As Art Brut's Eddie Argos always says in his ode to California, "There's not much glam about the English weather." So it should come as no surprise that many an English lad took full advantage of the blazing Coachella Valley sun this weekend, the Kooks included.

We here at SPIN.com wish we could pack you all up in our respective suitcases and bring you along to this weekend's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. But just because you don't have a ticket for this weekend's blazing hot event (literally: 100-degree temperatures expected each day) doesn't mean you can't soak up some of the festival's top performances.

"Thank you for your manners."

Walking through the front gates, day two, there's a pink-cheeked girl with an Asian parasol, talking on a cell phone, attempting to locate her friend. She has braces. She can't be much older than Flea's daughter.

You have to have two different wristbands to do this. One's made of cloth and says, "Main Stage 2007." The other is orange and has little sketches of fireworks blasts in white and navy blue. The cloth one gets you on a golf cart, behind all the stages, on a dirt path lined with small palms.

Everything seems to fall into place for this band, even the earth. The sky is at that perfect moment between daytime and night. They call it "the magic hour." The moon even looks perfectly centered above the field. This is when the Arcade Fire starts playing "Keep the Car Running." There are about twenty white orbs, small beach balls, being tossed above the herd of rapturous fans.

It's time to coin a phrase: fedorable. That is the hat of this year. Both men and women abound with these caps, worn with different styles and attitudes. There's the semi-sleazy bearded and greasy type who swaggers around in clothing not fit for this kind of weather.

Girls in white-rimmed sunglasses and summer dresses are leaning over the barricades. At a practically precise 5:12 P.M., Silversun Pickups stroll out onto the Coachella Stage to hoots and hollers. We're not quite in Los Angeles, but this four-piece from Silver Lake gets a kind of hometown welcome. For a band on a stage this size, they look strangely like the people watching them.

"It's starting to feel really nice out." A girl says this in the Gobi Tent. This same girl screams and rushes forward when Amy Winehouse limbers her thin frame out from behind the stage. You can already tell this is a different kind of crowd by their hats alone.

The Jesus and Mary Chain have just started playing "Never Understand" and a girl with reddish hair and a white dress drops her purse, looks to her friend and says, "Oh my God. I'm...it's...the Jesus and Mary Chain!" This corner in front of the stage has a fair share of superfans.