Live updates from the 2023 Coachella Festival: Day 1

Welcome to live coverage of Day 1 of the 2023 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

Friday’s headliner is the Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, the first Spanish-language artist to top the festival’s bill, and, in another first, one of three nonwhite headliners this year: K-pop girl group Blackpink will take the main stage on Saturday night, and international man of mystery Frank Ocean will close out the festival Sunday with his first concert since 2019, and his first area show since 2017.

The 2023 edition of the wildly popular (and lucrative) festival follows a chaotic few years, for Coachella and more broadly for live music. In 2022, both Travis Scott and Kanye West pulled out of planned headline performances, while the 2020 and 2021 editions were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Friday will feature highly anticipated sets from Gorillaz, Metro Boomin, Burna Boy, the Chemical Brothers, a reunited Blink-182, Wet Leg, Becky G, Yves Tumor, Kaytranada, Blondie, Doechii and many more, plus the usual parade of surprise guest stars (who gets custody of the Weeknd?), and The Times’ Mikael Wood, August Brown, Suzy Exposito, Kenan Draughorne and Vanessa Franko will be roaming the grounds of Indio’s Empire Polo Club, reporting on all the action as it happens.

3:18 p.m. Greetings from Coachella, where the weather is already hot, the music is already loud and the outfits (costumes?) are already sparkly. Last year was technically the first year back after COVID, but there’s something in the air here that suggests people are ready to party like it’s 2019 again. Music-wise, everything’s leading up to Bad Bunny’s headlining performance tonight, though folks are buzzing too about Blink-182’s surprise reunion gig. “It’s gonna be so many songs that people know, bro,” I overheard one such bro testify in a drinks line, and indeed that’s true enough. Also: Who will Damon Albarn bring to the stage during Gorillaz’ set? The Times crew will be here for it all — stay tuned. — Mikael Wood

3:20 p.m. “There’s only one reason to be at Coachella today — Bad Bunny,” said Hugo Olguin, 42, of Murrieta, Calif.

The Friday night headliner was the catalyst for Olguin and Rocio Luis, 32, of Carlsbad, to make their first trip to the festival. They planned to catch the reunited Blink-182 — added to the festival lineup this week — in the Sahara Tent before staking out a good spot for Bad Bunny.

Even though Coachella only sells three-day passes, Olguin and Luis are attending Friday only.

“We can’t survive three days,” Olguin said. — Vanessa Franko

3:52 p.m. Among the banners trailing airplanes above the polo grounds — a venerable Coachella tradition — is this one promoting somebody’s OnlyFans account. Shrewd! — M.W.

(Mikael Wood/Los Angeles Times)

4:15 p.m. Coachella is always a valuable learning experience in finding out which acts are far more popular than you thought. My first lesson this year: Benee, the New Zealand bedroom-pop singer who had an early-pandemic hit with “Supalonely,” is still capable of filling the not-small Mojave Tent. And “Supalonely” still sounds great. — M.W.

Doechii performs at Coachella.

(Dania Maxwell/Los Angeles Times)

4:34 p.m. Started the day watching Doechii, who brought a healthy crowd to the main stage. TDE’s rising star tapped into her ballroom bag near the end, rapping Beyoncé’s final verse from “Heated,” a cappella-style, before launching into her breezy hit “Persuasive.” Her orange contact lenses were a nice touch to complete the purple crop-top-and-shorts combo. — Kenan Draughorne

4:40 p.m. Security guards are already passing out white light-up wristbands near the main stage ahead of Bad Bunny’s headlining performance tonight. — K.D.

Raeya Necochea, 25, of Walnut Creek, attends her first Coachella festival.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

5:10 p.m. I cannot wait for Saba’s upcoming mixtape with producer No I.D. The Chicago rapper released the tape’s first single “Back in Office” yesterday, and blasted it today from the Outdoor stage. And especially after Rolling Loud California, it was nice to see someone rap a whole set without a backing vocal track. — K.D.

5:13 p.m. Backstage in the floral-strewn artist compound on Friday afternoon, the 27-year-old Belgian singer Angèle had just arrived a few hours before her highest profile U.S. concert to date later this evening, at Coachella’s Mojave tent. In Europe, she’s a superstar of the Francophone pop world: Chanel ambassador, chart topping disco-pop belter with Dua Lipa, easily the most successful Belgian artist since Stromae.

But on Friday afternoon, she was a starstruck first-timer on the Polo Grounds.

“It’s so big! “ she said, gesturing towards the craggy mountains out the window of her trailer. “The desert is so new to me. When you come from Belgium, it’s hard to think of yourself as a global artist, but it’s so cool to feel like I’m a part of this.”

This year is an exceptionally multilingual year for Coachella, with headliners from Puerto Rico and South Korea and superstar acts from Nigeria and Spain among many others. There’s an atypically strong Francophone coterie as well: Christine and the Queens, Lewis OfMan, the Blaze, FKJ, Grammy nominees Domi and JD Beck. But among them, Angèle mix’s of high-wattage house bangers, skittering electro-pop and moody jazz-inflected ballads seems most prime for a breakthrough.

“Fever,” the rip-roaring disco duet with Dua Lipa, changed her prospects stateside dramatically. With a few albums of fiery, thoughtful and smoldering tracks under her belt — and a new late-night jazz number, “Sunflower,” in English — Coachella fans primed to scream lyrics back in Spanish or Korean might be ready to hear her out as well.

“When we did some shows in the U.S. last week, I was very surprised they were singing the lyrics,” she said. “Some people came and told me they were Googling the topics of the songs.” — August Brown

DannyLux performs at Coachella.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

5:22 p.m. At the Sonora tent, DannyLux fans radiated love for the Coachella Valley native as he performed his first show at his hometown festival. Couples swayed, slow-danced and shouted Mexican gritos to atmospheric cuts from his 2022 EP “Limerencia”; the 19-year-old also commanded a melodramatic singalong to “Jugaste y Sufrí,” his chart-topping hit with fellow “sad sierreño” stars Eslabón Armado. We may be in the desert, but there’s no need for eye drops when you’re watching DannyLux live. — Suzy Exposito

Gabriels performs at Coachella.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

5:43 p.m. L.A.-based three-piece Gabriels brought a bit of soul salvation to the desert with its Friday afternoon set in the Gobi tent.

Singer Jacob Lusk grew up in Compton. This was his first time at the festival.

“Seeing my old coworkers, that was amazing. Seeing my friends and family out in the audience, that was special,” he said after the set.

Lusk is also in the running for sharpest dressed at Coachella. He wore a full tuxedo, even in the desert heat.

“I have planned my outfit months in advance, went fabric shopping, we made it,” he said. — V.F.