Coachella Music Festival Tickets

The premiere West Coast festival, The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, will be held Friday, April 17th through Sunday, April 19th at Empire Polo Field in Indio, Calif., and three-day and single pass tickets are available.

This year, the festival will feature Amy Winehouse, Leonard Cohen, Lupe Fiasco, Morrissey, Franz Ferdinand, Girl Talk, Public Enemy, Thievery Corporaton, Perry Farrell, Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Black Keys over the course of three days. These artists and more will be featured on five main tents in the desert.

Top billing for Friday's performance is reserved for none other than Paul McCartney. The Killers and The Cure round out the headlining spots for the rest of the weekend.

The festival was born in 1993 when Tool and Pearl Jam in front of almost 25,000 fans at the Empire Polo Club which made event organizers realize the venue would be perfect for larger-scale performances. The first Coachella wasnt held until 1999, when Beck, The Chemical Brothers, Tool, Morrissey and Rage Against the Machine topped the billing.

The devastating heat in the dead of summer was a hindrance to the festival, which didnt bring in a profit. After skipping 2000 for financial reasons, organizers tried once more in 2001 and brought together Janes Addiction for a reunion performance in the more mild weather of April, not August as it was in 1999. Over the following years, the festival became more and more popular, and in 2007 the show was extended to three days and included Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, Bjork and even actress Scarlett Johansson.

Since the 2001 festival, Coachella has become known to reunite bands for performances, including Iggy Pop & The Stooges, Tool, Daft Punk, Crowded House and Rage Against the Machine.

In addition to a wide variety of shows, installation art and sculptures are on display throughout the venue. Most of the art is interactive, many of which were first created for the Burning Man festival.

Recycling is also extremely important to event organizer, Goldenvoice, who annually holds a contest open to artists worldwide who submit designs for one of 24 recycling bins featured prominently on the event grounds. The bins are redistributed to the LA School District after the concert to encourage recycling in local communities.