Coachella 2013: The dance card gets busy early - Los Angeles Times
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Coachella 2013: The dance card gets busy early

Fans in the Sahara tent dance to Dog Blood at the Coachella Music & Arts Festival Friday night.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)
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This post has been updated. See below for details.

INDIO -- Anyone wondering if the lack of dance megastars at this year’s Coachella means that they’ve de-emphasized big dance music, don’t worry. This year’s Sahara tent somehow managed to be even bigger than in years prior, by an obvious margin.

Gone is the typical A-frame enclosure -- instead there’s a positively titanic, rounded arena for rave gladiators. The digital wall of visuals expanded to the upper nooks of the roof to make an aquarium of sub-bass topped with throbbing LEDs. The DJs look up to the challenge of filling it.

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By late afternoon Friday it was already spilling bodies out the side, as Nicky Romero and the Skrillex/Boys Noize side project Dog Blood laid down harsh house. The latter is maybe the only arena-DJ-caliber act on the dance card today, but the undercard is holding its own.

FULL COVERAGE: Coachella 2013

The swank new Yuma tent had at least a half-hour line for entry at Four Tet’s early evening set of screwball psychedelic floor fillers. As night draws near, the dance scene may get even more enthused -- the headliner is low-end artisan Bassnectar, and underground titan Seth Troxler holds court to close out Yuma.

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Early signs suggest that Coachella’s experiment in going deep with dance music has already paid off in enthusiasm.

Updated, Sun., 8:45 a.m.: An earlier version of this post mispelled the group Boys Noize as Boys Noise.

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