The reveal of the 2026 Coachella poster prompted lots of questions, just like every year. “Why is this artist’s font so much bigger than that artist’s?” “Can I see that DJ’s set without missing any of this band’s?” “Am I still cool enough to go to Coachella?” But two lineup items in particular sparked the most speculation, and they both had to do with iconic rock acts. Luckily, we’ve got answers.
Friday’s topline names featured familiar acts like the XX, Turnstile, and Disclosure. Yet one name piqued our interest the most: Nine Inch Noize. Did a Goldenvoice design person just get fired for the typo of the year? Nope. Is British avant-garde electronic group Art of Noise teaming up with Nine Inch Nails? No, but getting warmer.
One of the highlights of Nine Inch Nails’ current Peel It Back Tour is a mini-set in which frontman Trent Reznor and member Atticus Ross team up with the tour’s opening act, German producer Boys Noize, to remix NIN songs like “Vessel,” “As Alive As You Need Me to Be,” and “Closer.” Boys Noize is known for blending electro, house, and techno in a pummeling stew in both his original work and lauded remixes of everyone from Daft Punk to Snoop Dogg to Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Pretty much everyone who’s seen this tour has been blown away. Messing with perfection on “Closer” is an audacious risk that works — and it’s great enough to warrant a full set at Coachella. NIN’s rep confirms the team-up in a statement to Rolling Stone. “Yes!” the rep says. “It’s an extension of a very exciting act on the Peel It Back tour.”
Underneath all the other names, at the very bottom of the poster, an enigmatic line appears: “The Bunker Debut of RADIOHEAD KID A MNESIA.” This intrigued fans of the U.K. legends, who recently announced their first shows in seven years. Could this be a Coachella performance of some kind, like the limited run of 20 European dates they’re playing this fall? Well, no. Sorry. A rep for Radiohead tells Rolling Stone that “the band will not physically be there.”
As for what RADIOHEAD KID A MNESIA actually is, it’s probably safe to guess that it’s related in some way to the three-disc set, art book, and immersive exhibit released under that same name back in 2021. Those projects all looked back on the creation of Radiohead’s classic pair of turn-of-the-millennium LPs, Kid A and Amnesiac, with rare outtakes, B-sides, visual art, and more. “When we went through the multitrack tapes… the music and the artwork ended up becoming something a little bit more transcendent,” Thom Yorke told Rolling Stone at the time. “Trying to embrace some sort of future, even if it’s a nightmare.”
From Rolling Stone US
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