From Billboard.com:
After months of rumors, Madonna has confirmed she will perform April 30 at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, Calif.

The artist will appear backed by a live band in the festival’s dance and electronica-oriented Sahara Tent, which has been headlined in past years by Kraftwerk, Underworld and Fatboy Slim, among others.

“I’ve never performed at a festival,” Madonna says, “and I’m especially excited about playing at Coachella before I start my own tour.”

That trek is expected to begin in May and visit much smaller venues than the artist has frequented in the past. It comes in support of Madonna’s 2005 album “Confessions On A Dance Floor,” which has sold 1.29 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Madonna joins recent additions Daft Punk and Massive Attack on the bill for Coachella, which will be headlined on April 29 by Depeche Mode and April 30 by Tool.

From NME.com:
Madonna is set to make her festival debut this April, performing at California’s Coachella festival.

Though the pop star has appeared at day events like Live8, her Coachella performance on April 30 will be her first festival appearance.

According to festival promoter Paul Tollett, booking the singer to headline the Dance Tent happened by chance.

“We’ve got Daft Punk headlining the Dance Tent the first night and we were looking for something else that good,” he explained. “It just came up and we’re super excited. She’s so dance oriented right now.”

Coachella takes place between April 29 and 30 at the Empire Polo Fields near Palm Springs. Depeche Mode and Tool have already been confirmed as the festival’s headliners.

From Virgin.net:
Madonna has confirmed details of her first ever festival appearance.
The legendary pop star will play at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in California on April 30 in the first festival show of her distinguished career.

The singer turned down the main stage at the festival in favour of playing the dance and electronica-oriented Sahara Tent and will be playing a stripped-down show with a live band.

She said: “I’ve never performed at a festival and I’m especially excited about playing at Coachella before I start my own tour.”

The festival will be headlined by Depeche Mode and Tool and will also feature performances from Scissor Sisters, Daft Punk, Sigur Ros, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Damian Marley and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

British acts on the bill include Franz Ferdinand, James Blunt, Massive Attack, Ladytron, The Zutons, Bloc Party, Paul Oakenfold, Mogwai, Mylo, The Go! Team, Editors and The Magic Numbers.

From the Los Angeles Times:
Madonna has done a lot of things in concert – writhed erotically on a giant bed, appeared with dancers dressed as sex slaves or nuns, performed while strapped into an electric chair, and that’s just the tame stuff – but one thing she has never done is appear at a music festival.

That will change, surprisingly, at this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

A formal announcement is expected today confirming that Madonna is scheduled to perform in a dance tent on April 30, the second night of the massive desert festival that has made its name with cutting-edge rock and electronic acts and reunions of alt-rock pioneers.

It may surprise veteran Coachella fans to hear that a globetrotting pop star and children’s-book writer would be booked in among acts such as Sigur Rós, Hard-Fi, Matisyahu and Wolfmother. And, indeed, Coachella promoters have acknowledged that the booking is one of the riskiest since the festival began in 1999 because they have built the event’s credibility with fans by steering away from the mainstream.

In the end, they say they made the booking because Madonna’s work with well-known dance-music DJs and her identification with the dance scene earns her credibility that is separate from her pop world success. Her set in the festival’s Sahara Tent won’t be a DJ set – the singer will sing with a band – but it’s not clear how she will downsize her usual production scope to fit the small venue.

Madonna also is gearing up for a summer tour that is expected to be in arenas.

From MTV.com
Just weeks after announcing that she is planning a scaled-down U.S. tour, Madonna has signed on to play her first-ever festival date. The singer will set up under the big top at this year’s Coachella Festival in Indio, California, to perform a set with her band in the massive DJ-heavy Sahara Tent on April 30.

“I’ve never performed at a festival,” Madonna said in a press release announcing the rare gig. “And I’m especially excited about playing at Coachella before I start my own tour.”

It’s an unexpected move for the pioneering festival, which has booked everyone from hardcore dance/electronic acts Fatboy Slim and Kraftwerk to the Chemical Brothers and Prodigy as headliners in the Sahara Tent in the past, but never an international pop star on the level of Madonna. But that’s kind of the point, according to Goldenvoice’s Paul Tollette, the show’s promoter.

“I love things you don’t see all the time,” Tollette said. “And we’re always trying to make it so it’s something you don’t see anywhere else.” The booking of Madonna adds to a lineup that Tollette said is already packed with some rare treats, including the first-ever major festival appearance in the U.S. by headliners Depeche Mode, the first U.S. gig in nine years from Daft Punk and the first trip to the states in eight years for pioneering trip-hoppers Massive Attack.

Madonna’s appearance will be a warm-up of sorts for her upcoming summer tour, which she has said will be a more intimate affair than her past extravaganzas.