Coachella was almost a bust, then Rage Against The Machine raged in

Empire Polo Field in Indio, California hosted the inaugural Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on October 9 and 10, 1999. According to the festival’s bill, Beck, The Chemical Brothers, Morrissey, and Perry Farrell, the founder of Lollapalooza and former frontman of Jane’s Addiction, performed on the main stage on the first day, while Underworld and Spiritualized dominated the side stages. Rage Against The Machine headlined the second day, with Tool, Pavement, and Cibo Matta, while Moby, DJ Shadow, and LTJ Bukem were scheduled to perform on the dance-heavy side stages. Starting their own event was a bold move for promoters Goldenvoice. In late 1981, Gary Tovar began performing punk music in Santa Barbara, California, and nine months later, he was booking Black Flag events in LA’s 10,000-capacity Olympic Auditorium. But the original staging of Coachella needed to sell about 70,000 of its $50 tickets to break even, and it ended up selling little over half of that objective, amassing debts of $850,000 as a result. Fortunately, the promoters’ deep roots in the punk and ‘alternative’ music communities meant that they had accumulated a lot of goodwill and good karma over the years, and their friends in bands weren’t going to stand back and see two decades defending the movement go up in smoke.

The festival lost so much money they asked us for our fee back, which we gave them because they were friends. Tom Morello

Tool and Beck also agreed on a deferred payment scheme to help the company.

They let us pay some talent three, four, five months later. Employees were willing to take a paycheck guaranteed to bounce. Paul Tollett

Coachella recovered after a rough start. In 2003, 60,000 people attended to see Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Beastie Boys headline, and by 2013, 10 years later, Coachella was the most profitable festival in the United States, selling 158,000 tickets for the weekend in 20 minutes. Tom Morello and co. most likely have free VIP access for life.