AUGUST BROWN | CONTRIBUTOR
Lana Del Rey, Tyler, the Creator and Doja Cat have been announced as headliners for the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
The 23rd installment of the Goldenvoice-produced festival, scheduled for April 12-14 and April 19-21, will draw 125,000 fans per day to the Empire Polo Club in Indio. This year is arguably the most L.A.-centric bill of headliners to date, with two artists (Tyler and Doja Cat) who grew up here, and a third, Del Rey, who lives here and is deeply immersed in the city’s aesthetic.
Orange County’s No Doubt will reunite as part of the bill. The last concert the Gwen Stefani-led pop-ska act performed together was in 2015.
Del Rey, the beguiling singer-songwriter who last performed at Coachella in 2014, will headline on Friday. She initially booked was for a top support slot in 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic forced Goldenvoice to cancel the festival. She’s since released a number of albums, including “Chemtrails Over the Country Club,” “Blue Banisters” and the acclaimed “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd,” which is nominated for five Grammys this year, including album and song of the year.
Saturday headliner Tyler, the Creator has been a fixture at Coachella and on Goldenvoice’s festival circuit for his entire career. He performed at the fest in 2015 and 2018, and has curated and performed at his own annual Camp Flog Gnaw festival in Los Angeles since 2012. His last studio album was 2021’s “Call Me If You Get Lost,” which debuted atop the Billboard 200 album chart.
Singer-rapper Doja Cat, who will headline on Sunday, performed at Coachella in 2019 and again in 2022 behind her Grammy-nominated album “Planet Her,” which hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200. Her most recent album, “Scarlet,” was an edgier turn from her recent sleek pop, with barbed singles like “Paint the Town Red,” “Attention” and “Agora Hills.”
Other prominent acts on the bill include Mexican singer Peso Pluma, who enjoyed a breakout year with his single “Ella Baila Sola” with Eslabon Armado and his album “Génesis,” which hit No. 3 on the Billboard 200; Lil Uzi Vert; Bizarrap; Deftones; Justice; Blur; Grammy best new artist nominee Ice Spice; Sublime; and J Balvin.
Rockers Rage Against the Machine were slated to headline Coachella with a reunion gig in 2020, and their fans hoped for a return this year. But drummer Brad Wilk recently said the band would not be returning to stages.
Last year’s event, with headliners Bad Bunny, Blackpink and Frank Ocean, showed a new openness to global pop atop the bill, and seemed like a return to normalcy after a period of pandemic-thwarted plans and last-minute lineup changes. But Goldenvoice once again had to scramble after Ocean, who was originally booked for 2020, pulled out of the second weekend after a divisive performance and an injury. He was replaced by a reunited Blink-182.
This time, Coachella returns after a boom year in the live industry, when major acts like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Morgan Wallen sold out stadiums and dominated pop culture. (Wallen will headline Coachella’s country-music cousin, Stagecoach, at the same site on April 26-28 with Eric Church and Miranda Lambert.) Live venues from clubs to arenas showed double-digit growth from 2022.
While some festivals faced challenges post-pandemic, others like Camp Flog Gnaw sold out last year, and Goldenvoice debuted Power Trip, a hard-rock version of its wildly successful 2016 Desert Trip fest. Coachella remains the most profitable music festival in the country.
This year’s lineup announcement came notably later than last year’s, which landed Jan. 10.
Presale passes for both weekends of Coachella, which start at $499, sold out in June.
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