Usually, the names that you see on posters for America’s biggest music festivals are internationally known touring veterans—the juggernauts who grind it out night after night at sold-out stadium shows. Yet, once in a while, the gods conspire to put a song or EP or album by a rising artist in front of festival programmers and they're inspired to give these up-and-comers a shot. What hangs in the balance for these artists as they step on stage, whether it’s at Coachella, Bonnaroo, or Lollapalooza, is a chance to launch themselves and their music into the pop stratosphere. All it takes is the performance of a lifetime, and talent, and charisma, and a ton of luck.
The artists on this list are part of an elite group that has ridden their respective careers to Coachella and beyond, taking that major opportunity and using it to magnify their art for the rest of the world to see. We know you’ve heard of these artists and bands countless times, but when each of them played Coachella, they were just on the brink of blowing up.