Coachella 2023: Five rad things that happened during SOFI TUKKER's Weekend 2 set
To know SOFI TUKKER, the dynamic EDM duo from New York City made up of Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern, is to love them.
It's almost physically impossible not to dance along and hop on the wavelength of their boundless energy and pulsating beats and positivity and choreography and colorful clothes. And like any good house music band, they know how to build up that anticipation and then drop the beat.
Here are five rad things SOFI TUKKER did during their 55-minute set on Saturday at the Outdoor Theatre.
A jungle gym of sound
Hard to explain, but they had a pink metal arc that was not unlike the monkey bars at an old playground. The duo, and their backup dancers Bob's Dance Shop, used it to dance on and do pull-ups and the like, but the structure also had some sort of electronic sound pads attached.
So when either of them would hit the pad with a drumstick, a surprising noise would come out: a flare of horns, a guitar riff, etc. It made for a strange image, but a cool sound, as they hit this jungle gym with drumsticks periodically throughout their set for a surprising accent to any song.
Keeping score
To get fans roaring, SOFI TUKKER kept a scoreboard going on their big side screens with a competition between Weekend 1 and Weekend 2 crowds, complete with an ESPN-style scoreboard that read“eSTn.”
Weekend 1 had scored 25 points, according to them, and as the Weekend 2 crowd roared and sang and shouted and danced, they would keep racking points.
You're not going to believe this, but right at the buzzer, during the final song, Weekend 2 won! The Weekend 2 crowd got five points for their effort during the closing song "Purple Hat." Those five points made the final score 29-25 in favor of Weekend 2.
‘White Lotus’ love
The popular HBO show “White Lotus” got some love from the band.
Tucker asked the crowd if they watched it, to a roar of approval, they then performed their song "Matadora" mixed in with the “White Lotus” theme song. It was cool and eerie and ethereal and created a “White Lotus”-y vibe of beauty and danger as the sun set over the San Jacinto Mountains.
Sophie says
Sophie played a quick game of Simon Says, aka Sophie Says, with the crowd along to a pulsating backing beat, of course.
"Sophie says touch your toes. Sophie says touch your hair. Sophie says strike a pose. Put your hands up in the air." At that last one, about 60% of the crowd understood the game and did not put their hands up in the air.
But many, as they've been trained to do by countless songs over their lives, put their hands up in the air when told to do so.
Suzanne Vega sample
A fun crowd singalong moment came during their song "Summer in New York," which samples the "duh, duh, duh-da. Duh, duh, duh-da. Duh-da, duh-di-duh-di-da-duh" part of Suzanne Vega's song "Tom's Diner."
As the song wound down, they urged the crowd to sing it. We did. They had a great dance beat behind it. We loved it. They had fun. And we got three all-important points, toward our big Weekend 2 victory over Weekend 1.
Shad Powers is a columnist for The Desert Sun. Reach him at shad.powers@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Coachella 2023: 5 rad things that happened during SOFI TUKKER's set
