The Biggest Highs & Lows of Coachella 2025
Coachella 2025 was an overall success, with some career-best performances and groundbreaking sets, but also had some notable low points. Headlined by Lady Gaga, Green Day, Post Malone, and Travis Scott, Coachella 2025 was pretty consistent between its two weekends, which took place on April 11-13, 2025, on Weekend One and April 18-20, 2025, on Weekend Two. One of the biggest differences between the two weekends was Weezer’s Weekend One exclusive set, despite the recent controversy surrounding Weezer bassist Scott Shriner’s wife, and Ed Sheeran’s performance during Weekend Two.
Coachella 2025 Weekend One was loaded with surprise guests, while Weekend Two provided festival-goers more of an opportunity to plan their 3-day schedules. Many of the best Coachella 2025 Weekend One sets repeated their standout performances on Weekend Two, with some even making notable improvements and switching up their track lists. Coachella 2025 had a long list of exciting artists to look forward to, and nearly every single one delivered. Whether you attended Coachella 2025 or had a “Couchella” at home watching the YouTube live stream, this year’s Indio festival was an absolute blast with just a few major hiccups.
10
High: Charli XCX Bid Farewell To Brat Summer With Career-Best Perfomances
Charli XCX may have had the best non-headlining performance of the entire festival. She completely brought the energy on Weekend One, making the most of a stripped-down main stage and making a huge impact with three perfectly executed special guests on a slate of popular remixes: Troye Sivan for “Talk Talk”, Lorde on “Girl, so confusing”, and Billie Eilish on “Guess”.
Although Weekend Two didn’t get to experience this iconic moment, Charli still delivered the same energy on her second performance, bringing out Addison Rae as well. Charli officially declared the end of Brat summer at the end of her set but made room for a handful of new summers to be had, such as Lorde summer and PinkPantheress summer, while also shouting out filmmakers like Ari Aster and Paul Thomas Anderson.
9
Low: Travis Scott Fired Staff Onstage During His Saturday Night Headliner Set
The anticipation of Travis Scott’s alleged $12 million “takeover of the desert” ultimately left Coachella 2025 fans underwhelmed. As a rare fourth headliner, both of Scott’s sets faced all sorts of issues, from an out-of-tune marching band to a DJ named Scott who was apparently fired during Travis’s Weekend Two set (he even called him out onstage through his typically autotuned microphone).
Even despite these production missteps, the crowd seemed to find it hard to connect or get into Travis’s Weekend One set, which led to a smaller turnout on Weekend Two. Travis even played a handful of unreleased songs to no avail. This is far from the norm for the mega-rapper, who is used to performing in front of passionate, sold-out crowds.
8
High: Lady Gaga Cemented Herself As One Of Coachella’s All-Time Great Headliners
Lady Gaga stunned viewers with her legendary Friday headlining performance and doubled down on Weekend Two by doing it all over again. Gaga created an elaborate gothic opera to showcase her recent Mayhem album, resulting in one of the greatest transformations of the main stage that Coachella has ever seen.
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Lady Gaga is one of the biggest Coachella 2025 headliners, and her weekend one set showed off her endless creativity with an unforgettable setlist.
Gaga continues to raise the bar for herself and, in the process, just raised the bar for future headlining performances at the festival in general. The singing, dancing, performance art, set design, and even a Weekend One Gesaffelstein guest appearance cemented Gaga as one of the best to ever play at Coachella.
7
Low: K-Pop Fans Barricaded The Sahara Tent Waiting For LISA, ENHYPEN & XG
Many festival-goers were disappointed by some apparent K-pop fans, particularly at the EDM-heavy Sahara Tent, who were “rail camping” throughout the day in anticipation of a handful of sets from K-pop idols and groups. Various social media videos show fans sitting down, looking at their phones, even reading books during afternoon and evening sets, essentially barricading other patrons from getting close to the stage. Some festival-goers found this to be disrespectful to the artists who were performing and to the fans who were actually excited to see them.
6
High: Zedd & The LA Philharmonic Became The Combo We Didn’t Know We Needed
Zedd and the LA Philharmonic Orchestra teamed up for surprise appearances during both Weekend One and Weekend Two sets. During Weekend One on Saturday, Zedd came out during the LA Phil’s set to perform his massive hit “Clarity” on piano. During Zedd’s Weekend Two set on Sunday, the LA Phil returned the favor by performing a remix of the popular title music from the acclaimed Apple series, Severance. While these collabs were likely on nobody’s Coachella 2025 bingo cards, they both turned out to be standout moments of the entire festival and will hopefully lead to more team-ups.
5
Low: Post Malone Went Full Country As Sunday’s Sleepy Sunday Headliner
Post Malone’s Weekend Two Sunday set to close out Coachella 2025, improved thanks to special guest appearances by Jelly Roll and Ed Sheeran. Many festival-goers, however, were disappointed by the total rehaul of Post Malone’s sound, adopting a full country vibe and even performing country remixes of his popular hip-hop and R&B tracks. While Post has emerged as a perfectly fine country artist, fans were likely looking for more of his classic feel that could have spawned special guests like 21 Savage and Ty Dolla $ign, who also performed on Sunday night. Instead, Ed Sheeran replaced Swae Lee on “Sunflower”.
4
High: Green Day & Clairo Used Their Fantastic Saturday Sets As Platforms For Political Change
The “actual headliner” on Saturday, Green Day, who had a friendly feud with Charli XCX after her fans called for her to be the headliner after her iconic set, changed the lyrics of several songs to promote political change. During the opening performance of “American Idiot”, lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong changed the lyrics to “I’m not a part of a MAGA agenda.” He later changed the lyrics to another track, calling for aid for children in Palestine.
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Life on the road can certainly be rough, and Green Day learned that by almost quitting before recording one of their biggest hit songs.
Clairo opened her Saturday set with a message from Vermont senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders briefly covered issues concerning the American people, such as women’s rights to abortion, a self-serving billionaire economy, a broken healthcare system, and the dangers of the fossil fuel industry. Both Green Day and Clairo went on to deliver two of the best sets of the festival.
3
Low: Deadmau5’s Quasar Set With ZHU Got Cut Short After He Got Too Drunk
Prolific DJ and EDM producer Deadmau5, operating under another musical alias, Testpilot, showed up intoxicated to his set on the Quasar Stage with ZHU. Their set was abruptly cut short by the festival as a result, although they had already been performing for most of their 3-hour set. Deadmau5 was seen by fans taking several shots and, at one point, falling over. He took to Instagram to issue an apology, saying that it would likely be his last Coachella show and vowing to get better.
2
High: Rock Bands Thrived Across All Stages During Both Coachella Weekends
Green Day’s killer headlining set was hardly the only great rock performance of Coachella 2025. Classic 2000s rock bands like Jimmy Eat World and Weezer delivered energetic sets that barely took a breath, while other legendary rock bands like Misfits and the Prodigy were also big standouts. This led to a wider call from festival-goers for more rock bands to play at future Coachella festivals, which would also take the festival back to its roots.
1
Low: Many Weekend 1 Surprise Guests Did Not Come Back For Weekend 2
The biggest disadvantage of going to Coachella Weekend Two instead of Weekend One is not only being there first for the surprise guests but also missing the opportunity to see them. Some of the best guest appearances of Weekend One, such as Queen guitarist Brian May and all of Charli XCX’s original features, were not in attendance at Weekend Two. That said, Coachella 2025 Weekend Two did have some exciting exclusive surprise guests, such as Dave Grohl and Cynthia Erivo with the LA Phil, Freddie Gibbs during Ty Dolla $ign, and Incubus during Zedd.
