Rock forged in the desert heat

Desert heroes ruled the closing hours of Saturday’s opening day of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, with surprising, diverse sets from Queens of the Stone Age and Ben Harper. Both were making their second appearances at the festival, which continued its role as a vital resource for music aimed at the rock connoisseur.

Headlined by the Beastie Boys’ collision of taunting, cartoonish raps with heartfelt, unapologetic antiwar messages, the 12-hour concert was less a day of great surprises and astonishing debuts than an unexpected high-end showcase for top-billed acts from the deserts east of Los Angeles.

The core members of Queens of the Stone Age emerged from this very desert, and as teenagers played hard-rocking generator parties in the desert canyons. And Harper grew up in nearby Claremont, beginning his career with an acoustic guitar in the coffeehouses there.

Queens is this generation’s Black Sabbath or Black Flag, or both, drawing on the wilder, eccentric edges of hard rock and classic punk for songs that erupt like canon fire. The band’s newest album, “Songs for the Deaf,” has delivered the band to a broader pop audience, but it’s not vastly different in smarts and decibels than two previous recordings. Same formula, bigger stage.

Singer Josh Homme stood tall and anxious behind the microphone on Saturday. He dedicated the band’s tense drug mantra “Feel Good Hit of the Summer” to “my hometown.” Adjunct vocalist Mark Lanegan stepped out unannounced as always, his very entrance further obscured by the flashing lights and heavy beats of “Hanging Tree,” leading a sound both stormy and gothic.

They were followed onstage by Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, a band fully capable of its own fits of hard rock, as part of a wider range of styles. The earthy lap slide guitar of “Ground One Down” was still a major part of Harper’s repertoire, but he was less inclined to remain seated at Coachella.

Harper spent much of his set on his feet, embracing the role of traditional frontman, cradling an electric or acoustic guitar, and hopping across the stage when his band dived into the deeper instrumental passages.

The radio hit “Steal My Kisses” was stretched beyond its classic R&B; core into heavy funk by bassist Juan Nelson.

“My Own Two Hands” indicated Harper’s deepening interest in roots reggae, with a sound that echoed the likes of Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, and a style likely to dominate his next album. The gently defiant “Burn One Down” was an older song that tapped into Marley’s folk side.

Closing the long first day in the desert, the Beastie Boys focused entirely on their history within hip-hop (ignoring the punk and jazzbo excursions that have broadened their musical voice). With DJ maestro Mixmaster Mike behind the turntables, the old songs were as urgent as ever, with a subtle but meaningful update of the Beastie sound.

Rappers Mike Diamond and Adam Horovitz were the same figures of joyous irritation, but Adam Yauch was most energized when delivering antiwar messages between songs. “As long as we’re all here, we might as well talk about a few things,” Yauch said, beginning a critique of the war and President Bush to a mix of cheers and shouts of “Shut up!” The war in Iraq emerged mostly in small ways, such as the small peace button Blur’s Damon Albarn wore on a lapel. But the Beasties attacked the subject more directly, with new material that mocked the current administration, rapping: “George Bush is looking like Zoolander!”

Other highlights on Saturday came from the ecstatic punk and comedy from the Hives, and the distinctive grooves of Latin, funk and rock from Kinky. Blur remained a powerful live act, with Space Age riffs and Albarn’s offhand vocals, even if some new material was uneven.

Earlier, Badly Drawn Boy (a.k.a. British singer-songwriter Damon Gough) talked of speaking on the phone with his 2-year-old daughter, thousands of miles away, and then cursed the war. “Let’s have some peace,” he declared. “Let the sun shine in.”

He was just as cranky about the sound of his guitar and grumbled more within the words of his songs, delivered within melodies of muscle, attitude and occasional sweetness. He dressed for his afternoon gig in the desert as he always does, sweating beneath layers of denim and a woolly knit hat to match his bushy beard. Obviously not a local.