logo
AP PHOTOS: Coachella continues with Weezer, T-Pain and a Bernie Sanders appearance

AP PHOTOS: Coachella continues with Weezer, T-Pain and a Bernie Sanders appearance

Independent13-04-2025

Coachella's second day featured high-profile guests from Hollywood and Washington, D.C., an emotional performance from Weezer and a peaceful transfer of power between electropop stars. Then there was Flava Flav joining the Yo Gabba Gabba characters on-stage to rap 'I love bugs!"
The cultural breadth of the influential Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival was on full display Saturday at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida traveled from a Los Angeles rally to the desert to introduce Clairo, praising the 26-year-old singer-songwriter's political activism.
Less than an hour earlier, Charli XCX commandeered a minimalist stage where she was joined by Troye Sivan and Billie Eilish, with an audience that included Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet in the front row wearing a big smile and a backpack.
As for that power transfer: After last year's 'brat summer," the English pop star concluded her 'Girl, so confusing' performance with New Zealand electropop star Lorde by declaring 'Lorde summer 2025.'
Sanders' appearance wasn't the day's only dose of politics. Billie Joe Armstrong adjusted the lyrics of Green Day's set-opening 'American Idiot' to declare he's 'not a part of the MAGA agenda" and changed lyrics in 'Jesus of Suburbia' to 'running away from pain like the kids from Palestine.'
T-Pain brought mash-ups and covers to the main stage, singing Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin'' and Chris Stapleton's 'Tennesee Whiskey."
Earlier, Weezer delivered a dozen songs in a well-received performance featuring 'Undone (The Sweater Song)," 'Buddy Holly' and a cover of Metallica's 'Enter Sandman.'
The band played four days after bassist Scott Shriner's wife Jillian Lauren was shot and injured by Los Angeles police. Lauren, an author of two memoirs, was arrested and later posted bail after police said she pointed a gun at them.
Band members didn't specifically address the incident, but frontman Rivers Cuomo told the crowd, 'It feels so good to get out here with you guys and let out these emotions.'
Coachella kicked off Friday with Lady Gaga headlining with a crowd-pleasing, extravagantly theatrical, five-act performance. K-pop star Lisa drew a massive crowd to the Sahara tent and Benson Boone announced his second album and sang 'Bohemian Rhapsody' with Queen's Brian May on guitar.
The festival runs through Sunday, with another round of performances April 18 to 20. Travis Scott headlined Saturday night on the main stage with Post Malone set to perform in the final slot Sunday night.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Angela Livingstone obituary
Angela Livingstone obituary

The Guardian

timean hour ago

  • The Guardian

Angela Livingstone obituary

My friend Angela Livingstone, who has died aged 90, was a translator and university teacher of literature known for playing a key role in making the most innovative works of 20th-century Russian literature accessible to the English-speaking world. Her publications include edited selections of writings by Boris Pasternak and Marina Tsvetaeva and masterful translations of their prose and poetry, among them Tsvetaeva's 'lyrical satire' The Ratcatcher and verse-drama Phaedra, both previously unknown in English. She also published Pasternak: Modern Judgements (1969), a groundbreaking book of critical essays (in collaboration with the poet and critic Donald Davie), a monograph on Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago (1989) and, late in her life, a collection of her own poems, Certain Roses (2017). Elaine Feinstein, reviewing Phaedra in PN Review in 2013, observed that Angela's version 'not only extends our understanding of a great Russian poet, but also illuminates the spirit of her translator, who is as little interested in the commonplace values of the everyday world as the poet she translates'. Angela and I got to know each other in 1999 when, as features editor at the BBC Russian Service, I made a programme on her translation of The Ratcatcher. It was Tsvetaeva's breathtaking sound patterns and rhythms, and Pasternak's stream of striking images that gave Angela, in seeking to translate them, 'a pleasure which is not like any other', she said. Like her favourite poets, Angela possessed a childlike ability to experience everything, however familiar, as if for the first time. She also loved Andrei Platonov for his peculiar use of language and described his great novel Chevengur of 1928 as 'a prose of concealed poetry', transposing 50 passages from it into English verse, published as Poems from Chevengur in 2004. Angela was born in Hayes, Middlesex (now the London Borough of Hillingdon), to Albert Hobbs, a further education lecturer in mechanical engineering, and his wife, Edith (nee Parker), a primary school teacher. Her love for literature and languages was kindled at Greenford county grammar school, and at Cambridge University, where she gained a first-class degree in German and Russian. At university she met Rodney Livingstone, a fellow student, who later became professor of German at Southampton University, and they married in 1959. Angela worked in the department of literature at Essex University for more than 30 years, becoming professor and its head in 1992 before retiring in 1996. Her first marriage ended in divorce in 1971. In 2014 she married Alan Palmer. He died in 2019. She is survived by Sonia and Benjamin, the children from her first marriage, four grandchildren and her sister, Pamela.

Love Island's Harry reveals surprising encounter with A-list actress, boasting ‘I think I had a chance'
Love Island's Harry reveals surprising encounter with A-list actress, boasting ‘I think I had a chance'

Scottish Sun

time2 hours ago

  • Scottish Sun

Love Island's Harry reveals surprising encounter with A-list actress, boasting ‘I think I had a chance'

Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) LOVE Island's Harry has revealed a surprising encounter with a huge A-list actress. On last night's Unseen Bits on ITV2, the islanders were going through their celebrity crushes in the Beach Hut Bonanza segment. Sign up for the Entertainment newsletter Sign up 5 Footballer Harry Cooksley told viewers about his celebrity crush in the beach hut 5 He admitted on the show that he met the Oscar nominee on a plane Credit: Getty Farnham Town footballer Harry Cooksley, 30, was delighted to recall an encounter on an airplane with a very famous movie star. He admitted on camera: "The incredible Margot Robbie. "And I'll tell you exactly why, I sat next to her on a flight, we chatted the entire way." He added: "And I actually thought I had a chance with her." Margot, 34, is best known for her huge roles as Harley Quinn in the Suicide Squad movies. She also starred alongside Brad Pitt in films such as Once Upon A Time in Hollywood and Babylon. This was after she had her mainstream breakthrough for her role in Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street alongside Leonardo DiCaprio. The Barbie actress is also well known to be a superfan of the long-running ITV reality series. For her 31st birthday she celebrated with her nearest and dearest with a Love Island themed party. She has also met various former contestants including Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu and Davide Sanclimenti. Maura Higgins does SHOTS with Margot Robbie as Hollywood's biggest Love Island fan invites her out for lunch The Oscar nominee also previously invited Maura Higgins out for a boozy lunch. They both did shots together after they ordered a whole bottle of Margot's own gin, Papa Salt Coastal gin to the table. In 2020, Chris Taylor met the superstar actress at the afterparty of Birds of Prey which led to him getting a cameo in Barbie as a human Ken doll. The reality personality previously told Cosmopolitan: "She's just really down to earth and cool. She's one of the nicest people I've ever met." 5 The reality star thought that he 'had a chance' with the actress as they chatted for the whole flight 5 Margot rose to A-list status after starring in The Wolf Of Wall Street with Leonardo DiCaprio Credit: Getty 5 She has since appeared in huge productions alongside the likes of Brad Pitt, Will Smith and John Cena Credit: Getty Love Island continues on ITV2 and is available to stream on ITVX.

'How I brought down one of the UK's most powerful crime lords'
'How I brought down one of the UK's most powerful crime lords'

Daily Mirror

time2 hours ago

  • Daily Mirror

'How I brought down one of the UK's most powerful crime lords'

Former Daily Mirror Crime Correspondent Sylvia Jones tells the gripping story of how she went undercover to snare 'untouchable' gangster John 'Goldfinger' Palmer John 'Goldfinger' Palmer was in the elegant lounge of London's Ritz hotel when the beginning of the end arrived. He was sitting at a tea table with two Burmese opium producers in June 1994, celebrating finalising a £65million-a-year money laundering deal, when a large figure loomed over him and announced: 'Roger Cook, Central Television. We've come to talk to you.' ‌ It was a voice familiar to the 10 million viewers who regularly tuned in to watch television's biggest investigator uncover, confront and pursue criminals and wrongdoers. ‌ And it marked the start of Palmer's descent from a man with a royal-level fortune and a life of yachts, fast cars, Rolexes and helicopters to prison – and, ultimately, his death in a suburban back garden. Palmer, a former gold dealer, had risen to fame and fortune smelting gold bars stolen in the Brink's-Mat bullion robbery 11 years earlier. On trial at the Old Bailey in 1987, charged with conspiracy to handle the stolen gold, he admitted melting down large amounts at his mansion in Bath, but claimed not to know it was stolen. When the jury acquitted him he blew them a kiss. He went on to set up a huge timeshare fraud operation, cajoling or intimidating thousands of folk out of their hard-earned savings and ruling the holiday island of Tenerife with his posse of violent, steroid-fuelled musclemen. ‌ This ruthless 'business model' was essential for Palmer's real activities of laundering ever-increasing amounts of dirty money for his underworld criminal cronies, thieving Russian oligarchs, and other corrupt government officials and politicians who plundered their own countries. The latest series of the BBC drama The Gold fictionalises this period in Palmer's life. Played by Tom Cullen, he boasts to one of his heavies as he steps off a private jet: 'A ghost, that's what I am in England – no passport control, no nosy b****** spotting me in an airport and calling the press or the Old Bill. ‌ 'Because I beat them, you see. The English police – I beat the best they have.' This is where I came in. After becoming the first female crime reporter on Fleet Street when working for the Mirror, I moved to the Cook Report in the early 1990s. During painstaking research for a programme on Palmer, I assembled a mountain of evidence about his hugely lucrative money laundering activities and estimated he had more than £400m sloshing around in different banks in secretive financial centres, including Russia. ‌ The vast Communist state was crumbling as greedy government agents, businessmen and the Russian mafia began to plunder the country's most valuable assets. I traced at least 100 companies, dozens of offshore accounts and business interests in the UK, Europe and around the world, and as far away as South America, South Africa and the Caribbean. Palmer used these companies to move around millions of pounds from timeshare, property, leisure and finance organisations. He mixed this money up with large deposits of ill-gotten cash that swirled around and came out of the Palmer 'washing machine' looking untainted and ready to hand back to his criminal associates – minus his 25% commission, of course. ‌ I informed Scotland Yard about our impending Palmer sting – we called the show 'Laundry Man'. Brink's-Mat detectives whose bid to convict him had failed in 1987 literally fell off their chairs laughing. 'He will never fall for it,' they claimed. Gathering legally watertight evidence needed a very special plan, a sophisticated sting so close to the real thing that not even the streetwise Palmer would suspect he was being lured into a TV trap. ‌ I recruited Buddy Burns, a retired US undercover drug enforcement detective, to talk his way into Palmer's tight-knit organisation. A tough, grizzled Native American who had worked more drug stings than I'd had hot dinners, Buddy was a perfect choice. He posed as the 'representative' of notorious Burmese warlord Khun Sa, then the world's biggest opium producer and top of theFBI's most-wanted list. ‌ He was, Buddy explained in an initial phone call to Palmer's Spanish solicitor, looking for a discreet 'businessman' willing and big enough to handle £30m twice a year from poppy crops. The prospect of the biggest deal of his life was an offer Goldfinger couldn't resist. He took the bait within days. The next vital phase of our elaborate sting involved Khun Sa himself. ‌ Actors, however good, would never be able to convince the wily Palmer. So I sent ex-soldier Patrick King into the jungle of war-torn Burma to enlist the help of Khun Sa – who Roger had interviewed two years earlier. America's most wanted man agreed to help us and dispatched two of his closest aides. I posed as a shady local fixer hired by Buddy to look after the Burmese men. At a smart mews house in Marylebone, Central London, we secretly recorded meetings between Palmer and Khun Sa's henchmen. I handed out drinks and takeaway Thai food to Palmer as he sat cross-legged on the floor with the Burmese men. My real job, however, was to make sure no one stood in front of the secret cameras and to troubleshoot and rescue the situation if anything went wrong. Palmer's bodyguards were never far away so we had to be ready for anything at a moment's notice. ‌ By this time Palmer was so convinced he was finalising the biggest dirty deal of his career that he explained exactly how his money laundering operation worked, which we caught on camera. He was so comfortable that he even revealed he had several 'wives' and girlfriends. 'Just a secret between us,' he added – little realising his real wife, Marnie, and 10 million viewers would soon be let in on his 'secret'. ‌ Once we had a wealth of self-confessed evidence from Palmer, we brought in Roger for the final denouement. It was hot and stuffy that summer's day as I sat in a black cab with the two Burmese men and knee-to-knee opposite Palmer, heading for the Ritz. I had a tape recorder tucked into my stocking top and secured to my suspender belt – the only place our blushing sound man could think of hiding it where it would not show through my light summer clothes. Then, once we were seated at the Ritz at a table laden with gleaming silverware, dainty crustless sandwiches and fresh cream fancies, Roger appeared, followed by a cameraman and several of our colleagues. ‌ Our timing was perfect. Shocked, but trying to hold himself together, the previously untouchable underworld Mr Big staggered to his feet as Roger told him we had filmed every contact he had had with Khun Sa's men. Palmer denied everything as he quickly walked to the hotel exit swiftly followed by Roger and the film crew. But he was no longer the smiling, confident wheeler dealer who had entered the Ritz a few minutes earlier. ‌ He looked pale and anxious as he jumped into a taxi. The cab got stuck at a red light and Roger opened the door and continued his devastating onslaught, egged on by workmen on scaffolding in a side street who had recognised him shouting: 'Go on, Roger! Give it to him, Roger!' When the taxi finally pulled away, Palmer sat stony faced inside, the perfect image of a man who has realised he had just been totally suckered. By this time, detectives were raiding all of his premises and addresses in the UK. Every time Palmer rang his offices, the phone was answered by the police. ‌ The taxi driver later told us he had thrown his phone out of the window in anger. Scotland Yard was staggered by the speed and success of our sting. They used our information as the basis for search warrants and gathered a mountain of documentary evidence that eventually led Palmer to another trial, again at the Old Bailey. ‌ In 2001 I gave evidence against him. He was defending himself and wore a bulletproof vest as he cross-examined me. Palmer tried to convince the jury the sting was a police suggestion to set him up because they could not get to him. But he failed, and this time there were no kisses for the jury. He was found guilty of defrauding thousands of timeshare victims out of millions of pounds and sentenced to eight years. He served four before release. In his later years he lived a much quieter life with his partner Christina Ketley and their son in Brentwood, Essex, where he socialised with a close circle of old friends. ‌ Then, 10 years ago, he was gunned down in the garden as he burned old papers on a bonfire, blasted six times with a shotgun. He was 65. No one has been jailed over his death. At the end of the 1990s, Palmer had been worth over £300m, and the Sunday Times Rich List rated him on a level with the Queen. By 2005, after four years behind bars, he was declared bankrupt, with debts of £3.5m. Goldfinger, it seemed, had finally lost his Midas touch.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store