Drake doesn't live up to Coachella-ending bill (neither does Madonna)

Photo courtesy of Coachella

Let me preface this review of his Sunday main stage closing Coachella set by saying I’m not the biggest Drake fan.

That being said, I had high expectations headed into it, and they weren’t quite met by the mega star rapper’s performance. With all the features on his tracks over the past few years — and this being Coachella — you expected a who’s who to walk out on stage at any given moment. The fact that it was a spotlight-starved Madonna, was a massive disappointment.

Madonna appeared on stage and performed “Hung Up” before basically forcing herself on Drake in just the latest attention-seeking kiss of her career. “Bitch, I’m Madonna,” she said before walking off, leaving Drake almost speechless. “Oh sh*t, what the f*ck just happened,” Drake laughed. The kiss was much discussed after the show but not so well received. But all publicity is good publicity right?

When it comes to the last headliner on the last day of a festival, you always expect something a bit more special. Drake prefaced his performance by the words that he would play the hits just like everyone wanted — but when songs come together live and sound like a mix tape without the famous features, they fall a little flat.

Drake also made the crowd wait an additional 25 minutes after scheduled start time before finally taking the stage. That he only played an hour and a half or so pales in comparison to other headliners that have done two hour sets, or even playing until they were shut down like The Cure did a few years ago.

All those things said, most people seemed to be enjoying themselves during the set as they rapped nearly every bar of every song from the Degrassi graduate. It’s not that Drake doesn’t have the necessary appeal for the role of a festival headliner, but at this stage in his career he just hasn’t amassed the career necessary to make it as special. Not without a little help from his friends.

It’ll be interesting to see if he fine-tunes his weekend two performance to bring in additional people.

Words: Mark E. Ortega

Photography: Monique Hernandez

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