Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir, lead singer and guitarist, with Ragnar “Raggi” Þórhallsson, co-lead singer and guitarist, literally let the music speak for them as the duo’s vocals were often hard to hear over the chattering audience.

The group mostly stuck with songs from “My Head Is an Animal,” including the crowd pleasing single “Little Talks,” which ended their Friday set.

“Dirty Paws” kicked off their Outdoor Theatre set, which still featured the sun shining down on the audience at 5:45 p.m.

Other songs included “Slow and Steady” and an unreleased song, “Beneath My Bed.”

“It’s about the downstairs neighbor. Who sleeps beneath my bed,” joked Þórhallsson to the audience. “He’s very creepy,” added Hilmarsdóttir with a laugh.

wes.woods@inlandnewspapers.com

Al Barr of the Dropkick Murphys performs at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival Saturday, April 20, 2013, at the Empire Polo Club in Indio. Jennifer Cappuccio Maher/Daily Bulletin (Jennifer Cappuccio Maher)

Photos: Dropkick Murphys perform at Coachella 2013

Related: Dropkick Murphys raise money for Boston Marathon victims

INDIO – Boston’s Dropkick Murphys, known for its mixture of Celtic punk, punk rock and Celtic rock, woke up the main stage at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Saturday afternoon.

A Boston flag was displayed on the video screens to start the set as group members placed it behind the band and performed their 2001 song “For Boston,” which was fitting given the recent Boston Marathon bombing.

Audience members immediately started pumping their fists and then creating a mosh pit despite the more than 90 degree weather and sun at the main Coachella stage.

In machine-gun fire like quickness, the band tore through their new album single “The Boys Are Back,” “Don’t Tear Us Apart” off the same album “Signed and Sealed in Blood” and “Going Out In Style” from their 2011 album “Going Out In Style” before thanking the audience for supporting Boston after the bombing.

Other songs included 2013’s “Rose Tattoo” and “Out Of Our Heads” and their widely popular “I’m Shipping Up To Boston” as the set closer.

“This is our final song and then we will be shipping up to Boston,” said lead singer Al Barr before the final song.

wes.woods@inlandnewspapers.com

Allen Stone performs at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio April 12, 2013. (Thomas R Cordova/Daily Bulletin)

In true Vintage Trouble fashion, the Los Angeles-based band had little difficulty translating their soul revue sound to the Coachella stage Saturday afternoon.

Despite a small turnout, lead singer Ty Taylor put on quite a show, not only strutting around the stage but repeatedly coming off the main stage and serenading the crowd. He jumped off the stage, jumped over the barriers and began dancing with the crowd for “Run Like the River.”

After coming back onstage, Taylor had torn open a hole in the right pant leg of his matching suit. His band members were also in suits, some three-piece outfits. “My father always said a sign of good work is when you rip something,” Taylor told the crowd.

The band, made up of Taylor, Nalle Colt, guitars, backing vocalist; Rick Barrio Dill on bass guitar, backing vocals and Richard Danielson on drums.

During the set, Vintage trouble was able to effortlessly blend soul with a little bit of rock and roll. Which was well received by the crowd, happily obliging to his requests to dance along, despite the heat.

It was something even Taylor said he forgot to factor. As a child, Taylor said he grew up imagining playing to this type of crowd.

“You forget to imagine that everyone is going to be this hot,” he admitted.

Just before ending his set, Taylor encouraged the crowd to stop him or any other members of the band if they saw them at the festival.

Over at the Gobi tent Allen Stone helped turn up the soul factor with a 45 minute set which included his own rendition of Bob Marley’s “Is this Love.”

Backed by a five piece band, Stone showcased not only his vocal capabilities but his dance moves as well.

He also challenged the audience, some who were sitting down, to a dance off. Offering words of encouragement to those who didn’t think they can dance, Stone said it’s all about energy.

“If all you got is a two step or spirit fingers to dance to,” he said, then dance the “bejesus” out of it.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs perform at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival Friday, April 12, 2013, at the Empire Polo Club in Indio. Jennifer Cappuccio Maher/Daily Bulletin (Jennifer Cappuccio Maher)

INDIO – New York City’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs threw in old hits, new tracks and lead singer Karen O’s colorful style to try and upstage the other acts on the main stage of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival Friday night.It looked like it worked as fans could not get enough of songs like “Zero” from 2009’s “It’s Blitz!” “Maps” from their debut 2003 album “Fever to Tell” and “Mosquito” from their latest album “Mosquito.”

Lead singer Karen O, with bleached blonde hair, facepaint and wearing a striking yellow coat and matching pants, entertained the main Coachella stage crowd with her yelling of certain lyrics, wrapping the microphone cord around her neck and even putting the microphone in her mouth at one point.

“Coachella,” Karen O would yell out to cheers from the crowd. Even more cheers were heard when two large inflatable eye balls were thrown out to the crowd who passed them around.

The group’s set ended on fan favorite “Heads Will Roll” from “It’s Blitz!”

wes.woods@inlandnewspapers.com

Photo gallery: 2 Chainz performs at Coachella 2013

Complete coverage: COACHELLA 2013

INDIO – 2 Chainz performed “My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Remix)” with Fall Out Boy at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Saturday.

Rockers Fall Out Boy did not make any announcements or sing any of its other hits and the audience seemed kind of confused with others leaving after their brief appearance onstage.

Nonetheless, the Mojave Tent audience could not hold the crowd for 2 Chainz and many were outside the venue dancing and chanting for the College Park, Georgia hip-hop artist, similar to his performance last Saturday at the festival.

2 Chainz generally just performed songs minus the guests featured on them, which meant he would perform two verses at most and then move to the next song.

It worked with the crowd but was almost embarassing on ASAP Rocky’s “F***** Problems” where he is just on the hook. And that’s all he performed live on Saturday. In the future, he should at least come up with a freestyle or a verse to the song when the guests are not there just to showcase his versatility.

Other songs he performed included his hit at one half of Playaz Circle with Lil Wayne, “Duffle Bag Boy,” which did not include his former partner or Wayne. The crowd went crazy over “Birthday Song” and “No Lie” but he did them without guests of Kanye West and Drake, respectively.

He did perform most of his solo song “I’m Different,” which drew a massive singalong like 2 Chainz’ other songs.

But the end of the set came awkwardly, as 2 Chainz instructed the crowd to say “2013 Coachella. Let me hear you say 2 Chainz!” after his song “No Lie.” After the crowd said the phrase, 2 Chainz simply walked off the stage instead of performing at least one more song which he had time for.

Then the audience took the hint and left as 2 Chainz’s DJ tried to make up for the weird ending with some quick scratching.

wes.woods@inlandnewspapers.com

Photos: Dropkick Murphys perform at Coachella 2013

Review: Dropkick Murphys wake up main stage Saturday afternoon

INDIO – Ken Casey, bassist and co-lead singer for Boston’s Dropkick Murphys, said on Saturday at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival a T-shirt being sold to help the victims and their families of the Boston Marathon bombings has generated more than $150,000 so far.

“It’s pretty amazing,” Casey said before the band was set to perform at 3:35 p.m. Saturday on the main Coachella stage. To learn more information or purchase a shirt, head to http://kingsroadmerch.com/dropkick-murphys/region/.

Casey addressed the bombing on stage Saturday afternoon, after the interview, by thanking the Coachella main stage audience for their support.

“I want to send a big thank you for showing so much support for the people of Boston and what they’ve been through this week,” Casey said on stage during his set after performing the song “Going Out In Style.”

Casey said the idea came from the group discussing what to do about the situation and having such a passionate fan base.

“If we get behind a cause, we have this worldwide reach to, I don’t know what it is, 1.5 million people on Facebook,” Casey said. “We’re on the other side of the country, we can’t be there to play a benefit, how can we most immediately do something to help.”

Casey said the group’s fans will purchase more than one shirt and tell friends and familes about the cause, which has pushed the effort over the top.

“It’s just amazing,” Casey said.

Casey owns the bar McGreevy’s Third Base Saloon in Boston, which he said was just two blocks from the second bomb blast and on the same street.

“We had to evacuate everyone out the back door,” Casey said in an interview at the festival. “I have a lot of close friends in that area. A good friend of mine is an uncle to the 8-year-old boy killed, so it’s very close to home. Boston’s a very small town like that. Everybody knows somebody affected by it. It’s very real. It’s tough to be out here on the other side of the country watching it all go down.”

Casey said performing music in areas like Santa Cruz and San Francisco shortly afterward was “healing” and a good way to deal with the stress of dealing with the Boston incident.

“Absolutely,” he said. “And you know Bostonians are everywhere. At our show, a lot of times I’ll say ‘Anybody from Massachusetts here?’ And there’s at least 10 percent of that crowd that is transplanted Massachusetts people or New Englanders every night. So I think it was important for us to be there too to bring that little spirit, being at home to those people. The only good that comes out of these things, and there’s no good that comes out of them, but the only good, it happened with 9/11 too, was where everyone stops for a second and realizes what’s important in life. And not cutting each other off in traffic and being in a rush to get somewhere. Maybe we should stop and think about people for a moment. Then of course that wears off and a week later, a month later, we’re right back to the rat race but that’s human nature I guess.

wes.woods@inlandnewspapers.com

2 Chainz, of College Park, Georgia, joined the group on the song “Bubble Butt” to a crazed crowd reaction after the hip-hop artist performed on the same stage just two hours before.

Joining Major Lazer were two dancers wearing bikins who would occasionally perform handstands and move her legs in time to the bass-heavy instrumentals to loud cheers from the audience.

The group mixed together numerous songs in their 50 minute set from Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot” to their own material while walking the stage waving Major Lazer flags and other performance tricks including trying to get audience members to take off their shirts.

The audience was jumping up and down constantly during the set, which would be a success based on crowd reaction even if the set felt like a repeat of Miami bass pioneer Luther Campbell and the 2 Live Crew from the late 80’s to the early 90’s.

Major Lazer was formerly a collaboration between DJ’s Diplo and Switch but the latter left the group in 2011 and now just Diplo is Major Lazer with Walshy Fire and Jillionaire.

wes.woods@inlandnewspapers.com