Performers scheduled to headline the 2020 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival before it was canceled because of the novel coronavirus are being given top billing on the line-up once again.
Concert promoter and Coachella co-founder Paul Tollett discussed the future of the long-running California music festival in a rare interview with the Los Angeles Times the newspaper reported.
Rage Against the Machine and Travis Scott will headline Coachella in April 2022, while Frank Ocean will have one of the event’s top slots when it takes place again the following year, the Times reported.
All three acts had originally been scheduled to headline Coachella in April 2020, but the event was postponed that March and ultimately canceled entirely because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Several major touring acts have just recently hit the road again, however, and tickets for next year’s Coachella sold out within minutes of becoming available in June before any performers were announced.
Roughly eight months until Coachella 2022’s planned date, the Times reported that Mr. Tollett decided to confirm some headliners so far in advance because of all the uncertainty over the last year-and-a-half.
“Right now, it’s the Wild West,” Mr. Tollett. “I’m just trying to be as fair as I can to artists and to the fans to make sure that eventually they get to see everyone that we talked about.”
Coachella is currently scheduled to take place April 15-17 and April 22-24 in Indio, California, around 125 miles east of Los Angeles, where the music festival has been held almost every year since 1999.
Rage Against the Machine, a rock group formed in 1991, announced in November 2019 that the band was reuniting to perform its first shows in nearly nine years, starting with sets at Coachella in April 2020.
The multi-platinum-selling group later announced plans for a worldwide reunion tour beginning in later 2020, but that was postponed until 2021 and then again until 2022 due to the pandemic.
No other acts for next year’s festival have been announced yet. Childish Gambino, Tame Impala and Ariana Grande headlined the event when it last happened in April 2019.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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