Roger Waters, late of Pink Floyd, may well be the most surprising name on this year's Coachella fest lineup.
The talk from Mexico City, where the Coachella promoters are gathered to make the first announcement, has the former Floyd bassist doing his concert version of "Dark Side of the Moon" as one of the headliners. It's also looking like Jack Johnson will be headlining one of the three nights at the Indio, Calif., polo field April 25-27. Full lineups and days of performances are expected to be announced Tuesday.
From the land of the reunited are Portishead, which has eight Europe date sbefore the festival, Love and Rockets, Kraftwerk, Madness, Sasha and Digweed and the Breeders. On the other end of the spectrum, the bill's heavily hyped rookie acts include the Black Kids, Datarock, Vampire Weekend and VHS or Beta.
Acts whose albums were among the best of 2007's releases: Sharon Jones, Battles, Rogue Wave, Jens Lekman, Justice and M.I.A.
Among the other confirmed performers: The Verve, Raconteurs, Animal Collective, Tegan and Sara, Mum, Fatboy Slim, Stars, Sia, Black Mountain, I'm From Barcelona, Death Cab For Cutie, My Morning Jacket, Stephen Malkmus, Metric, the Streets, Spiritualized and Cafe Tacuba. There will be 125 bands in all including a few from Mexico.
Rumored performers Prince, Radiohead, My Bloody Valentine and Muse are not part of this year's festival.
This summer will be the festival's ninth edition and one can already hear the twentysomethings griping that it's not like it used to be.