The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival turns 26 this year, which means that some of its performers this weekend (hello, Tyla) weren’t even born when the now-iconic event launched in 1999, with acts including Beck, Underworld, and Rage Against the Machine. Now a well-established affair, Coachella 2025 kicked off on Friday, April 11 in the desert near Palm Springs.
With a lineup that included Lady Gaga, T-Pain, and Travis Scott, it’s no surprise that crowds at the fest (which runs this weekend and next) were also packed with notable names. Kate Hudson (fresh off the success of Netflix series Running Point), Anya Taylor-Joy, Julia Fox, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Cardi B, and Kylie Jenner and Timothée Chalamet were just some of the celebrities caught by paparazzi on the grounds of Indio’s Empire Polo Club.
One of the biggest on-stage surprises over the first two days wasn’t who you might expect: Senator Bernie Sanders, whose anti-oligarchy tour is currently packing venues across the western states of the US. The 83-year-old Vermonter hit the Coachella stage Saturday, telling festival goers “You can turn away and you can ignore what goes on, but if you do that, you do it at your own peril. We need you to stand up to fight for justice. To fight for economic justice, social justice and racial justice.”
Read on for photos from the first two days of Coachella 2025, which will continue for a second weekend on April 18-20.
