Insert Foot asks, “What is the purpose of Coachella?” Original photo courtesy Coachella.

An editor and I had our weekly chat about what we care about this week, and he mentioned Coachella is happening in Southern California, and suggested I take a deeper dive into what’s happening at the world’s most hyped music festival this weekend.

A little searching turned up Harry Styles, Shania Twain, and Google’s most asked question: “What is the purpose of Coachella?”

Once I stopped laughing, I experienced my semi-annual “I am so glad I’m not at Coachella and/or Burning Man right now” moment of thanking my creator, then thought, “That’s not the worst question ever asked.”

What is the purpose of Coachella?

It’s essentially the same question civilization has asked for thousands of years, going back to the first Roman who worked up the courage to say “So why, exactly, are we jammed into this Roman Colosseum, pretending it’s not pure awful to watch these puffed-up armor-monkeys kill each other to death with swords?”

He, of course, immediately had his head lopped off. But he raised a decent point.

What is the purpose of Coachella?

Well, I’ve never been to Coachella, so I can’t totally answer that. I no longer care for music festivals, unless the Replacements are reuniting wearing pink cowgirl skirts. After I flew all the way to Denver to experience that a few years back, I decided to retire from music festivals forever, because it would never get that good again.

Too many people, too much sweat, too much money, too much drugs and booze … not enough Netflix and naps.

But because I have a column due in a few minutes, and I know some people who have gone to Coachella, and I’m old enough to have done some fantastic things before I got old and decided naps were better than Christmas presents … I’ll take an educated guess.

After all, I’ve been to hundreds, if not thousands of other music festivals (30?). So I should know a lot about them.

Coachella exists … for people to take photos of themselves and tell other people they went to Coachella.

I’m serious. Because it’s there? Because it’s an excuse to act like an animal for a couple days? Because minor celebrities are desperate to be seen in the VIP area? Yes, to all of those.

Even from where I park my middle-aged rear end, I can tell you that it’s not because it’s a deep and meaningful cultural experience. It’s certainly not because standing near a desert for a couple days among hundreds of thousands of sweaty, inebriated people is a good way to experience music.

I’m sure there would not be a Coachella if someone wasn’t making lots of money from it. So that’s at least half the answer. Deep Throat was right: Always ask who benefits and follow the money.

But there has to be a place to be seen. Always. Then that place becomes a place to say you were.

It doesn’t matter if it’s watching gladiators or Tupac’s hologram, or Harry Styles duet with Shania Twain, or saying you lived through a disaster, or a riot, or saw the Super Bowl or whatever.

We have to think we’re part of something, which helps define us. So, even if it’s silly, it still matters. And especially in 2022. Some research (Google) tells me this is the first one of these in three years.

So the answer is probably different this year. Because we need to feel normal again after the pandemic. The people who get excited about Coachella need to do so again. The rest of us need Coachella to happen again so we can go back to being thankful we’re not at Coachella again.

And that feels good.

Follow music critic Tony Hicks at Twitter.com/TonyBaloney1967.