The San Diego Union Tribune has this short bit on a couple of Asheville kids at Coachella:
If you didn’t have a Coachella veteran to consult before journeying into this aural wilderness, you could’ve taken a wrong turn in your festival planning, like Katie, 19, and Smiley, 20, who came in from Asheville, N.C. to see Fatboy Slim tonight, and are staying in the campgrounds nearby. Their mistake?
“We just want to go back to our campgrounds, we’re not going to smuggle drugs in or anything,” said a pitiable Katie, decked in her brightest parlor chic, complete with parasol. “We didn’t know we wouldn’t be able to go get food or water. If I would’ve known there was no reentry…”
The pair had been “Trippin’ On Sunshine” since noon, trapped in a world of alt-rock, pop bliss and hyper-inflated prices (tacked onto the already soaring prices of goods and limits on Costco rice). They didn’t bring any money, nor contraband food supplies, nor even jackets to face the night air, and by 5 p.m. had been reduced to selling the fossilized coral bracelets Smiley wore (and sells in Asheville) for water bottles.Maybe they’d meet a cool vendor who’d give them some food. Or a cool security guard who’d escort them back to the campground and back in, they said.
Oh festival newbies. I gave them a trail mix bar I’d snuck in and wished them luck on their vision quest. The Fatboy doesn’t even come on till nearly 11 p.m.