Coachella presented a strong closing argument Sunday for its third consecutive Pollstar Award as the world's best music festival.

Attendance figures weren't available just before the close of the three-day festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, but crowds appeared equal or greater than last year's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival attendance mark of 151,666 people, and promoter Paul Tollett said it exceeded expectations in many ways.

“There were some really great moments,” said the man who co-founded Coachella 10 years ago. “The art looked so great to me, and the colors and the weather. Leonard Cohen. So many things were great.”

More than 120 bands, from the UK to Angola to Latin America, performed rap, electronica and indie rock, a genre that Coachella has shown can thrive beyond the confines of Billboard charts and popular radio playlists. That diversity was the festival's strongest element, said Steve Rodriguez of San Francisco.

“The lineup is really awesome.”

The Cure, which pioneered goth rock with songs such as “Boys Don't Cry” and “Let's Go to Bed,” and Public Enemy, who virtually invented politically-conscious rap with songs like “Fight the Power” and “Can't Truss It,” were the Sunday night headliners.

The Cure opened with a song from their recent “4:13 Dream” that could have been written for a performance at Coachella, “Underneath the Stars,” with mystical overtones.

Led by Chuck D and Flavor Flav, the group performed their 1987 classic album “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” in its entirety.

But Rodriguez and Samantha McKeen, who came from Manitoba, Ontario, for her first Coachella, both cited the Norwegian band Turbonegro, which performed Saturday in the mid-size Mojave Tent, as their favorite bands.

Paul McCartney received the most attention of any artist, earning international raves for his two-and-a-half-hour set on Friday. But McKeen said, “I'm not really a Beatles fan.”

High among the media interest was a star element that was virtually invisible to the average concert goer. Former First Twins Jenna and Barbara Bush were covertly escorted into the polo club on Saturday by Secret Service agents. Other stars reported as being seen included Paris Hilton, Zac Efron, Anne Hathaway, Drew Barrymore, Kirsten Dunst, Emile Hirsch, Chloe Sevigny, Kate Bosworth and “Twilight” actor Robert Pattinson. Hollywood couple Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gylllenhaal were on hand for the 1960s-influenced harmony band, Fleet Foxes.

A humanitarian element also was largely overlooked. The Coachella art department, which decorates trailers for festival artists, collected a Riverside County Fire Department helmet and jacket and adorned it with signatures from firefighters and a Coachella logo. McCartney was expected to auction it off with proceeds going to a local charity.

Ryan Thornberry of Walnut Creek was able to make his dream of seeing McCartney and Morrissey come true because of a gift of a three-day pass from friends who knew he was due for spinal surgery.

Indio police reported 11 drug and alcohol-related arrests Sunday to bring the three-day total to just 58. Last year's arrest total was 91.