So we splurged and purchased tickets to the Desert Trip. It was more money than we thought but also considered this a once in a lifetime experience to see the artists that shaped our childhoods and therefore our lives. We flew Southwest and stopped in San Jose in order to save a little money.

bay-bridge
The hotel prices in Indio were outrageous so we rented a condo in Palm Springs for less and had the benefits of a larger space, a kitchen, a barely used hot tub and swimming pool, and peace and quiet.

condo-living-room

condo-bedroom

picture-on-wall-for-washington-mine

condo-dining-room

condo-kitchen
The condo turned out to be a good move as we could recover each morning and sleep in/relax after along night of loud music and crowds.
The first morning we checked out Palm Springs before heading to the Desert Trip site.

palm-springs-road

marilyn-monroe-house

elvis-honeymoon-house

arriving-at-desert-trip
Tom had a bad meniscal tear and was schedule for surgery as soon as we got back so could not walk well. For these reasons we got a disabled parking permit and spent quite a bit of time in the car near the grounds.

tom-in-car-at-desert-trip
We did check out the Desert Trip grounds before the shows started despite the 100 degree weather.

tom-donna-and-the-stones

tom-donna-and-the-who
There was a large photography exhibit in a tent that was air conditioned. There were a lot of vintage photos of the artists we were seeing.

bob-dylans-band-photo

tom-and-donna-at-desert-trip

tom-checking-out-stadium

desert-trip-crowd

desert-trip-sunset
The first act was Bob Dylan. We had planned to eat dinner before Dylan but stood in a line for tacos for one hour with little progress before we gave up to see Dylan instead.

bob-dylan
Unfortunately he did not put on a good performance. All the songs sounded the same. So we ended up leaving discouraged to find some food. We were pretty upset with Desert Trip at this point but thankfully The Rolling Stones came up next and they were outstanding (as always).

the-rolling-stones

backview-of-the-stones
We did have to deal with our very drunk neighbor singing along with the songs as you can hear toward the end of this video
Here is a little later without her.
The videos did not turn out well but you can hear the audio fairly well.

ronnie

stones-cacti

fireworks
The next morning we decided to shop for food and not depend on Desert Trip to provide it for us. This plan worked out better. We then headed out to see Neil Young.

water-is-life-teepee

neil-young

neil-young
I love the song Powder Finger so there are three movies of it.
Here are the next songs.
We then took a break in the car and ate our dinners. We had thought that The Stones were best performance possible but Neil Young really blew us away and then we could not decide. Next was Paul McCartney.

car-break

sir-paul


paul

We were awe inspired with this and headed back to our condo to recuperate.
The next morning we stopped by an exhibit of vintage movie posters in Palm Springs on the way to the Trip.

marilyn-monroe-poster

tom-looking-at-vintage-movie-posters

movies-filmed-in-palm-springs

palm-springs-celebrity-residents
We briefly explored the grounds but it was too hot and Tom’s knee hurt too much to do much. Then sunset happened and the bands came on starting with The Who!

sunset-selfie

desert-trip-crowd-sunset

the-who

windmill

the-who-banner
It was amazing how much “Won’t Get Fooled Again” still applies after so many years. Next came Roger Waters. We were not expecting much as we are mild but not huge Pink Floyd fans. Boy, we were wrong.
Things then got a little political.

joker

trump

charade

divided-we-fall-pig
And pigs get insulted.

trump-is-a-pig

waters

playing-on-top-of-the-wall
We were so blown away by Roger Waters. The whole Trip was amazing and I am so glad we made the commitment to go. This is something we will never forget.