I went to Lollapalooza this weekend with my friend Sandi in Chicago's awesome Grant Park and had a blast. The event was the first big concert in the park since Radiohead played there in 2001 and was a test to see if future concerts/event could work. The Lollapalooza festival used to tour the country, but was canceled last year due poor ticket sales. The event was put together with fairly short notice for one show this year in Chicago. The organizers are considering keeping the festival as once annual and possibly homing it Chicago. The backdrop with the skyline of Chicago and space was pretty awesome. At times the sounds from the multiple stages bleed into each other, so which was kinda lame, but it wasn't horrible.
The weekend was a great success with an attendance of 33,000 and everything appeared to go pretty smoothly, so I wouldn't be surprised to see the event held there again.
The event featured 6 stages and 60 bands. There were two big stages: SBC East and SBC West and two slightly smaller stages: Parkways Stage and Budweiser Select. Planet Stage was across the street from Grant Park and Kidzapalooza [stage] was near the entrance to the park. We skipped both of those stages.
SBC East and West Stage
Parkways Stage and Budweiser Stage
Day 1: Saturday, July 23rd
The weather forecast for the day was mild and in the 80s. After spending Thursday out in the heat and getting pretty sick from drinking too much beer and too little water, I made it a goal to drink as little beer as possible and as much water as possible. They let us bring two unopened bottles of water per person, so before the event we picked up the four of the biggest bottles we could find. For the record tho, beer, water and food was VERY reasonably priced.
Ambulance LTD (they are in the background... trust me)
The festival started at 11:45am, but the first band that interest us was Ambulance LTD, which began their set on the Parkways Stage at 1:30pm. At the same time on the SBC East stage, And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, played a set, which at times we could hear as we listened to Ambulance LTD. I first heard Ambulance LTD on Conan O'Brien one evening and was instantly impressed. They are in a good indie-rock band and their show was enjoyable.
After Ambulance LTD was done, we move over to the SBC West stage and set up a blanket in a spot where we'd remain for the most of the rest of the day. We realized most of the bands we really wanted to see where playing on either the SBC West or SBC East stage on our spot perfectly positioned us to see both.
View of SBC West from our blanket location
View of SBC East from our blanket location
Liz Phair
At 2:30, we watched Liz Phair perform. She's improved her stage presence a bit since I've saw her last at Field Day, but she's still nothing special. She's not much of a live performer and her voice is far better on record than in person. She's coming out with a new album next month and played a bunch of tracks from it. Other notable songs included Supernova, Polyester Bride, ***/Run, Why Can't I [Be A Teen Pop Star] (ok, so I added the last part for effect, but that song was basically released back in 2003 as part of her attempt to be popular like Avril), and the surprisingly sexually explicit lyric filled Flowers (nothing like hearing an chick sing about being a blowjob queen when little kids are next to you blowing bubbles).
Brian Jonestown Massacre
At 3:30, I wanted to check out Brian Jonestown Massacre, which was on the Parkways Stage. Sandi was somewhat interested in hearing Dashboard Confessional on SBC East, so she stayed back and watched our stuff, while I ventured over to the check out the band that was made famous in the Dig! Documentary last year. They were odd and I was impressed with the turnout for their set by the crowd and photographers. After watching them for a little bit, I headed back to join Sandi. I caught the end of the Dashboard Confessional set including two of their hits, one of which was Vindicated from the Spiderman 2 Soundtrack, which I sorta like.
Dashboard Confessional was followed by Cake at 4:30 on the SBC West stage. Here's an example of one of the really cool things at festival: one of the huge advantages of the multiple stages was the ability to instantly start another show after one stopped. So once Dashboard Confessional was done, within less than a minute, Cake was on performing. It was awesome.
Cake
Cake's set was awesome. They are a unique, impressive and entertaining group. Their stuff is extremely catchy and well done. They were great live. They told some short and amusing stories. I enjoyed it a lot and it was definiately one of, if not the, top sets I watched at Lollapalooza. Even songs I didn't know I enjoyed like their recent single No Phone. They had the crowd sing along at the time and I've had the lyrics "No Phone. No Phone. I just wanna be alone." stuck in my head for the last few days. Other great songs that I can recall include The Distance, Comfort Eagle and Stickshifts and Safetybelts. (I honestly wish I could remember more of the songs; I was unable to find a setlist).
Billy Idol
Billy Idol was up next on SBC East. I can't say I'm much of a fan, but he put on a great show playing classic like White Wedding and Dancing with Myself. During his set it started to rain. After I quickly wrapped my cell phone and camera in a plastic bag, I just relaxed and enjoyed the rain. It was a bit cold, but it was still nice. Sunday was predicted to be really hot [and it was], so I knew I should enjoy the rain while I could.
Primus
Primus came next, at 6:30, on SBC West. I'm not a fan, so I listened for a bit and then walked around.
The Pixies followed Primus for an hour and 15 minute set from 7:30 to 8:45. They drew a huge crowd. It was at this point, we decided to
fold up the blanket and get away from the masses. They were getting our blanket extra-dirty with their foot traffic and we figured we'd go grab some food.
Pixies
I only watched a little bit of the Pixies. Sadly, I never really got in to them. I noted to Sandi that I probably will in a few years and regret not watching their set. Around 8:20, we headed back to the SBC West stage and took in the rest of the Pixies show as we waited for Weezer. I caught the Pixies' Where Is My Mind? and greatly enjoyed that.
Weezer
Weezer was the last band of the evening. They started their set seconds after the Pixies finished up. The band played most of their classics and were awesome. Weezer was one of the main reasons I wanted to go to Lollapalooza and they didn't disappoint. They opened with Say It Ain't So and continued from there.One big complaint I had though was the crowd sing-along. I didn't pay to hear some idiot next to me sing all of Weezer's songs into my ear. Ah well. I still had fun. Some other notable songs include Undone – The Sweater Song, My Name is Jonas (Introduced as the first track that introduced Weezer to the few hundred people heard, who bought the album the first week in 1994, popped it in), Buddy Holly, El Scorcho (introduced as a song from an album that wasn't well liked when it was released, but has done pretty well since), Island in the Sun, Hash Pipe, Photograph, Beverly Hills, Perfect Situation and We're All on Drugs. The show ended with Surf Wax America.
I'll post on Day 2 shortly…. (as well as more pictures)