Shake and Bake

Old Dudes Who Need Naps: Goth-rockers Bauhaus (although frontman Peter Murphy should get points for playing "Bela Lugosi's Dead" while hanging upside down like a wrinkled gray bat).

Biggest Surprises: All day Saturday and Sunday, rumors swirled about "surprise" acts. The White Stripes in the parking lot? The Gorillaz at the afterparty? No such luck on either of those, but there was a wee bit of trickery here and there. Under his DJ pseudonym Peretz, former Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell put together a way-trippy techno display in the Sahara Tent, the unofficial drug den where kids came to stop, drop and roll. "I would say this is the perfect place to beeeeee! It's nice and shady! It's shaking my booty!" Farrell said.

At the end of Z-Trip's guilty-pleasure set -- Z-Trip essentially being a wedding DJ who's really bored with his job, mixing AC/DC and Ray Charles with electronic beats -- he invited Linkin Park's Chester Bennington onstage to sing "Walking Dead," a moody cut from Z-Trip's new album, "Shifting Gears."

Biggest Freaks: Whoever created the art display featuring the exploding baby should probably seek counseling, and Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo is a power-pop nutjob who's increasingly making Beach Boy Brian Wilson seem like Mister Rogers. Cuomo has taken a vow of celibacy. He's alienated his band mates. He just seems so uncomfortable . That said, Weezer's new material -- including "Peace" and "We Are All on Drugs" -- are shimmering cuts of fun fun fun, proving that as Rivers gets crazier, his songs get better.

Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor is one intense son of a gun: He peered into the Sunday night crowd as if he wanted to eat us, and his new techno-rage songs are chock-full of Grade A self-loathing. Classic NIN love song "Closer" made for the most unlikely singalong of the festival, a pretty little hate machine to cut through all the niceties.

Best Claim to World Domination: "Is there anybody out there who is lost and hurt and lonely, too?" Coldplay's Chris Martin -- you know, Apple's dad, Gwynnie's hubby, heir to the Brit-pop throne -- is such a dope. But man, can that guy write some pretty music. There wasn't a bigger band at Coachella this year. (Pity poor Spoon and the Chemical Brothers and Fantomas, all of whom headlined their stages but had to play the same time as Coldplay.) Next month Coldplay will release "X & Y," and if the smattering of new tunes played at Coachella is any indication, the third album is going to be the biggest.

Martin, alternating between piano, acoustic guitar and standalone mike, displayed a newfound swagger and edge, brought on perhaps by marriage, fatherhood or bazillions of dollars. And if there once was concern that Martin was going to go the way of Radiohead's Thom Yorke (obtuse, difficult, cuckoo), you can forget about that. A master at writing sweeping melodies for the masses, Martin's mission is to pull close rather than push away. And does he have a flair for the dramatic. As a crisp wind whipped through the palm trees and across the grounds, the black night yawning overhead, Martin signaled the lovely piano pounds of "Yellow," the band's breakout hit: "Look at the stars / Look how they shine for you."

Rock-and-roll at the end of the world. See you next year.