Coachella 2023: Linda Lindas, Destroy Boys and Flo Milli kick off Day 2

The Saturday, April 15 Coachella lineup was filled with strong female performers.

Early in the day, young Los Angeles-based band The Linda Lindas charmed the audience inside the packed Sonora Tent with their poppy punk rock. The four women, which range in age from 12-18, each took turns singing lead vocals.

Highlights from the set included the opener “Linda Linda,” a cover of The Blue Hearts song that provided the band’s name. It featured bassist Eloise Wong singing lead as Mila de la Garza pounded the drums and guitarists Bela Salazar and Lucia de la Garza thrashed their strings. Lucia was bouncing around the stage so wildly that she fell flat onto her back, but she kept on playing.

“Growing Up,” the Go-Go’s cover “Tonite” and “Racist, Sexist Boy” were also great, the band’s appeal shining through despite audio problems that plagued the microphones throughout.

Singer-songwriter Ethel Cain also packed the Sonora Tent with melancholy tales of Southern gothic appeal, highlights including “American Teenager” and “Sun-Bleached Flies.”

Dinner Party, a hip-hop infused jazz band that includes keyboardist Robert Glasper and saxophonist Kamasi Washington, provided a tasty different flavor in the mid-afternoon Gobi tent.

And Destroy Boys, a female-led band from Sacramento, demonstrated why their younger punk sisters in the Linda Lindas all recently said that was one of the bands they hoped to catch here. Destroy Boys also won the great song title of the day with “I Threw Glass in My Friend’s Eyes and Now I’m on Parole.”

If you didn’t know what to expect when Remi Wolf walked on stage at Coachella on Saturday evening you might have looked at the orange road worker’s vest and the eight or so men’s neckties dangling from her belt and wonder what was in store. But fans who packed the Mojave Tent knew, and as the powerhouse singer from L.A. by way of Palo Alto opened her mouth and sang, the crowd grew and grew and grew, sprawling behind the tent, more people found out, too.

Wolf is one of those artists who come to Coachella right at that moment they’re about to explode like a supernova into the pop music culture. Friend Desert Jeff pointed to Lizzo’s debut at Coachella as a comparison and he’s spot-on there. Fronting a large band of excellent musicians, Wolf wailed her heart out during a 45-minute set filled with funk-and-soul-infused rock.