The first of weekend of the newly expanded Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival kicked off last night, and one of the most anticipated acts was Pulp. Their set, like many others’, was webcast last night, and now thanks to this capture of that livestream, you can watch the full 10-song, hour-long performance.

Squeeze opens a Coachella-centered U.S. tour this week, and will be bringing along a new piece of merchandise: a limited-edition, white-vinyl concert album called ‘Live at the Fillmore’ that was recorded at the historic San Francisco venue in August 2010. Stream one of the tracks here.

Like fellow Brits Squeeze, Pulp and James, ska-pop mainstays Madness will use their trip to California for next month’s Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival to book some more U.S. shows — the band’s first in this country in five years — including dates in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.

Although neither band has formally announced the tour yet, The B-52s and Squeeze will pair up this summer for a run of U.S. shows — and dates are beginning to emerge online, with at least six concerts announced in June and July at venues in California, Colorado, Iowa, New Jersey, Virginia and New York.

Squeeze will take advantage of their booking at the newly expanded two-weekend Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival to book a short run of California dates around the fest this April, plus at least one East Coast concert later in the month with contemporaries Dave Wakeling and The English Beat.

James have booked eight concerts across the western U.S. and Canada this April around the band’s dates at the two-weekend Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival and announced the long-delayed ‘The Gathering Sound box’ set finally will arrive this spring.

Pulp’s trip across the pond to play the two-weekend Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival this April brings added benefit to fans in New York City and San Francisco, as Jarvis Cocker and Co. this morning announced gigs in those cities — as well as a Spanish festival date — on the band’s website.

This week’s edition of The Week in Rock features headlines about Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore and Vince Clarke, The Cure, World Party, Peter Murphy, Morrissey, Bob Mould, fIREHOSE, IanMcCulloch, David Bowie, Grinderman, Jane’s Addiction and more.

The reunited fIREHOSE — the band formed by Mike Watt and George Hurley following the 1985 death of their Minutemen bandmate D. Boon — will precede its appearances at April’s two-weekend Coachella Festival with an 11-date club tour of the western U.S. — the trio’s first concerts since splitting in 1994.

The newly expanded two-weekend Coachella festival announced its 2012 lineup this afternoon, with headliners The Black Keys, Radiohead and Dr. Dre & Snoop Dogg joined by Pulp, Buzzcocks, Squeeze, Madness and a reunion of fIREHOSE, the Mike Watt’s and George Hurley’s post-Minutemen act.

The reunited New Order — featuring keyboardist Gillian Gilbert, but not bassist Peter Hook — apparently will perform in the U.S. for the first time in nearly seven years next March as part of the lineup of the electro-centric Ultra Music Festival in Miami.

After months of cancellations due to Simon Le Bon’s vocal problems, Duran Duran on Tuesday rolled out a 24-date tour that will bring the band back to North America this fall — dates that would have followed the band’s most recent round of scrapped concerts.

While an official announcement is still forthcoming, the reunited Big Audio Dynamite is plotting what looks to be a two-week club tour across the U.S. this August to coincide with its slots at Lollapalooza in Chicago and the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco.