Charli xcx, Travis Scott, Green Day & More

“It took me 20 years to get to this stage,” T-Pain reflected to the sea of fans from Coachella’s main stage. A sign of his longevity and hitmaking ability, the Florida native delivered one of the weekend’s most fun sets, which kept the audience guessing at every turn. 

Whether it was his dancing, cover of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” or blending Travis Scott’s “FE!N” with his “Kiss Kiss” anthem, there was something for everyone to enjoy during his happy hour set. With hits like “Buy U a Drank” to “I’m N Luv” or his memorable assists on Lil Wayne’s “Got Money” and Ye’s “Good Life,” T-Pain’s set proved he is never going out of style. — MICHAEL SAPANORA

The Vampires have landed in the desert. Enhyped made history with their Coachella debut as the faster K-pop act to go from its first release to a Coachella festival stage. Draped in denim fits, the boy band ran through hits like “Walk the Line,” “Paranormal,” “XO,” “No Doubt” and “Sweet Venom” while keeping the crowd engaged at every turn. The act’s set brought fans on a journey as the stage set evolved from a burning city to the serenity of the clouds. The boys have come a long way from I-Land. — M.S

A years-in-the-making booking brought famed conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the sprawling 75-ish person orchestra (the “travel sized” version of the Los Angeles Philharmonic) to the Outdoor Stage for golden hour. The question ahead of time was if the group would find any connective tissue with the rest of the lineup or feel more like an anomaly, and the answer was ultimately both, in the best way. The show began with Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries,” and from there on more or less traded off between such classical bangers and more modern material co-performed with a host of guests. Laufey appeared to perform “From The Start” and her newest song “Silver Lining,” with the Phil then doing Vivaldi’s “Spring 1” before Maren Morris and a gospel choir performed “My Church.” Subsequent guests included Becky G, Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso, (the latter two artists also from Dudamel’s own native country of Venezuela), Zedd, the electronic producer who himself is classically trained and co-performed his 2012 smash “Clarity” and LL Cool J, who performed a medley of hits including “Mama Said Knock You Out,” “I Need Love” and “Murdergram.” All of it was sandwiched betwixt selections from John Williams, Beethoven and Bach, creating what was arguably the most weekend’s most historically rich throwback set. — K.B.

The long tail of Brat is visible to the naked eye at Coachella 2025, where this weekend a not insignificant portion of the crowd was dressed in the kind of asymmetrical ruffled skirts, wraparound sunglasses and black knee high boots that Charli XCX has popularized during her culture-shaking marathon run around the album, which came out two months after last year’s Coachella. Given that we’ve all been living through the many seasons of Brat ever since, it felt fitting that Charli kept her Saturday night performance almost entirely album-centric, using the slot on the Coachella main stage — where she last appeared in 2023 — to spotlight the LP’s music, collaborators, aesthetic and attitude. The show’s special guests only helped Charli deliver another peak moment for the project. — K.B.

After hosting a “Fighting Oligarchy” rally in Los Angeles — alongside Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Neil Young, Maggie Rogers and Joan Baez — Sanders’ day didn’t end there. The senator managed to get himself out to the desert in record time to bring his message to a new audience: Coachella. Sanders appeared not only to introduce Clairo, but to applaud her for her own efforts in making this world a better one. “I’m here because Clairo has used her prominence to fight for women’s rights, to try to end the terrible, brutal war in Gaza, where thousands of women and children are being killed,” said Sanders. “So I want to thank Clairo, not only for being in a great band, but for the great work she is doing.” — LYNDSEY HAVENS

“Coachella 2025, are you ready?!” asked Billie Joe Armstrong while ferociously playing the riff to “American Idiot,” which opened the band’s headlining set. And the thing was, in the year 2025, the crowd had never been more ready for this moment. Because at a time like this, an act like Green Day is exactly what so many need. (Including Flava Flav and Cara Delevingne, who took selfies and danced together during the show.) Throughout its high-energy, hits-filled set, Green Day gave the crowd permission to be angry about the current state of affairs. In “American Idiot” the band continued its tradition of changing a particular lyric, choosing Coachella to declare: “I’m not part of the MAGA agenda” (the original line is: “I’m not a part of the redneck agenda). And later, toward the end of the nearly two-hour-long set, the band made another lyrical swap; on “Jesus of Suburbia,” Armstrong sang, “Runnin’ away from pain, like the kids from Palestine (the original line is: “Runnin’ away from pain when you’ve been victimized”). Otherwise, Armstrong didn’t say much outside of the music – though he did repeat, “Coachella!” upwards of 20 times. And that’s what Green Day’s set was really all about – the fact that a punk-rock band formed in the late ‘80s was headlining Coachella nearly 40 years later with a catalog that felt just as, if not more relevant than ever before is an incredible feat. At one point, a small blimp reading “bad news” floated across the crowd – and while that may feel true of the world, tonight Green Day made sure to deliver something great. — L.H.

The 2024 Brat ascendency didn’t just ultimately result in Charli xcx’s Saturday night slot on the mainstage, but her associates from the album getting choice Coachella billing in the wake of their own Brat-adjacent come-up. After A.G. Cook’s Friday night set in the Gobi, fellow album producer The Dare played an 11 p.m. show in the Mojave. But while Cook overtly wove in the material from Brat along with his own productions, The Dare channeled the album more in attitude, bringing its same spirit of blasé cool to a performance that included music from across his 2024 album What’s Wrong With New York, with the performance also serving as a reminder that indie sleaze (or indie sleaze 2.0, in this case) is often just better and more visceral in the live format. — K.B.

Punk rock is foundational to the Coachella story, as the event’s producer Goldenvoice was originally a punk promoter in L.A. and Orange County. And so it felt right not only that The Misfits got the extremely rare gift of getting its famous font on the festival lineup, but also a choice slot of a closing set on the Outdoor Stage. Dressed in spiked jackets and, in the case of guitarist Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein, white face paint, the band played classics including 1981’s “Vampira,” 1979’s “Where Eagles Dare” and 1986’s “Hollywood Babylon.” The crowd included older fans, young kids watching from their parents shoulders, a frenetic mosh pit and Green Day’s Tré Cool, fresh off headlining the main stage. — K.B.

Travis Scott has always wanted to headline Coachella — he even rapped about the decorated festival on ASTROWORLD’s “SKELETONS.” Scott earned his chance on Saturday as La Flame continued to push the envelope with his innovative world building in a performance that’s simply unmatched in hip-hop at the moment. For his first surprise, Scott enlisted Florida A&M University and Jackson State’s marching bands to bring a cinematic texture to songs songs old and new. Fireworks — musically and literally — were aplenty with Scott hopping from the main stage to his raised circular structure in the middle of the general admission raging crowd. After traveling the globe behind UTOPIA for a majority of 2023 and 2024, Scott launched a new musical era while previewing a pair of songs that are tentatively titled “She Goin Dumb” and “On Jacques.” It’s unclear if they’ll eventually land on his next solo effort or the JACKBOYS 2 label compilation. The Houston rager always brings some sort of theatrical element to his shows testing the limits of what’s physically possible and tonight was no different with dancers floating through the sky during “Stargazing” or Scott rappelling down the stage stanchion while performing “Skyfall.” Being a branch on the Kanye West artistic family tree, having a model strut down the catwalk as the muse for “90210”  felt like something out of Ye’s “Runaway” playbook. Scott threw a new coat of paint on classic bangers like “SICKO MODE” and multiple renditions of “FE!N” along with his “TELEKINESIS” closer thanks to the marching band’s brass instrumentation mixing with his AutoTune-laced vocals. An altered version of the “Modern Jam” and Drake’s “NOKIA” mash-up that went viral on X was even incorporated into the set.  While Scott has called arenas home for the majority of his past two U.S. treks, La Flame’s creativity thrives when the stakes are highest and venues are biggest. — M.S.