Beginning a new series celebrating 20 iconic festival sets across history while 2020’s festival season is cancelled, we go back to Beyoncé’s superhuman desert session
If Beyoncé’s fanbase, the Beyhive, is something of a cult, then her live performances are their holy pilgrimage. Although I had been on three previously, in Boston, Amsterdam and
London, I felt relieved when she had to cancel her Coachella performances in 2017 due to her pregnancy – there was no way I could afford to get myself to
Los Angeles, let alone buy a ticket.
Fellow Beyhivers half-joke that her shows are like going to church, and by the time of her rescheduled Coachella date in 2018 – becoming the first black woman to headline the festival – it felt like the return of the messiah. By some divine miracle, a friend who had an artist performing at Coachella added me to their entourage as a “backing dancer”. The desert air was cool, but there was a hot rising giddiness in the crowd, mixed with musky clouds that some were exhaling. The festival’s proximity to LA’s celebrity bubble gives it a glittery, superficial vibe; everyone thinks they are a star or can at least buy their way into the VIP area. But even the most faux-nonchalant influencer was having their chill eroded by anticipation.