Photo by Alex Rauch

Our friends in L.A. are on site all weekend covering the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California. Stay tuned right here for the latest news, reviews, photos, and videos!

[PHOTO GALLERY] Cage The Elephant Coachella House Performanceview gallery

It’s Friday afternoon on the first day at our Coachella House, and in Coachella Standard Time (CST), that is really freakin’ early.

Luckily for us, [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Cage The Elephant [/lastfm]was right on time, full of energy, and the perfect way to start Coachella off with a firm, powerful shakedown of grunge-infused rock ‘n roll awesomeness.

Is it party time in Indio? Oh yeah.

Kat got to sit down with Cage the Elephant. Here is one of entertaining exchanges between Kat and the band. They divulged their fear of success and a nightmare they had about people not digging their set.

Kat:  ”Everyone is going to be watching your set on Youtube that couldn’t make it out to watch it.”

Cage the Elephant: “Really. That makes me nervous.”

K: “Why?”

CTE: ”Because now there are going to be even more people watching it.”

K: “Well, when you climb up on something high and you decide to jump off, everyone can see it.”

“I dreamt that there was over a hundred people at our set. And, like, one by one they started leaving. I was like, “Why are they leaving? And out of desperation we started playing “In One Ear.” And it wasn’t working. I was like, “It’s not working. It’s not working!”

“I was like throwing stuff off the stage.”

K: “I bet you you’re not the first one to have that dream as performer.”

CTE: “What was that movie with Kevin Costner? Built a baseball field….That’s sounds like Fields of Dreams.”

The hilarious Cage the Elephant made their way on stage, sound-checked in the scorching mid-day sun looking like the eccentrically cute grunge cuties they are. Lead singer Matthew Schultz was wearing a vintage [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Sonic Youth[/lastfm] shirt — fitting, since he looks kind of like a younger mix of [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Thurston Moore[/lastfm] and [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Kurt Cobain[/lastfm].

They played an acoustic-ish  rendition of their song “2024,” the ever-popular sing-a-long tune “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked,” and the audience’s undeniable favorite, “Shake Me Down.”

Staring up into the sun, the band ended their set with the apropos lyrics, “even on a cloudy day…I keep my eyes fixed on the sun.” It’s definitely not a cloudy day, but like Kat mentioned, Cage the Elephant’s career is looking up into the horizon, eyes fixed on the sun, climbing high so that everyone can see. Jumping off into success.

We don’t predict a mass exodus from their audiences any time soon.

[PHOTO GALLERY] Cage The Elephant Coachella House Interviewview gallery

See more stories, photos, and videos from Coachella 2011!