Coachella 2023: Skrillex, Four Tet and Fred Again close out festival on a high note

Skrillex (left), Fred Again and Four Tet perform together at the Coachella stage during the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif., Saturday, April 22, 2023.

The power DJ trio of Skrillex, Four Tet and Fred Again were tabbed to fill an Ocean-sized hole in Sunday night’s lineup at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, and if the energy of the crowd watching was any indication, they were a good choice.

The DJ squadron, filling in for Weekend 1 Sunday headliner Frank Ocean who pulled out midweek after a much-criticized performance, followed headliner Blink-182 with a high-energy set playing not from the main Coachella Stage but rather from an island stage in the middle of the crowd.

It created a unique vibe and also allowed them to start about 12 minutes after Blink-182 ended with no stage changeover necessary.

Skrillex (left), Fred Again and Four Tet perform together at the Coachella stage during the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif., Saturday, April 22, 2023.

The only thing on the big main stage video screens was a simple live video feed of the three DJs working hard, often all three at the same time turning knobs, sliding switches and making pulse-pounding magic out of thin air.”Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen was the starting point for one jam early in the set, and it became almost unrecognizable by the time the beat drop, sending the crowd into one of many frenzies.

A crowd-favorite moment came when the trio played Taylor Swift’s “Love Story” and they turned their sound way down to hear the whole field belting out the lyrics. When it got to the song’s famous refrain “Baby, just say yes” they dropped the beat on “yes” creating another group bounce moment.

The central stage with fans all around them created more of a club vibe than a concert vibe. Something about them being in the middle of the action made it more intimate.

Skrillex (from left), Fred Again and Four Tet perform together at the Coachella stage during the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif., Saturday, April 22, 2023.

Though they didn’t have much time to set anything up, having just agreed to play on Wednesday, they did have a pretty solid light show. Searchlights shot out from the stage straight up into the night sky and at one point an intricate laser pattern bounced around some light poles set up in a circle around them. The laser field was almost like a ceiling only feet above the crowd, straining every bit of life out of a long hot three days in Indio.

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They ended their set about 16 minutes after the midnight curfew with the crowd still at a fever pitch, after morphing Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” into one of their closing efforts followed by a nod to Blink-182’s with their version of “I Miss You.”

Kudos to the festival organizers. For having to replace a heralded headliner, the combination of Blink-182 and then the talented DJ trio was an inspired solution and allowed what had been an up-and-down 2023 Coachella festival to end on a positive note.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Coachella 2023: Skrillex, Four Tet and Fred Again close out festival