Desert Trip: Paul McCartney and Rolling Stones play legends' festival
- Published
The Rolling Stones headlined the event's first night on Friday, playing to 75,000 fans at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California. The band covered The Beatles' hit Come Together, which Sir Mick Jagger introduced by saying: "We're going to do a cover song of some unknown beat group."
The festival was nicknamed Oldchella for the age of the performers. "We're not going to do any age jokes tonight," Sir Mick told the crowd. "But welcome to the Palm Springs retirement home for genteel English musicians."
Saturday's British legend was Sir Paul McCartney. He was joined on stage by Canadian rock hero Neil Young, who had performed his own set earlier in the evening. The Beatle's two-hour set included I Wanna Be Your Man, which he and John Lennon wrote for the Rolling Stones in 1963.
Sir Paul and Young performed A Day In The Life, which morphed into John Lennon's Give Peace A Chance, as a peace symbol was shown on screen.
Pink Floyd star Roger Waters closed the show on Sunday. During Another Brick in the Wall (Part II), he was joined on stage by 15 children wearing T-shirts bearing the words "derriba el muro", which is Spanish for "take down the wall", an apparent reference to Donald Trump's plan for a border wall between the US and Mexico.
Waters had a giant flying pig, in the style of the one from the cover of Pink Floyd's Animals album, with a map of the US and the slogan "together we stand, divided we fall". Trump's face also appeared on the massive video screen above the stage, along with the word "Charade".
The Who completed the set of ageing British rockers. Before playing their first US hit I Can See for Miles, guitarist Pete Townshend joked: "We were 1967's version of Adele or Lady Gaga or Rihanna or Bieber."
Frontman Roger Daltrey dedicated The Kids Are Alright to "the young ones" in the crowd. Townshend added: "Roger and I are so glad to be out here at our age. And I couldn't do it without Roger."
Ticket prices for the event ranged from $199 (£160) for a day pass to $1,599 (£1,300) for a three-day ticket for the standing pit. The event happens again next weekend.
- Published3 May 2016
