Summary

• Hatsune Miku's long-awaited appearance at Coachella fulfills a promise from 2020, confirming her influence on the music scene.
• Miku's virtual origins and extensive discography make her Coachella performance a major step for the pop culture powerhouse.
• Despite being a fictional character, Miku's voice has created thousands of songs, highlighting the vibrant music community she represents.

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival has announced that Hatsune Miku, Japan's most prominent virtual diva, will be performing during the three-day event. This fulfills a promise that went unanswered for four years after disruptions to the 2020 event. While the idol is popular around the globe, seeing her at one of the most important music events in the world further confirms the influence Vocaloid programs have on the music scene.

Reported separately by Pop Base's X and Crunchyroll, the digital performer will be appearing on Saturday on two different weekends in April. Coachella runs two consecutive three-day events; for 2024, this means April 12-14, and then 19-21.

While other Japanese acts will be attending on other days, Miku stands out as being a virtual creation who is treated as an authentic, flesh-and-blood performer.

Miku's Coachella Appearance Fulfills 2020 Promise

The virtual idol's reappearance cements her as a pop culture powerhouse

While this won't technically be Miku's first appearance at Coachella, there was an attempt to bring the virtual diva over years before. She had previously been signed on to perform at the 2020 festival. However, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic forced the event to be canceled, sharing its fate with several other annual festivals. While Coachella reopened in 2022, the pop star didn't reappear on the lineup until now. Besides Miku, other acclaimed Japanese performers will be attending, such as YOASOBI, who will be appearing on Coachella's Friday events, and Atarashi Gakko!, who will be performing on Sunday.

Miku's appearance at Coachella is a major step for her, considering she began as a simple voicebank intended to interface with Yamaha's Voicaloid program. But, by providing a voice for amateur musicians for years, she now has an extensive discography of sorts that is simultaneously hers as well as the artists who used her program. The idol has made live performances in the past, aided by the use of hologram technology, and it will likely be the case again when she performs in California. While holograms and virtual singers are nothing new in Japan, it will likely be a new experience for many Coachella attendees.

While it is easy to write off Hatsune Miku as not being a real vocalist, the fact remains that her voice helped create thousands of songs, which in turn started a vibrant anime-adjacent subculture of music production The band Supercell, whose performers have done the end credit song for Bakemonogatari and the opening for Takt Op. Destiny, got their start with Vocaloid. Having Hatsune Miku and the music she represents at Coachella this April is an acknowledgment not just of a fictional character, but also of the massive community that made use of her voice.

Source: Pop Base (X ), Crunchyroll