Everything was running smoothly until the surprise guest appeared stage left with an acoustic guitar in hand.
Bad Bunny’s 2023 Coachella headlining show on Friday night was delivering on its promise of extreme spectacle. The Puerto Rican superstar is the first Latino solo artist to headline the music festival, and he smashed this barrier with a commanding charisma and a heartfelt homage to the music that made him.
During the Friday night set, the artist appeared in a coat of many colorful plaids backed by elaborate stage designs — the first appearing like a gas station in the desert with the artist on a suspended stage addressing the mammoth crowd from his altar.
The set began with his arresting 2022 single “Tití Me Preguntó” and ran through global favorites such as “I Like It” (sans Cardi B and J Balvin) and “Si Veo a Tu Mamá,” which remixes the immortal song “The Girl From Ipanema” for a new generation.
Speaking in between songs predominantly in Spanish — early on, he asked the crowd what language they’d prefer and the results were clear — Bad Bunny confidently explained to thousands how, “Nunca antes hubo uno como yo,“ or: “Never before has there been someone like me.”
Bad Buddy used his spotlight on the main stage of Coachella to honor the music history that inspired him, using short documentary interludes appearing on screen during the show’s transitions.
Starting by praising the origin of drums and rhythm from Congo and Nigeria to the history of salsa and reggaeton (along with a nod to the illustrious Tito Puente), his set paid respects to the numerous artists and musical styles that blended to inform his opening headline act for the festival.
The sole setback came toward the end when he decided to share the stage with a previous Coachella headliner.
Post Malone performs at the Sahara Tent at 2022 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 16, 2022 in Indio, Calif.
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for CoachellaWhile Bad Bunny was working his way through the crowd, a mysterious figure appeared off to the side of the stage. It wasn’t until Bad Bunny returned to the spotlight that the cameras revealed the surprise guest: Post Malone.
Shock waves of excitement (and ambivalence) reverberated to the back of the polo field, and the two artists brought down the tempo for a somber duet, with Post Malone strumming a guitar.
They began to play Bad Bunny’s song “La Canción” and within the first minute, Post Malone’s guitar began sounding choppy and staccato. At first, it seemed like the tattooed face artist was intentionally creating a rhythmically rich alteration to the song, but within a few seconds, it became clear that the microphone amplifying his guitar was failing.
Awkwardly, the two artists scrambled to fix the sonic issues. Bad Bunny even tried to hold a separate microphone to the guitar while singing with another one, but his plan B quickly failed. The crowd assisted with an a cappella version of the song “Yonaguni,” but the act was quickly losing steam.
Post Malone — who’s known for drawing questionable eyeballs from locals when visiting Indio, the city that hosts the festival — soon shuffled off stage and left Bad Bunny to finish his set without any more technical difficulties.
Fireworks blasted into the sky as Bad Bunny recovered from the snafu to close out the first night of Coachella 2023.