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Every April, hundreds of thousands of people descend on Coachella Valley for two weekends of music, $25 caesar salads, and dust-related health complications. The rest of us experience the festival through our phones, watching it unfold on our social media feeds from the comfort of our couches.
The biggest moments from Coachella 2024 range from superstar-making sets to technical difficulties and broken bones, and they all get credit on our list.
Chappell Roan ascends
If you were plugged into the pop music scene before April 12, you may have been aware of Chappell Roan’s growing popularity. If you weren’t, Roan’s performances at Coachella made her hard to ignore. Posts of her performance on the first weekend and her life-size butterfly outfit on the second boosted her streaming numbers and bumped her latest single “Good Luck, Babe!” to no. 77 on the Billboard 100, her first-ever entry on the chart.
Lana del Rey duets with Billie
In her first weekend set, Lana del Rey sang her classics, brought out Billie Eilish to sing “Video Games” and “Ocean Eyes,” and finished her set by riding off on the back of a motorcycle. Onstage, Eilish told the crowd that del Rey was “the reason for half of you bitches’ existence, including mine,” echoing sentiments she shared in a February interview with del Rey for Interview Magazine. Fans called the set one of del Rey’s best and were upset by critics who found it underwhelming.
Kesha and Renee Rapp remix “Tik Tok” (the song)
Songstress Renee Rapp brought Kesha on stage during her set for a rendition of her hit 2010 song “Tik Tok.” They changed the opening line, “Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy,” to “Wake up in the morning like fuck P. Diddy” as an acknowledgment of the producer’s alleged abuse.
Grimes is frustrated by first-weekend flubs
A clip of Grimes’s feral, unfettered screeching on the Coachella stage racked up more than 4 million views on TikTok. Grimes often screams during performances, but the ones in her Coachella set were borne of frustration after a technical setback that plagued a large portion of her performance. Grimes took to X to explain herself and promised a better experience for concertgoers on weekend two.
No Doubt reunites, brings Olivia Rodrigo as special guest
For the first time in 10 years, No Doubt reunited to perform for Coachella crowds. To mark the occasion, Gwen Stefani welcomed Olivia Rodrigo to the stage to sing “Bathwater.” Rodrigo wore an “I heart ND” tank, an ode to her love of the band and its frontwoman, whom she has credited as an inspiration in the past.
Credit: John Shearer/Getty Images for No Doubt
Doja Cat makes history
Doja Cat became the first female rapper to headline Coachella and opened her first set dressed head-to-toe in long blonde extensions. On the second weekend, a clip of her looking around expectantly for a dancer to hand her a microphone while performing “Fuck the Girls” racked up millions of views on X and TikTok.
Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Coachella
Taylor Swift parties with Travis Kelce
Taylor Swift attended the first weekend of Coachella with her boyfriend Travis Kelce ahead of the release of her double album, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology, on April 19. She was seen watching collaborator Jack Antonoff’s set with his band Bleachers, taking photos with Real Housewives‘ Teresa Giudice, being lifted in the air by Kelce, and generally having a great time.
Kid Cudi breaks his foot
On the last day of Coachella, during a set that was added to the schedule less than a week prior, rapper Kid Cudi optimistically leaped from the stage and was unable to continue his show after hitting the ground. It turns out he broke his foot in the fall. In a video posted to X, Cudi said, “I learned a valuable lesson, not more prancing around [or] jumping off stages.”
