The world’s most Instagram-able festival is currently underway in California, with everyone from Aphex Twin to Zedd lining up to take the stage across two weekends at Coachella.
Headlining this year’s festival, alongside Tame Impala and Ariana Grande, is Childish Gambino, who took to the stage on Friday, April 12, backed by a gospel choir to give the crowd – by his own admission – ‘an experience’.
Gambino, aka Donald Glover, performed a searing set full of energy and charged emotion. During his headline slot – as well as knocking out plenty of old and new material and, of course, his 2018 anthem This Is America – Glover found time to give a tribute to Nipsey Hussle, share a joint with a member of the audience, and deliver a few home truths to the California audience.
The 35-year-old polymath also found time to premiere his new movie, Guava Island, starring Rihanna, during the weekend.
Coachella is well known for being a glamorous festival. As much as people are there to see the bands and artists, it’s also the perfect opportunity to catch a veritable who’s who of that sweet Hollywood life. There’s no piss-soaked portaloos or muddy fields here.
The California desert sun also offers the perfect setting for some great #content for the ‘gram, natch.
However, as Glover opened his set with a brand new song, shortly afterwards he took the time to address the crowd directly, urging them to put their phones away and experience the event without the distraction.
Addressing the crowd, he laid out a few rules. The first one being ‘we really need to have a good time and feel each other’.
Rule number two was as follows, via Vulture:
Put your phones down. This is not a concert, this is church. If you came here to hear your favorite song, you should go home and do that.
If you want to come here to just take Instagram pictures and shit, you should go in the back and move right now. I want y’all to feel this shit. This is my church. I feel at home here.
This person, who caught it on camera, kindly obliged after Glover gave out his rules:
As well as his tribute to Nipsey Hussle, Glover also gave a tribute to the late Mac Miller, and performed a cover of Gnarls Barkley’s 2006 single Crazy.
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.