Coachella’s surprise moments

Coachella’s second weekend turned into a guest-heavy finale, with Madonna joining Sabrina Carpenter on Friday and Justin Bieber serenading Billie Eilish on Saturday. (yahoo.com) Yahoo’s recap said Madonna appeared during Carpenter’s April 17 set for a duet of “Vogue,” then told the crowd she was back at Coachella 20 years after her 2006 festival performance. (yahoo.com) The next night, Bieber’s main-stage set became what Yahoo called a “guest-star parade,” with Billie Eilish coming out during “One Less Lonely Girl” and SZA, Big Sean, Sexyy Red and Dijon also joining him. (yahoo.com) Coverage across outlets treated Weekend 2 as the more eventful half of the festival. Yahoo said it “clearly outshine[d]” Weekend 1, and The Arizona Republic’s Coachella coverage listed Madonna and Eilish among the weekend’s seven best moments. (yahoo.com, azcentral.com) The Strokes also became part of the weekend’s online afterlife. Variety reported that the band ended its Weekend 2 set with a video montage referencing Central Intelligence Agency regime-change allegations and footage of bombings in Iran and Gaza. (variety.com) The crowd offstage drew its own coverage. ESPN reported on April 20 that Stephen Curry attended with Ayesha Curry and Seth Curry, and that Dallas Wings guard Paige Bueckers was among the WNBA players spotted in Indio alongside Rickea Jackson, Aaliyah Edwards and Cameron Brink. (espn.com) Coachella has run as a two-weekend festival since 2012, and the second weekend often functions as a reset with new cameos, revised sets and a fresh livestream audience. This year’s headliners were Bieber, Carpenter and Karol G, according to ESPN’s festival recap and live coverage from the Los Angeles Times. (espn.com, latimes.com) By Sunday night, the festival had closed with Karol G on the main stage and a long list of clips still circulating from the desert. Weekend 2 ended the way it began: by making surprise appearances the main story. (yahoo.com)