Snoop Dogg [Photo: Debi Del Grande]

The massive music cram session that was the Coachella Music Festival 2012 is officially over and we've survived! Seeing the festival out, headliners Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre gave a phenomenal performance, despite it being identical to the one they did the weekend prior, superstar guests and all. While it's completely normal to repeat sets and even on-stage chatter for the multiple shows on a tour, there was something about the new fangled-ness of a two-weekend Coachella that had fans expecting something different the second time around. Nevertheless, watching Snoop and Dre perform their classics like "Nuthin' but a G Thang," "Gin and Juice" and "California Love," (which one would expect the Tupac hologram to appear for) was an unmatchable experience. But an unexpected disappointment occurred when the tilted glass contraption lowered and the much-awaited Tupac hologram rose up on stage. For some odd reason, the crowd seemed underwhelmed by the appearance, cheering surprisingly little considering the hype surrounding the resurrection last weekend. In fact, after hologram Tupac dissipated into the afterlife, Dre had some difficulty getting the crowd to give it up for Tupac, having to call out three times for the audience to make some noise with little success.

Though it's not as easy a drive for music fans in the contiguous United States as, say, the current Coachella festival, the Kokua Festival in Hawaii may be equally as memorable an event.

The creation of singer-songwriter Jack Johnson and now in its eighth year, the festival has consistently featured an interesting array of internationally acclaimed artists, all for the benefit of the Kokua Hawaii Foundation--a nonprofit foundation founded by the singer and his wife supporting environmental education in Hawaiian school and communities.

Those who've heard of the event but have never managed to attend will thus be enlightened--and quite pleased--by the newly released Best Of Kokua Festival: A Benefit For The Kokua Hawaii Foundation album.

A live anthology featuring some of the most memorable musical moments from the festival--featuring Johnson and a number of acclaimed guests--the album boasts the same warmth, precision and musicality that pervades all of Johnson's music and, cliché as it

The superstars came out on the third and final day of Southern California's Coachella festival--and really, only at Coachella would a surprise dance tent performance by a superstar like Rihanna (more on that later) not be THE most talked-about event of the day. Instead, everyone was talking about another, much more surprising superstar cameo, by Tupac. Yes, the late Tupac Shakur. In hologram form.