Kiwi band The Beths join Coachella 2024 line up

Wednesday, 17 January 2024

Auckland indie-rock band The Beths will be playing the world-famous music festival Coachella when the event returns to California in April.

The band will perform both festival weekends on April 12 and 19, the same days headliner Lana Del Rey is set to take the stage.

Coachella’s other headliners are rappers Tyler, The Creator and Doja Cat, while 90s band No Doubt is listed as a special guest.

Other notable artists on the line up include Blur, J Balvin, Ice Spice, Deftones, Lil Uzi Vert, and more.

The Beths’ lead singer Liz Stokes says the band are “excited” to take on one of the US’ most popular music festivals, before venturing on their own tour in the States.

“We played 115 shows just in 2023, and most of them were in the States,” Stokes says.

The Beths for Sunday Magazine: Liz Stokes, Jonathan Pearce, Benjamin Sinclair and Tristan Deck.

“It's a really big country with a lot of people and a lot of music lovers, like there's a real kind of gig culture there because there are bands coming through all the time - it can kind of be your like full time hobby, to just go to lots of gigs.

“We really like playing there, we really like the music culture there, and we’re excited to go back and play a few kind of towns in the Southwest.”

As for the rest of the festival, Stokes says she’s hoping to “experience the Doja Cat live show”.

“We were really like playing there, we really like the music culture there, and we’re excited to go back and play a few kind of towns in the Southwest.”

Held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, the music festival averages 125,000 attendees each day, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The festival saw a few hitches in its previous year, with headliner Frank Ocean delivering an underwhelming and brief performance during his first weekend show, before cancelling the second.

Kanye West was billed to play the festival in 2022, but pulled out at the last minute, replaced by the Weeknd and Swedish House Mafia.

The Beths are the most recent recipients of the 2023 Silver Scroll Award, and were featured in former US President Barack Obama’s 2023 summer playlist.

This isn’t the first time a Kiwi act has taken on Coachella: Benee performed in 2023, while Lorde took the stage in 2014 and 2017.