Chapter 07 of 15 · about 11 min read · updated October 2026

07The moments

Several of Coachella's best-known moments didn't happen quite the way people remember. The Tupac on the main stage in 2012 was a projection bounced off a sheet of foil.²⁰⁵ Frank Ocean's ice rink was built, and the first people to stand on it were Skrillex, Fred again.. and Four Tet, a week after Ocean had left the bill.²⁰⁶ In 2026 the poster promised "The Bunker Debut of Radiohead," and Radiohead stayed home.¹⁰⁷ The festival is very good at making moments. This chapter is about what was underneath them.

Daft Punk's 2006 pyramid has a chapter of its own. Everything else is here.

Prince plays "Creep" (2008)

Prince headlined the second night, April 26, 2008. Somewhere in the set he played an eight-minute cover of Radiohead's "Creep," and he brought out Sheila E. for "The Glamorous Life."²⁰⁷

Fan videos of "Creep" were online by the next day, and Prince's team had them taken down.²⁰⁷ Since the song was Radiohead's, Radiohead had a view on this. Thom Yorke's, as reported by Consequence:

"Really? He's blocked it? Well, tell him to unblock it. It's our … song."²⁰⁸

Seven years later Prince let it back up. In December 2015 a new upload appeared with Radiohead's blessing, and Prince tweeted a link to it.²⁰⁷ On December 16, 2015, it was taken down again, this time after a claim from NPG Music Publishing, which is Prince's own publishing company.²⁰⁸ So the Prince side won both rounds, the second one against itself.

The hologram that wasn't (2012)

On April 15, 2012, during Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg's headline set, Tupac Shakur appeared on stage. Dre had come up with it and paid for it. "It was Dre's idea to bring Tupac back," said Nick Smith of AV Concepts, the San Diego company that projected it.²⁰⁵

Everybody called it a hologram. It wasn't one. It was Pepper's ghost, a 19th-century theater illusion: you project an image onto an angled transparent surface, and from the audience it looks like a person standing in the room.²⁰⁹ Victorian theaters did it with glass. AV Concepts used Mylar foil.²⁰⁵ Hypebeast named the UK firm Musion and its "Eyeliner" system as the technology underneath.²⁰⁹

The digital Tupac came from Digital Domain, James Cameron's visual-effects company. VFX supervisors Janelle Croshaw and Steve Preeg led a team of about 20 on it.²⁰⁵ Smith told MTV it took about four months.²⁰⁹

Then came the strange part. On September 11, 2012, five months after Coachella, Digital Domain Media Group filed for Chapter 11. It shut its operation in Port St. Lucie, Florida, let most of the 320 staff there go, and its CEO resigned.²¹⁰ No source ties the bankruptcy to Tupac. It's just the order things happened in.

As for the Tupac, the digital asset "has been archived," Andscape reported in 2017, and only the estate has access.²⁰⁵ Dre has said it was "strictly for Coachella."²⁰⁵ It didn't stay strictly there for long, though. The next chapter follows it.

Beychella (2018)

Beyoncé was booked to headline in 2017. She withdrew on her doctors' advice while she was pregnant, and came back in 2018 as the first Black woman ever to headline Coachella.²¹¹ She played both Saturdays. The first was April 14.²¹² (GRAMMY.com gives "April 13 and 22," but those were a Friday and a Sunday.)

The show was built as an HBCU homecoming, with about 200 people on stage.²¹¹ Rehearsals ran four months for the band, then four more for the dancers.²¹¹ Fans named it Beychella.²¹³

On YouTube, her weekend-one set peaked at about 458,000 people watching at once. That was the highest since the festival started streaming, according to TMZ's figures as reported by The FADER.²¹² A year later, on April 17, 2019, Netflix released Homecoming, a film of the set with a live album alongside.²¹¹ It won the Grammy for Best Music Film.²¹⁴

It also raised the bar for every headliner after her. Ariana Grande's production designer told The Hollywood Reporter that after Beyoncé, the festival had turned into a "competition."²¹⁵ TMZ's numbers, as The FADER reported them, had her peak about 75% above Lady Gaga's the year before, with 43.1 million live-stream views across 232 countries for the whole festival.²¹²

Kanye, the dome and the hill (2019)

He had form. Kanye West's 2011 set came with a stone mural in the style of the Pergamon Altar, a troupe of ballerinas and a lift that was reportedly used on Michael Jackson's last tour. Complex, looking back ten years later, said nobody had ever done it like him.²¹⁶

He was due to headline again in 2019. In January he walked away. He called the standard 40-by-60-foot stage "artistically limiting" and had asked, late in the day, for a custom dome. The festival didn't build it.²¹⁷

He came back anyway, without a headline slot. On Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019, Sunday Service, until then an ultra-exclusive private gathering, went up on a hill at the festival at 9 a.m.²¹⁸²¹⁹ The "Church Clothes" merch went with it: sweatshirts from $165 to $225 and "Jesus Walks" socks at $50.²²⁰ The hill, the crowd, and the arguments over the size of the crowd all belong to the camping chapter.

Frank Ocean's rink (2023)

That year's headliners were Bad Bunny, BLACKPINK and Frank Ocean. It was the first time every headliner was nonwhite.²²¹ Ocean closed the first Sunday, and it went wrong in several directions at once.

He came on about an hour late, in slippers.²²² There was meant to be a segment with skaters on an ice rink, and it didn't happen. A source told Rolling Stone he had hurt his ankle in on-site rehearsals the week before, and the show was reworked at the last minute.²²² Rolling Stone also found an LMU hockey player's Instagram Story showing nine men in skating gear, captioned "The Boys x Frank." That crew never performed.²²² On stage, Ocean said he was there for his brother Ryan Breaux, who died in 2020.²²²

The YouTube stream was pulled. "Frank Ocean is not scheduled to appear on the Coachella livestream," YouTube posted, and nobody gave a reason. Björk's set came off the stream schedule the same weekend.²²³ On April 19 he withdrew from weekend two. His team said he had been hurt on the festival grounds the week before, and "on doctor's advice" couldn't perform, "due to two fractures and a sprain in his left leg."²²⁴ Blink-182, who had played their first reunion show with Tom DeLonge on the first Friday, took his slot.²²⁴²²⁵

According to Billboard, as reported by The FADER, Ocean was contracted for $8M across both weekends. His weekend-one production reportedly cost more than his $4M fee, the rink was the most expensive part of it, and the festival stood to lose "several million dollars."²²⁶ Goldenvoice went looking for someone else to use the rink. On the second Sunday, Skrillex, Fred again.. and Four Tet stood on it to close the night.²⁰⁶

The bunker (2026)

The 2026 poster ended with a line nobody could explain: "The Bunker Debut of Radiohead Kid A Mnesia." Fans started guessing whether that meant Radiohead were playing.²²⁸

The permit file had the better answer. In September 2025 Goldenvoice applied to the City of Indio for a 16,130-square-foot "commercial foundation." City assessors valued it at $2.5M. Reporters found a large sand pit with steel reinforcement near the Sahara tent, and the concrete and steel framing suggested something permanent. A Rolling Stone representative confirmed Radiohead would not perform.¹⁰⁷

What got built was Radiohead's Motion Picture House: about 17,000 square feet with 38-foot ceilings, under the Empire Polo Fields, open to anyone with a festival wristband.²²⁹ Inside were the KID A MNESIA film and galleries of full-scale Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood artwork from the Kid A and Amnesiac sessions.²²⁹ The sound was a "6-point surround" mix built from the original multitracks, and Sean Evans directed the film.¹¹⁰

It had a long run-up. KID A MNESIA first came out in 2021 as a free digital exhibition for PS5, PC and Mac.¹¹⁰ A physical 20th-anniversary installation planned that year was cancelled over logistics and COVID.²²⁸ The desert finally got it built, five years late and underground.

So Radiohead made the 2026 poster without playing a note. Ed O'Brien did tell reporters the band plans to play 20 shows a year from 2027.¹¹⁰ After the festival the Motion Picture House went on tour: Brooklyn from May 6, Mexico City from October 27 and San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts from January 14, 2027.²³⁰ The film runs 75 minutes, and visits are booked in two-hour slots. Stereogum also listed a Chicago run at Cinespace in the summer, which the official site doesn't show.²³⁰¹¹⁰ The official FAQ says "the Coachella Bunker experience" was different in some ways from the touring version.²³⁰ It wasn't the first artist-built world on the grounds, either. Desert Sun points to Travis Scott's "The Village by Cactus Jack" in 2025.¹⁰⁷

Other nights people bring up

Bauhaus, upside down, 2005. It was the band's first show together since 1998. Peter Murphy opened with the nine-minute "Bela Lugosi's Dead," sung while hanging upside down over the stage like a bat.²³¹ When it was over he told the crowd: "Now you can say that you were there!"²³¹ The reunion bought them a tour opening for Nine Inch Nails and a 2008 album, Go Away White, and then they split again.²³¹

Madonna and Drake, 2015. On April 12 Madonna joined Drake's headline set for "Human Nature," "Hung Up" and "Bitch I'm Madonna," then kissed him for a long time. His recoil is the clip everyone remembers.²³² His Instagram caption afterward: "Moments to write home about."²³²

Lady Gaga, twice. In 2017 she took the headline slot Beyoncé had given up. On April 15 she debuted "The Cure" live and put it out on Spotify, iTunes and Tidal that night. It was an early case of a festival set doubling as a release.²³³ In 2025 she came back to open the Mayhem live show: a "demonic opera house" set, four acts and a finale, the first live "Garden of Eden," with Gesaffelstein on synths.²³⁴ BrooklynVegan's reviewer thought it was built more for the livestream and the screens than for the field.²³⁴

Ariana Grande and most of \*NSYNC, 2019. On April 14, Joey Fatone, JC Chasez, Chris Kirkpatrick and Lance Bass joined her for "Tearin' Up My Heart" and "Break Up With Your Girlfriend." She sang Justin Timberlake's parts herself.²³⁵ Nicki Minaj, Diddy and Mase turned up too. Grande told the crowd: "I've been rehearsing my whole f---ing life for this moment."²³⁵

Harry Styles and Shania Twain, 2022. On the first Friday, Styles brought out Twain for "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" and "You're Still the One." The same set was the first live performance of "As It Was."²³⁶ His introduction: "This lady taught me to sing. She also told me that men are trash."²³⁶

Odd Future in the Sahara, 2011. On April 15, 2011, the LA collective played the Sahara tent, and it was chaos. Pharrell came out.²³⁷ The LA Times later wrote that the set "launched or boosted" Tyler, the Creator, Syd, Steve Lacy and a singer named Frank Ocean.⁸² Twelve years later Ocean was the one closing the main stage.

deadmau5, last call, 2025. He was one of the Sahara's early big nights, on a Friday in 2010 opposite Jay-Z.²³⁸ Fifteen years later, on April 18, 2025, his back-to-back set with ZHU was cut short while he was visibly drunk; he apologized and posted: "Probably my last Coachella."²³⁹

Justin Bieber, 2026. Bieber went from cameo regular (with Ariana Grande in 2019, with Daniel Caesar and Giveon in 2022) to Saturday headliner, on a deal he negotiated himself. Rolling Stone's Canadian edition thought the crowd might have been "the biggest ever" at Coachella, and also that "Bieber missed the mark": a minimal set heavy on nostalgia, with people leaving during the acoustic deep cuts.²⁴⁰

Anyma and the wind, 2026. Anyma was due to follow Sabrina Carpenter at midnight on the first Friday. The festival called it off: "Due to strong wind conditions affecting Anyma's stage build, he is unable to perform tonight."²⁴¹ The same winds brought down a light fixture during John Summit's Do LaB set, injuring a festivalgoer, and that stage was closed.²⁴¹ By Sunday the Do LaB had a new Instagram post: "Let's end at the beginning. Anyma b2b Marlon Hoffstadt close out the Do LaB at 10:45pm tonight."²⁴² His full ÆDEN show moved to weekend two.²⁴¹ On a site that stages a different spectacle every year, the weather got a credit.

Weekend two gets the guests (2026)

For most of the two-weekend era, weekend two was the sequel. Surprise guests were part of the house style, and the famous ones above (Madonna in 2015, \*NSYNC in 2019, Shania Twain in 2022) all came on the first weekend. In 2026 almost all of the big ones landed a week later. Madonna joined Sabrina Carpenter for three songs, timed to her new single. SZA and Sexyy Red came out for Justin Bieber, and Bieber serenaded Billie Eilish. Olivia Rodrigo joined Addison Rae, and Snoop Dogg joined Giveon.²⁴³

Variety's Jem Aswad asked the industry why. One agent said weekend one "is driven heavily by influencer culture." Another insider put it as: "Weekend two is always better... more to see and less to be seen."²⁴³ Others said guests on weekend two protect a headliner's first-weekend spotlight. Sources said it was not a plan coordinated by Goldenvoice or YouTube.²⁴³ The festival has two identical weekends on paper. In practice they've started to split: weekend one for being seen, weekend two for whoever turns up.

Still open

• Who designed and built the bunker, what it cost beyond the $2.5M permit valuation, and whether it stays under the polo fields now that the film is on tour.
• What the Tupac really cost. Nobody has put a figure on the record.
• What the rink itself cost. Wikipedia credits Billboard with a figure; the reporting we could read says only "millions."