx’s return was among the most buzzed-about sets of the festival this year, a credit to how well their catalog has stood up on its merits. At their debut, they almost singlehandedly inaugurated a shift toward hyper-intimate headphone pop — it’s hard to imagine Billie Eilish sounding quite the same without them.

Yet on Friday, they bolstered that purity with the confidence, swagger and precision of the veteran rock act they’ve become.

Dressed in their typical all-black palette, their faces carrying a little more gravity and composure with age, the set slipped between the ships-in-the-night duets of “Shelter” and “VCR” to the after-hours whomp of Romy’s “Enjoy Your Life.” “On Hold” best married the band’s two worlds, sample-soaked yet rock driven; “Angels” remained a peerless devotional ballad. (August Brown)

Katseye performs ‘Golden’ with ‘K-Pop Demon Hunters’ at Coachella

Katseye proved no this ain’t their debut at their first Coachella performance, bringing out Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami for a kinetic performance of “Golden” from “K-Pop Demon Hunters.” Despite the absence of Manon, the girl group packed the festival field with Eyekons packed shoulder to shoulder as far as the Do Lab. (D.V.)

Turnstile performs at the Outdoor Theatre.

Turnstile’s hardcore roots and tender hearts on display at Coachella

Turnstile’s set on the Outdoor Theatre on Friday night had some unexpectedly poignant moments from the Baltimore band with hardcore roots.

Before the band took the stage, there was footage of interviews with fans and also a previously recorded message from Bill Yates, the father of Turnstile singer Brendan Yates.

“We love you, Turnstile loves you and enjoy the ride,” he said.

The band played a 55-minute set split between its last two albums, 2025’s “Never Enough” and 2021’s “Glow On,” in a condensed version of the tour they brought through Southern California last fall. Highlights included “Seein’ Stars” off the latest record, where Blood Orange’s Dev Hynes joined the band on the cello before his own late night set in the Mojave Tent, “Mystery” and “Holiday” off “Glow On” and set-closer “Birds,” which won a Grammy earlier this year. (V.F.)

Sabrina Carpenter brings her hits (and Susan Sarandon?) to Coachella

“How you feeling, Sabrinawood?” Sabrina Carpenter asked as she gazed out at the tens of thousands of fans she’d gathered into a makeshift city Friday night. “I can’t believe I’m headlining Coachella.

“I mean, I can a little bit.”

Indeed, when Carpenter made her Coachella debut in 2024, the Disney kid turned pop icon vowed that the next time she played the desert festival, her name would be atop the bill.

She returned as promised this weekend as one of music’s biggest acts, with two No. 1 singles and a pair of Grammy-nominated albums under her belt and a story to tell about her rise to stardom. (Mikael Wood)

SATURDAY

Jack White draws a crowd at the Mojave Tent at Coachella.

Jack White kicks off Coachella’s rock-tastic Day 2

I thought Jack White’s opening riffs were a beacon. Then he ended his surprise Mojave Tent set with the White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army.”

It will not surprise you that the tent, which attracted an overflow crowd once he played the iconic riff, had people singing along and jumping and pumping their arms in the air to the track that has become a sporting event staple (including for my beloved Baltimore Ravens).

What did surprise me was that the crowd was also ridiculously loud for a sing-along to the Raconteurs’ “Steady As She Goes” a few songs before.

White ended the set by telling the crowd that he was planning to catch Geese and the Strokes that day and that music is sacred.

Rock is indeed alive and well at Coachella, especially as the fans kept singing “Seven Nation Army” after White and his band had left the stage and the set was over. (V.F.)

A visit to Coachella’s coolest rock club, literally, to catch Ecca Vandal

I know my phone says it isn’t as hot as it was Friday but maybe it was rocking out with Jack White that made us all a little more sweaty.

I booked it over to the Sonora Tent to catch a little bit of Ecca Vandal to confirm that the Sonora Tent still has the vibes of a cool rock club in the middle of the festival. I mean cool both figuratively and literally since the AC is always blasting.

The blue-haired singer leaped onto the stage — wearing a short poofy dress and tall boots — accompanied by a drummer and a multi-instrumentalist with a lot of flashing lights.

The beginning of her set was leaning on more of her pop crossover songs than the punk vibes that initially drew me to her, but I did catch her do the rocking “Bleed But Never Die” before I needed to move on to catch another set. (V.F.)

The Goodyear blimp flies over the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Saturday.

We sent our reporter to see what Coachella looks like from the Goodyear Blimp

The ride on the Goodyear Blimp over the Coachella grounds was gentler than I’d anticipated — kind of like a boat ride in a harbor. We took off from a giant dirt field at the Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport in Thermal, Calif., and tooled around for 30 minutes or so; when we got over Coachella, we could see a few hundred Beliebers camped out as close to the main stage as they could get — nine or 10 hours before Bieber’s performance was scheduled to begin.

They looked so little down there — so small in size, so big in Beliebf. (M.W.)

Giveon performs at Coachella on April 16, 2022.

Giveon bottles the magic hour

Long Beach’s R&B savant Giveon kept his Coachella stage to a monochrome motif during his sundown set. Black suit, white lights — he didn’t need anything more to bottle the magic hour on Saturday.

An old soul with with a huge, commanding voice, his catalog hovers between the orchestral swoon of pre-rock ballads, the pristine melodies of Anita Baker and the rangy, resilient yearning of his hometown’s soul tradition. Kendrick Lamar and SZA may have formally kicked off the Luther Vandross revival, but Giveon has inherited it, especially on his latest 2025 LP “Beloved.”

Backed by a big, throwback live band, “Lost Me” beautifully papered over a failed relationship with an uncertain young bravado; “Backup Plan” gave his one-of-kind baritone room to roam and plead. He brought out Kehlani for “Folded,” another perfectly regal ballad that revels in a small aperture. But by the time he got to “Heartbreak Anniversary,” his suit was coming off and the mood was positively lusty.

Giveon should be counted among the great SoCal voices, and his Saturday show proved his ambitions for it have no ceiling. (A.B.)

Sombr’s star burns brighter when he brought out Billy Corgan

Sombr’s performance happened on a day when Coachella had a notable number of rockers — Jack White kicked things off in the Mojave Tent in a set announced earlier this week and there was much excitement for the Strokes on the Coachella stage Saturday night before headliner Justin Bieber.

But one of the moments that simultaneously proved that rock never died and that it’s on the rise was when Sombr brought out a special guest, who Boose said was making his first visit to the festival. Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins came out to join in on a cover of his band’s mid-’90s alt-rock hit “1979,” which was more recently trending audio on TikTok and Instagram. (V.F.)

David Byrne performs at the Outdoor Theatre at Coachella.

David Byrne and the art of performance as an experience

More than an hour before Justin Bieber decided to have a YouTube karaoke party to headline Coachella, David Byrne closed out the Outdoor Theatre on Saturday night in stark relief.

Byrne’s set started 25 minutes late and he arrived on stage wearing an orange jumpsuit and holding an acoustic guitar. He was soon followed by a dozen or so instrumentalists and backing singers in matching garb for “Everybody Laughs,” a track off his 2025 album “Who Is the Sky?” (V.F.)

Nine Inch Noize performs at the Sahara Stage.

Nine Inch Noize revamps industrial rock for a ghoulish rave

Performing in a cutout in the middle of a huge elevated ramp, Reznor, his Nails bandmate Atticus Ross and Boys Noize hovered atop a dense rack of synths and samplers. They built on the ethos of their arena show, stripping the NIN catalog — including “Closer,” “Heresy,” “The Warning” and “Copy of A” — for parts, and then rebuilding the songs for this strobe-licked club setting.

One surprise for Coachella fans driving out was a billboard announcing Nine Inch Noize had a whole album of collaborative material en route, and the segments they played revealed how crucial Boys Noize is to this new setup. His bone-snapping breakdowns and vicious, detuned clangs wouldn’t be possible without Reznor’s ‘90s industrial vision, but here he returned the favor to ensure this combo translated on a dedicated rave stage. (A.B.)

The Strokes perform at the Coachella Stage.

It’s kind of a joke that the Strokes are still this good

Ninety minutes or so later, JB was indeed due to take over the space. But while Casablancas and his bandmates had control of it, it was theirs: This was an almost laughably strong showing by a band of rascally garage-rock veterans who somehow might sound better now — tighter, punchier, more effortlessly tuneful — than they did a quarter-century ago.

With an upcoming album to hype, the Strokes did their new single “Going Shopping,” a characteristically droll critique of late-capitalist apathy. (“Solidarity can be difficult when you got cool stuff to lose,” Casablancas sings.) But for the most part they stuck to the indelible hits, each as ingeniously structured — and as bitterly romantic — as the last: “Hard to Explain,” “Someday,” “Last Nite,” “New York City Cops.”

“You guys excited about the draft?” Casablancas asked at one point. “I hope to lead one of the Coachella units — the sexiest unit in our proud military.” (M.W.)

Justin Bieber performs at the Coachella Stage.

Justin Bieber (and his laptop) headlining Coachella Night 2

This is how we found out Justin Bieber is a YouTube Premium subscriber.

The 32-year-old teen-pop survivor headlined Coachella on Saturday night, and for roughly half an hour in the middle of his set, what Bieber did was sit behind a laptop and sing along to his old music videos — often an octave down from where he recorded them — as he searched up the songs on YouTube and played them over the festival’s state-of-the-art sound system.

YouTube Premium, that is, given that he (and we) faced no ads during the performance. (M.W.)

SUNDAY

Times staffer takes the stage at Coachella

For most artists, landing a gig at the most prestigious music festival happens at the zenith of their career. For reporter Kailyn Brown, playing Coachella is a side gig. But after seeing her set at the festival, at least one reporter anticipates that, sooner or later, being a Times journalist might become the real side gig.

On Sunday afternoon, Brown, a.k.a. KailynHype, played a DJ set at Party in my Living Room. The activation is a collab with GV Black, “a commitment and opportunity for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) to be seen at the festival,” according to the Coachella website. “We actively promote diversity to change the narrative of what it means to be at Coachella.” (D.V.)

Wet Leg performs on the Coachella Stage.

Rock still isn’t dead at Coachella: Wet Leg edition

Even without rock headliners at Coachella, the genre is alive and thriving with a new generation. This afternoon’s evidence? A blistering set from British rockers Wet Leg.

Opening with “Catch These Fists,” the set seemed to wake up Coachella’s typically sleepy Sunday with a jolt of rock. Other early highlights included “Wet Dream” and “Liquidize.” (V.F.)

Less Than Jake performs at Coachella's Heineken House on April 12.

Less Than Jake transports us from Coachella to the Warped Tour

Less Than Jake at the Heineken House was definitely one of the most unexpected moments in my years of covering the festival — especially considering that Sean Paul had the venue, an open-air beer hangout that includes a modest stage without a metal barricade near the Indio Central Market, so overflowing Saturday night that the Coachella app sent an alert to people that it was at capacity.

But for us Xennials and millennials in the crowd who remember the OG Warped Tour, the ska punk band’s set was a fun break from the more traditional Coachella fare.

Singer and guitarist Chris DeMakes made some jokes about how out of place the band was compared to the likes of Saturday night headliner Justin Bieber, but even on a small stage, Less Than Jake brought out its production tricks of toilet paper guns, inflatable dancing wind socks and a gaggle of balloons. (V.F.)

At 78, Iggy Pop still has a lust for life

I was worried that Iggy Pop would have suffered the fate of Devo and David Byrne on Friday and Saturday, respectively, of not having nearly enough fans watching these legends. I shouldn’t have.

On Sunday evening, a respectable crowd showed up in the Mojave Tent to pay their respects to the Godfather of Punk, who first played Coachella in a reunion with the Stooges in 2003.

Not only did Pop have a full band that included the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner on guitar, but and also a full horn section.

The set kicked off with “T.V. Eye” before “Raw Power” (a song I never knew could be so enhanced by the aforementioned horn section), but the early highlights also included “Gimme Danger,” “The Passenger” and “Lust for Life” in a 1-2-3 punch of perfect Pop. (V.F.)

Karol G performs on the Coachella Stage.

Karol G’s historic headlining set was lusty, powerful and overdue

On Sunday night, Karol G became the first Latina to headline Coachella. Along with all her pride in that achievement, she seemed a little angry at that fact too.

“It feels late,” the Colombian superstar said onstage, in a brief English-language address to the audience in a set otherwise fully in Spanish. “ It’s been 27 years of this festival going on. … Before me, there were so many great Latino artists that gave me the opportunity.”

“Latinos have been struggling in this country lately,” she continued. “We stand for them. I’m proud this brings out the best of us — unity, resilience, a strong spirit. We want everyone to feel welcome to our culture, our roots, our music, I want everyone to feel proud of where you come from.”

Karol let those lines here serve as her brief indictment of the present, jackbooted environment around immigration and repression in the United States. Making belated history by headlining Coachella would seem far removed from those concerns.

Yet as this sweeping, heady, spectacularly ambitious and relentlessly lusty set showed over its hour and half, the body is the first site of liberation. If you can’t move like you want, where you want, you’re not free. Karol G finally commanding this stage was living proof it’s possible to kick that door in. (A.B.)

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Coachella 2026: The 21 best moments from the fest’s 25th anniversary weekend

ByNews Desk