Timothy Norris

The brunette in the backward pink mesh trucker hat and booty shorts grabs a megaphone and addresses her fellow campers.

"WECOME TO COOOOACHEELLLA."

The congregation of twenty 20-somethings lustily applauds. It's Thursday night, a dozen hours before the festival officially begins, and the rules are being outlined in this corner of Lot 4.

"FOR THE NEXT THREE NIGHTS EVERYONE MUST DRINK AT ALL TIMES. WE MUST HAVE A FUN TIME. WE ARE HAPPY PEOPLE AND WE LOVE EACH OTHER!!!!"

Cue whoops, giggles, and several gurgles.

See also: Our complete Coachella coverage

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Courtesy of Jorge Meza Photography

The Sahara Tent at Coachella

The first weekend of Coachella was packed with EDM revelers; in fact, dance music lovers are growing in numbers so much that every other car in line at the campgrounds checking in was blasting some sort of EDM anthem. The festival even dedicated a new, underground-leaning stage this year, called the Yuma Tent, home to some underground-leaning artists as well as Jason Bentley. In any case, here are the top five EDM Coachella highlights from weekend one.

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Kai Flanders

The lights on the main stage went dark and Coachella was over. As folks headed toward their cars (and their demolished tents) I went in the opposite direction, to the press tent. A high wind had caused its imitation canvas flaps to buck in the wind. The tent was empty except for me and one photographer, who was screaming curses at his computer. After about an hour, an attendant told us both to get out.

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Credit: Katie Bain

SPIN House at the Ace Hotel

The lineup of events thrown in conjunction with Coachella is almost as extensive as event itself. Many folks come just to attend the pool parties, the dance parties and the swag giveaways thrown at local hotels and mansions by various brands and media outlets.

See also: *A road map to the best festival parties, and how to get in (or not)!
*10 Types of People You See at Coachella Parties

Tricked out with free booze, secret performers and, you know, celebs, these parties inspire attendees to spend weeks perfecting their outfits, physiques, hair, nails, tans, etc. So we too threw on a bathing suit and went to a few.

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Jamey hopkins/Wikipedia

Coachella

By Chris Parker

It's as though the sad, lamentable death of recorded music was accompanied by a kick-ass wake. Sure, label executives have had to sell their fancy homes and put their kids in public schools, but the rest of us have been feasting on a musical smorgasbord.

Nothing better exemplifies this than Coachella, the crown jewel among destination music festivals, a sort of spring break for music lovers. Three days of music, over 150 bands, repeated over two weekends (the second week starts on Friday) featuring a wonderful cross-section of music world old and new - Red Hot Chili Peppers, Moby, Wu Tang Clan, Social Distortion, Japandroids, Vampire Weekend, and more.

Coachella is part of a rapid build-up in stationary music festivals, big and small, across the country and reflective of live music's explosion of growth since the millennium. While it won't compensate for a 50 percent drop in U.S. recorded music sales since 1999, concert ticket sales filled nearly 40 percent of that loss between 1999 and 2009.

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Kai Flanders

The Coachella campgrounds are the Wild West of the festival. They are the sort of place you can imagine Hunter S. Thompson running around with his pants around his ankles. Drugs are more plentiful than food and going to bed before 4 a.m. is considered an early night. Campers built incredible structures to house their debaucheries, though not all of them held up in the face of Sunday's sandstorm. (We and all of our friends had to flee, actually.) Here are some of the most dementedly wonderful Coachella campsites, as well as a shot of the chaos. Hopefully they inspire the weekend two campers (as well as Mother Nature) to step up their game.

See also: The Hottest Dancing Girls at Coachella, as GIFs

The Unicorn Compound
On Monday morning at dawn this campground (above) was still blasting Chief Keef, no doubt believing their car to be an actual unicorn.

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Oliver Scherillo

They said what about our beloved music festival?!

By Ali Lerman

Coachella.

Sick of us talking about it yet?

If not, peep our complete coverage.

But if so, you're not alone. In fact, lots of folks on the internet clearly wish the whole thing would go away.

Not that they're bitter about it. Ok, well some of them are. But some of them are pretty funny, too. Here are the best anti-Coachella tweets.

See also: The Hottest Dancing Girls at Coachella, as GIFs

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We've spent a lot of time this Coachella talking about the magnificent bros in attendance, but how about the fair and talented ladies? Per usual, they were everywhere, doing their thing like it wasn't a chicken wing, or something. In any case, here are the hottest dancing girls this year -- in GIF form.

See also: Ten GIFs of Ultra Ravers Shaking Their Shit
Top Ten Awkward Coachella Dance Move GIFs

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Screenshot of the Daft Punk commercial at the Main Stage

Daft Punk Fake-Out

Friday and Saturday, all anyone could talk about was if Daft Punk was going to show up during Phoenix's set. Why? Because we were fucking teased. On the main stage before the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, a long commercial for their new album played, and then we found out that members of the duo were in attendance. Yeah sure the group denied they would perform this year, but it seemed at the time to be one of those winking denials. Now it just seems like they were trying to hype their album. As our pal Andrea Domanick put it: "Shouting Daft Punk at Coachella is like shouting fire in a crowded movie theater." -Daniel Kohn

See also: Our complete Coachella coverage

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Christopher Victorio

Karen O

Karen O's Outfit
Karen O's wardrobe on Friday night was bad ass. The Yeah Yeah Yeah's front woman appeared on the main stage in a technicolor cape draped over a suit that looked like it was made of mercury. The vibrant collage was topped with a headpiece that Liberace might have worn had he ever been elected pope. The eccentric layers slowly peeled off, as she swung the microphone like a lasso and shoved it down her pants. She eventually donned at leather jacket with "KO" studded into the back, which might have as well have stood for "knock out." -Kai Flanders

See also: Our complete Coachella coverage

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