Coachella 2018: Meet the guy you’ll see in the front row at the festival

Perhaps the pinnacle for the man known as KROQ Ken came at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 2015 as he stood at the barricade at the front of the Outdoor Theatre — he’s always at the very front of the crowd — and he decided he’d say hello to Stuart Murdoch, lead singer of Belle & Sebastian, during a lull between songs.

“I saw you here in 2002!” shouted Kenneth Scalir, a bushy bearded, 48-year-old sales manager from Sherman Oaks.

“You look like you’ve been here since 2002!” Murdoch replied.

We found Scalir in Sunday where he’s been for most of his 17 years of attending Coachella, leaning in the barricade at the front of the Mojave Tent as singer-songwriter LP performed an early afternoon set.

Once she finished and left the stage we thought if not now, when, and walked over to ask him how he does it, scoring the best spot in the house, set after set, year after year.

“I plan and try to get there early,” Scalir said. “And I minimize how often I go to the bathroom.”

That’s a delicate thing in the desert heat, he said.

“I try to drink enough to stay hydrated but not so much I have to go (pee) every five minutes,” he said.

He got the nickname KROQ Ken in the ’80s when he became a diehard fan of the alternative rock the station played and started showing at a bunch of concerts all the time. He kind of liked it and when the internet came around he adopted it for his social media handles.

He spends most of weekend one watching the bigger bands on his list on the Outdoor Theatre, such as David Byrne and Fleet Foxes on Saturday, and weekend two with the smaller acts that typically play the Sonora Tent.

And he wishes Goldenvoice would go back to more rock acts, though he understands that hip-hop, EDM and pop are what’s most popular here now.

We wrapped our chat then, but it still might have thrown off an important part of his plan for the day.

“I was going to run to the bathroom but I talked to you,” he said.

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