"Best $2k I Ever Spent!" The Surprise Guests Of Coachella 2011

We've all had a chance to examine the official lineup for Coachella 2011, and therefore a chance to marvel at how we more or less nailed it with our early predictions. While some websites would be content to pat themselves on the back, we are not. Which is why I'm delighted to announce our next big scoop: early information and analysis on some huge special unannounced acts for each day of the festival.

Please note, these are very unconfirmed and are the author's speculation only.

Friday: The Insane Clown Posse

Why should a bunch of tweakers in the midwest have all the fun? As you probably already know, ICP is the probably the premier act amongst the entire field of the "white rappers with crazy facepaint, disgustingly violent lyrics and a secret Christian message" genre. As such, they tend to prefer to headline their own festival, the Gathering of the Juggalos, a primordial stew of single-cell humanity so putrid that they made people feel sorry for Tila Tequila last year.

Well, despite the fact that Coachella is a consistently excellent event, one thing it often fails to do is generate truly buzz-worthy controversy. What better way to fix that then to follow the Chemical Brothers set on Friday night with a duo who really looks like they deserve that name? Besides, even if Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J decided to forgo their classics (such as "We Give No Fucks" and "Bugz on my Nutz") and play Simon & Garfunkel covers on an acoustic guitar for 50 minutes, the controversy would create itself in the form of the confused, angry Juggalos forced to sit through the Kings of Leon set. Put it this way: given her recent tour troubles in front of actual willing audiences, we might get a chance to see Lauryn Hill spontaneously combust.

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Saturday: Peaches

With Arcade Fire and Bright Eyes headlining, I don't think it's too unfair to call Saturday the official "weepy" day of the festival. But all things need balance, which is why I think Canada's own boundary-destroying LGBTQ icon would fit right in. That way, the youth in attendance can process several different lines of advice on how to deal with all of their complicated feelings. Whereas Arcade Fire might advocate holding onto a sense of wistful nostalgia, and Conor Oberst might drown himself in cigarettes and booze, Peaches will simply advise these lost children to Fuck The Pain Away. Or maybe she can play a few instant classics off of her Fatherfucker album. Either way, we win!

[photo via]

Sunday: Abba

Between The Strokes, Duran Duran and PJ Harvey, we've pretty much covered the 80's, 90's and 00's for "what have they done lately?" headliners. We'll keep that trend going even further back to the 70's for Abba, who I assume would be given headlining precedence over obvious flash-in-the-pan Kanye West.

Seriously, though, why wouldn't this work? The 5 minutes of Wikipedia-skimming I just did seems to suggest that none of them are dead, and as far as I can tell they never really played any instruments to begin with, so it's not like there would be a lot of work to do to get them concert-ready. If one of them is in a wheelchair or on a motorized scooter these days, all the better! The hipsters will love it! Imagine a crowd of bombed out 20-somethings screaming along to "Dancing Queen?" Magic.

...well, I guess Coachella will be fun even if they don't take my advice. Jerks.

[photo via]