INDIO, California — Brazilian DJ Alok brought a beaming blend of electronic dance beats to the stage on Saturday at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival despite the growing fears of international artists about the future of performing in America.

“For me as a Brazilian, it’s always been hard to get a visa. So, for us, it didn’t change much,” Alok told Reuters during an interview backstage at Coachella, held in Southern California. “But, of course, for Europe and others, they changed the rules, right?” he added.

Alok heard about other Coachella performances being canceled in 2025 due to visa issues and feels fortunate that he made it to the festival when other international artists could not.

“For us, we were very lucky. The team were all here from LA, so that was amazing,” he said.

In the first week of April, British singer FKA Twiggs, who was scheduled to perform at Coachella, canceled her performance. She said that she was bowing out due to “visa issues” on the social media platform Instagram.

She also canceled her entire North American tour.

With the Trump administration rapidly cancelling the international student visas of pro-Palestinian activists as well as revoking the legal status for 530,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, international music artists have also found that they are not immune.

In March, British punk rock band member of UK Subs, Alvin Gibbs, shared on the social media platform Facebook that they were allegedly denied entry into the United States while traveling to their performance at LA Punk Invasion 2025.

Despite evolving visa policies looming, the music producer Alok did not fret about the future during his set. He moved his music to the next level.

Alok is best known for that 2016 single and for his 2024 album, The Future is Ancestral, which features nine dance tracks mixed with indigenous songs, some of which have been sung for centuries by Brazilian tribes.

CHARLI XCX, GREEN DAY, TRAVIS SCOTT
Strobe lighting, hardcore bass and screaming fans wearing “Brat” T-shirts defined English pop singer Charli xcx’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival performance on Saturday night.

The Grammy-winner brought her signature club party energy, inviting fellow singers Troye Sivan, Billie Eilish, and Lorde to join her on stage. Sivan and Charli xcx, who joined forces in 2024 for the Sweat Tour, reunited on stage at Coachella to perform the song “Talk Talk.”

The Charli xcx’s Brat album inspired a cultural phenomenon on TikTok and beyond last summer.

Following Charli xcx on the main stage, punk rockers Green Day decided to address some political issues, criticizing Make America Great (MAGA) supporters and spotlighting the struggles of Palestinian children, by changing the lyrics of their songs.

Singer Billie Joe Armstrong changed the lyrics in the song “American Idiot,” from “I’m not a part of a redneck agenda” to “I’m not part of the MAGA agenda.” Later, the “21 Guns” singer also changed the “American Idiot” lyrics “Runnin’ away from pain when you’ve been victimized,” to “Run away from pain, like the kids from Palestine. Tales from another broken home.”

For Green Day, planting political messages in their performances is nothing new, including changing the lyrics of the song “Jesus of Suburbia” in March during the band’s concert in Australia.

Green Day took aim at US Vice-President JD Vance, after he and President Donald Trump had a tense meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the Oval Office. Armstrong sang: “Am I retarded or am I just JD Vance,” instead of, “Am I retarded or am I just overjoyed?”

The band has also taken jabs at Trump and Elon Musk.

The group also paid homage to punk rock music throughout the decades, including their songs “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” and “Know Your Enemy.”

Ending the night, rapper Travis Scott, known for his 2021 Astroworld Festival performance in Houston where a dangerous crowd surge resulted in 10 deaths, was late to his Coachella performance.

However, fans were cheering when a brass band arrived on stage, signaling the start of the “SICKO MODE” rapper’s set.

Scott’s show included massive bursts of fire and strobe, while he and his dancers were suspended in mid-air for some aerial moves. He was also joined by American rappers Playboi Carti and Don Toliver.

Coachella is a two-week festival that features the same headliners both weekends. The first was April 11-13, and the second is April 18-20. — Reuters

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