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Teddy Swims continued his back-to-back Coachella performances with a strong set at Stagecoach on Saturday – and took home the win this time too David Lee Roth on the stage.
After playing his new single “Mr. Know It All” and “Some Things I’ll Never Know” from his debut studio album “I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 1),” Swims invited the former Van Halen frontman to perform “Jump” together again. As with the previous two performances at Coachella, it was the highlight of the set at Stagecoach – fans raised their fists in the dusty air, cowboy hats on their heads, and belted out the lyrics.
During his Coachella set, Swims also brought Joe Jonas on stage to sing the country-tinged Jonas Brothers ballad “When You Look Me in the Eyes” and Vanessa Carlton, who performed her rediscovered ’90s hit “A Thousand Miles.”
Roth on Van Halen and cowboy hats
ROLLING STONE spoke with Roth immediately after the Stagecoach performance, who performed his duet with Swims as “45-[Meilen-pro-Stunde]-Summer trip up to the Stagecoach” and noted: “Classic Van Halen is probably 30 percent cowboy hat and boots.” When asked why “Jump” has been his song of choice at two festivals in a row, Roth replied that the song has a universal appeal – physically and emotionally. “It’s a song about stepping up, taking a shot, jumping into the deep end,” he said. “It’s about leading with your head – and I’ve been with mine in places you wouldn’t go with a gun. That’s cowboy humor.”
Roth, who lights up when he performs with or talks about Swims, says the two share a “wabi-sabi disposition” – a Japanese philosophy that he explains means “that which is perfect because it is a little broken – like my voice.” While Stagecoach welcomes rock-oriented acts like Counting Crows and Third Eye Blind as well as genre-bending artists like BigXthaPlug, Roth reflected on how rock & roll has changed since his Van Halen days.
“Culture is a verb. Not a thing. Culture is something you do and it’s constantly changing,” he said. “Don’t just learn the waltz. Learn the cha-cha and learn to enjoy it. That’s in my classic songbook. From ‘West Side Story’ to Ricky Ricardo.”
