It was clear from the first ring of a doorbell from the Coachella stage that Teddy Swims got the memo: Make your set extra special, and it will be what the audience walks away talking about at the end of the night, even if you’re one of the early sets on the main stage. Swims’ stage production was made to look like a dynamic recreation of an apartment, complete with a bedroom, garage, living room, and yes, a front door: three songs in, that doorbell rang for the first time, and Swims brought Joe Jonas out to sing the country-flavored Jonas Brothers ballad “When You Look Me in the Eyes.”
It was really just the start, though, of an outstanding set that would have been stellar even without the slew of guests Swims welcomed. Swims’ songs themselves run the gamut from Foster the People-coded indie pop (the opener, “The Door”) to slow-burn ballads (“Bad Dreams”) to faux hard rock (“You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” — not the Judas Priest song, but a Swims original.)
That said, each time the doorbell did ring it meant the show was ramping up: A few songs after Jonas left the stage, the bell rang again and out emerged Vanessa Carlton, who played her resurgent Nineties smash “A Thousand Miles” to a sea of cell phones and lovelorn singing along.
Swims saved the most special guest for last: The final time the doorbell rang, out emerged David Lee Roth, sporting a trademark smile, leather vest, and skintight pants, and sounding fantastic: Swims beamed while the two sang the Van Halen classic “Jump” to each other, imperfectly and charmingly missing the entrance to the second verse and laughing it off. Roth was positively beaming as he stood on the catwalk in the middle of the thousands-strong crowd as the song hit its key-change crescendo, and he had every reason to celebrate: It was clear another generation had learned Van Halen’s biggest hit by osmosis, fist pumping and singing along to the song’s climax.
As a victory lap, Swims closed his set with his biggest hit, “Lose Control,” inspiring sway-alongs throughout the field, as pyro blasted onstage and Swims rode off on a custom bike, a cap on a set that clearly learned every possible lesson from mid-day sets of past years to deliver something memorable.
