Coachella

When I read the H&M Loves Music pool party invite, I didn't take the "pool party" part literally. H&M, an official Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival sponsor for the fourth consecutive year, threw its first party Saturday. I imagined people dressed in long, sheer maxi dresses and high heels sipping cocktails next to a pool sitting in lounge chairs under umbrellas. When I arrived at the Merv Griffin estate in La Quinta where the party was held, I was in for a surprise. After a short walk up some stairs to the back of the estate, I was greeted by the sound of splashing.

"How many of y'all in here love real hip-hop?,” Raekwon asked during the Wu-Tang Clan's performance at Coachella on Sunday night. “No disrespect to none of y'all," he continued. "But we came to steal this … tonight. " Raekwon's statements probably shouldn't be taken as a diss toward the smattering of rap acts on this year's bill, but considering that previous festivals have featured such game-changing hip-hop stalwarts as Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z and Kanye West, a reunited Wu-Tang was essential viewing for purists frustrated with the scarcity of the genre.

INDIO -- "I feel like I'm in 'Lawrence of Arabia,' " Anthony Kiedis said Sunday night, not long after Red Hot Chili Peppers had taken the main stage at Coachella for the final headlining performance of the three-day festival. Kiedis was referring to the dust storm that blew up Sunday afternoon and quickly turned the Empire Polo Club into a wind-swept sandbox. But the frontman might also have felt like Lawrence because he was standing before a crowd the size of an army, easily the biggest any one act played to at Coachella.

As the melancholy strains of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' “From Her to Eternity” skittered across the Empire Polo Club in the final hours of Coachella's opening weekend, many music fans felt as cold and forlorn as the music coming from the main stage. A surprisingly fierce sandstorm buffeted the festival Sunday with temperatures plummeting from a high of 84 degrees earlier in the day to a low of 58 (with a “RealFeel” of 52 degrees, according to AccuWeather.com) and winds clocking in at 37 miles per hour, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune . The unexpectedly chilly, windswept landscape resulted in a new nickname for this year's festival: “Blowchella.” COACHELLA: Festival photos since 2004 | Day 3 photos As palm trees swayed dramatically in the wind, a dusty haze enveloped Coachella, partially obscuring the neon light of its signature visual element, the Ferris wheel.

This post has been updated. See below for details.  The riff that San Francisco rock band Thee Oh Sees presented at 3:50 p.m. at the closing moments of their rolling, frantic set, was still running through my head half an hour later, even though half a dozen rhythms from varying locales on the pitch of Coachella had entered it since. That's one tough damn riff, from a new song called "Dead Energy," bass-heavy, smooth-groove house beats 50 yards away in the Sahara tent. The band played a forceful bunch of songs -- at least judging by the four final ones that I saw -- that drove the tightly focused, crowd-surfing fans to adrenaline levels unimaginable the morning earlier.

Imagine the scene: It's late Saturday night at Coachella and you're tired. The sound of Phoenix echoes in the distance as you walk away from the Empire Polo Club in Indio, because to save time and avoid the parking quagmire, you had a friend drop you off. It can happen, because it happened to me. I needed a cab, but my phone was dead. Surely, however, with a festival this size there must be a wealth of taxis waiting for those who might have overindulged on more than just music after a full day in the desert?

The Coachella 2013 party scene opened Friday with burgers, tacos, rapper Nas and free-flowing Hennessy. Behind a large shopping center just off Washington Boulevard in Palm Desert, party-goers spilled out of large white vans. The makeshift party shuttles made their way over a large dirt lot to a private residence for the Hennessy V.S. Details party. Dimly lighted tepees covered an expansive green lawn. Inside, people dined on burgers from a nearby Fatburger truck and tacos from a Border Grill truck.

There are a lot of people in this world, and it seems as if most of them were at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival last weekend. A logistical puzzle, certainly, and one that requires feedback in order to improve. The festival continues next weekend in Indio, so now's a good time for a mid-festival debriefing. What didn't work? What could be better? What follows are 10 modest proposals for promoter Goldenvoice that could add more sparkle to the festival. Expand the Yuma tent.

This post has been updated. Please see below for details. For any festival epicure, Coachella dining is essentially a weekend-long Treat Yo Self Day - and even more so for meat-avoiders. As an 11-years-and-counting vegan, I will say that Coachella has always been a Bizzaro world of food choices. And eating lighter saves you more room for beer without feeling like an engorged python. Coachella took on some enticing new vegan options this year (but seemed to lose some too)

Katy Perry, Sophia Bush, Julianne Hough, director and actor Eli Roth and more stepped away from the Coachella Music and Arts Festival grounds Friday to fete ShopBazaar , Harper's Bazaar's editor-run e-commerce site. The Gene Autry pool at the Parker Palm Springs hotel was transformed into a desert oasis with flowing Champagne, bikinis and shopping. Harper's Bazaar fashion market and accessories director Nicole Fritton and HapersBazaar.com director Joyann King put together a ShopBazaar pop-up shop at the pool.