Watch Christopher Meloni Take His Teen Daughter to Coachella and Get Weird

Actor Chris Meloni earned some cool-dad points when he went to the 2018 Coachella Festival in California to spend some quality time with his 17-year-old daughter. Coachella isn’t Bonnaroo or even Lollapalooza, and as far as big festivals go, the sandy gathering out in Indio, California is definitely more youth-oriented, which makes Meloni’s Instagram posts that much funnier. Though he seemed more than a little confused at some of the #ART, the 57-year-old dad certainly made the best of his time at the festival.

The videos start with Meloni announcing that he’s at “the world famous ‘Koa-chell-a’” a music festival “for those of you not in the know.”

From end to end, Coachella is full of obscure metal sculptures and weird structures that seem to be there for no real reason other than the fact that they look kind of awesome, so Meloni hilariously felt inclined to point out the Ferris wheel, which is probably one of the only structures at the festival that serves an obvious purpose.

Here he is going full-dad and calmly bobbing his head to some electronic music while a bunch of teenagers and twenty-somethings are probably getting sweaty underneath a tent behind him.

As one commentator put it, Meloni standing on the sidelines of this performance reminds them “of an episode of SVU where Stabler and the gang were undercover at a rave looking for a runaway.”

Here he is cheekily marveling at the fireworks

Naturally, Meloni didn’t act too coy or play down his excitement at watching the queen (Beyonce, duh) give the performance of her career.

Meloni ended his time at Coachella jamming to the brutal stylings of A Perfect Circle, and he looked to be in the company of a few more dads during this set.

Honestly, props to Meloni for being a trooper and wading through all this weird just to hang out with his daughter.