Hatsune Miku performed at Coachella! It’s a huge milestone for Miku and the producers featured on her set, and many fans (me included) felt so proud. It’s such a big accomplishment to see Miku reach one of the biggest music festivals in the world!
A bit of historical context, Miku had already been scheduled to perform at Coachella once before in 2020, though the COVID-19 pandemic had cancelled the entire festival before it could happen. It wasn’t the only Miku concert to be cancelled, as the MIKU EXPO 2020 North America Tour was cancelled after many delays for the same reason.
As the times have gone on and Miku has reached a larger audience (partly due to the many lockdowns and the success of Project SEKAI and other social media trends during that time), Miku has reached a point where she’s more popular outside of Japan than ever before, so there were pretty high expectations. With that said, let’s go through all the highs and lows of Miku’s appearance!
The Positives
The setlist was extremely good and fit the occasion very well. With classic Japanese language hits such as World is Mine and Tell Your World by legendary VocaPs ryo and kz respectively, to the infamous English language songs Miku by Anamanaguchi and Ten Thousand Stars by CircusP, to songs that set the mood just right, ranging from the upbeat party songs Lucky Orb by emon(Tes.) and Highlight by KIRA, to the symphonic metal hit Hyper Reality Show by UtsuP, to the melancholic synths in Thousand Little Voices by Vault Kid and Flanger Moose, with a nod to the late wowaka’s legacy in Unknown Mother Goose, and ending on the best note possible with the theme for the current ongoing MIKU EXPO Tour, Intergalactic Bound by Yunosuke and CircusP.
Even within the great setlist, you can find many small easter eggs within the stages itself, such as the guitar for the cancelled MIKU EXPO 2020 North America Tour in Unknown Mother Goose, and the module in Tell Your World being more reminiscent of modules in Miku’s earliest concerts.
The band actually gets to shine a bit and escapes the background! Not only do they get focused on by the camera a little more, but you can tell they were having so much fun in the way they played and how they interacted with Miku as if she were really there with them. I loved their presence in the set! They were a huge highlight and I'm happy their efforts get more recognized these days.
There was also a sign language interpreter that was signing the lyrics to all the songs in the set, and although it’s a standard for events as big as Coachella, I still loved it.
The Negatives
I will try to keep this brief as I can since I personally really loved the set, but I’ll be pointing out the most glaring issue in the room.
As you’ll see in the Coachella set and in other live performances such as MIKU FES’24 (Spring) and the ongoing MIKU EXPO Tour, the transparent sheet used to project Miku’s ‘hologram’ had been replaced with an LED screen, leaving Miku a lot more noticeably low quality then she already was when normally projected on the sheet. This has been a huge criticism by fans in Japan and overseas alike. Although not as noticeable in MIKU FES’24 (Spring) due to the lack of background decor behind the screen, MIKU EXPO had LED light displays behind the screen, breaking the ‘illusion’ of her being there a lot more harshly.
In particular, Coachella had made a really bad decision by filming Miku and the band members right from the sides of and extremely close to the screen in the livestream, leaving Miku to look extremely flat and crispy both in the livestream and wherever she moved to a different part of it in person. Though this justifies the band being less out there by a little, it does explain a lot why Crypton Future Media doesn’t film or release side views of concerts even with the sheet.
This is something I’d like to discuss more intensely for another day, but just know that it was extremely disappointing for fans watching.
The Aftermath
I will also keep this as brief as possible since this gets a bit sad as well.
Miku being at Coachella was a big deal for vocal synth fans and people outside the scene alike. However, the general acceptance by fans was different then from the general audience.
As the Coachella performance festered, many mainstream news outlets wanted to get a piece of the Miku pie and the controversy surrounding the screen, which led to a lot of misinformation about her being spread, notably her and her music being AI-generated, which gained enough backlash for me to justify no longer writing about it here, but I did send an email to SFGATE in particular when I discovered it, only to realize it had blown up because of it's misinformation shortly after. It was extremely frustrating. Alongside other miscellaneous criticisms about Coachella’s lackluster presence this year, this really tanked Miku’s performance.
Personal and Final Thoughts
Despite the many errors and complaints made about the set, I really enjoyed it! Since I’m going to MIKU EXPO in under 20 days, this was much needed for me to get hyped up. I’m one of the people that didn’t really care about the screen, I was just happy that she finally made it to such a big festival.
Despite the wide backlash, there were people that were still generally excited for Miku! I was happy to see so many people watching and saw some of them waving their penlights in the crowd! I was generally satisfied and so excited for all the producers that appeared on the set, they definitely deserved it.
As Coachella nears its second weekend with Miku returning, I hope more people can come to enjoy Miku and the people behind her. Regardless of how she performs, she will always be Miku, the singing mascot and the voice of thousands, and that's what I love about her. I'm excited to see where she goes next, and hopefully she can reach even greater heights.