After attending my first Lollapalooza last year, I anxiously awaited for this year to arrive with extremely high hopes. After this past weekend I can safely say I was not let down.
First things first, last year my house was out of hand. We had a rotating cast in and out of the house with around 8 people staying in my 3 bedroom house in Chicago. People sprawled on couches, chairs, the floor, and a tent or two set up in the backyard for storage purposes. This year, my cousin and his wife flew in from Texas and my brother drove down from Milwaukee. Much easier to maintain and my house does not look like an earthquake it on the insides after the festival this year. So, we were working with a lot smaller group than the year before.
My cousins got in town Thursday night and after some catching up we hit the town. This (as expected) was pretty much the theme of the weekend. Drinking > Concerts > Rediculous Cab Rides> Drinking > Bars. There was a crew of DeFilippis' and many other supporting cast members. Very fun.
There were multiple bands at Lolla I was excited for, and there were other bands I was REALLY excited for. I had never seen Radiohead and I had never seen NIN before. Both bands did not disappoint. Along with those there were many other that just flat out killed it.
Gogol bordello was the biggest surprise of the weekend for me. I had no idea what they would be like live going into the show and they put on a show! Violin, accordion, acoustic and electric guitars, bass, drummer, and two scantily dressed singers. The band had so much energy and it was very infectious. This was the first show of the weekend I saw. The video sucks but bear with me - they get better.
After Gogol we basically started the process of camping out for Radiohead. Bloc Party set up an hour after Gogol and they were pretty good as well. Didn't get any video or pics of that, as I was basically just sitting mentally preparing for Radiohead.
And then came Radiohead. We had a pretty great spot and overall the show was exactly what I expected it to be - - perfect - - Those guys did not disappoint. Their set had mostly everything from In Rainbows and then a lot of older classic stuff (ie - Paranoid Android, Fake Plastic Trees, Idioteque!!!!!, Everything In It's Right Place, etc.) Their lighting was incredible and the sound was perfect. My only gripe is that the crowd was seriously lame. I'm assuming it was dud to drinking all day long in the 90 degree sun but the lack of enthusiasm was semi-awkward after songs were played. Thom Yorke even said something along the lines of, "You guys are really quiet out there." AKA - "WTF...We are the best band in the world. Quit being pansies and ball up." Oh well, I was happy.
Day 1 ended with an 8 people awkwardly jamming into a random guys Lincoln Town Car and getting a ride back to my house. It was awesome - 6 in the back, my brother and I in the front and everyone was fairly inebriated. The driver was probably the nicest guy of the whole weekend I came across. Here is a pic from the cab of my bro and I practically sitting on each others lap in the front, laughing from the pain.
Here's a video of the outside madness that was occurring outside of the festival as well. when that ends, the downtown city streets of Chicago become a playground.
Day 2 (Saturday) started 10 AM Saturday with a Bloody Mary bar at a friends apartment and an overall sense of collective enthusiasm after the experience everyone had the previous night.
We started off early that day with 2 British Dance-Punk bands, Does It Offend You, Yeah and Foals. Both had great crowds and a lot of energy for playing early afternoon shows. Does It Offend was particularly awesome. I will definitely be checking them out again when they come around. I can imagine seeing them in a cramped bar or venue to be an intense experience.
What came next was (as expected) the highlight of the weekend for me. Booka Shade! I had seen zeeeeee German duo one other time in my life and I walked away feeling I had been 1 of 200 people that had witnessed something special. I felt the same after leaving their set at Lolla (with around 5,000-10,000 other people this time.) Booka had non-stop energy and their show was a dance party from start to finish. It. Kicked. Ass. The crowd was really into it as well and everyone was having a great time, including the band. It was evident that nobody wanted it to end. My video does it absolutely NO JUSTICE whatsoever. It was a hot sweaty mess and I didn't feel like messing with my camera much.
After Booka Shade I made my way to a DJ set by Does It Offend You, Yeah. I figured they were pretty bad ass as a band, so lets see what they do as DJ's. Good choice. It was the first time I had ventured over to the DJ area of Lolla and it was awesome. The crowd was WAY into it and everyone was dancing in a shady area in the woods basically. DIOYY played a lot of Daft Punk, old hip hop, and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember. It was very fun.
I caught half of Battles set, but at this point I hadn't eaten in about hmmmm, all day, so I went and got some food and geared up for Rage Against The Machine. I was really excited for this but it just wasn't in the cards. We got there a little late so we were extremely far back and the sound was terrible where we were. There is something just wrong about seeing Rage Against the Machine and not leaving with your ears hurting badly from the loudness of the show. Oh well, one dud of the weekend. If I could do it over again I would have been in the mosh pit up front .... scratch that. Might not survive. They had to stop the show at least 4 times because it was getting out of control Zach De La Rocha looked scared on the monitors that someone was gonna die. Intense.
That night consisted of a post party at my place followed by a trip out to Evil Olive in Wicker Park. The night got out of hand. I left the bar around 4:30 and knew it was going to effect my waking up the next morning. No pics or vids from that night, as I was likely unable to operate a camera effictively. Haha.
The 3rd and final day everyone was a little lagging and burnt out after the first 2 days of no sleep and drinking as though we were all in college again. We got into the festival around 3:30 which was about 3 hours later than every other day. We made it to Lolla in time for Chromeo, which was really fun and something I had definitely wanted to see. After that we basically just sat around and camped out for Girl Talk............
Girl Talk.........
I have never been in a crowd like that before in my life. If you fell over, you were probably gonna die. There were so many people to see him that it was semi-ridiculous. Aside from all of that, the man knows how to put on a show. He had ENERGY and stage presence like nobody else I saw all weekend. Jumping around, dancing with the 30 or so people he just brought on stage, and sporadically screaming in the mic about how he loved Lollapalooza. Pretty fun. Throughout the show toilet paper was being launched into the crowd along with many other things. I got some great pictures and videos from this. It was a SPECTACLE.
The concert ended with Greg gillis (aka Girl Talk) throwing an inflatable raft into the crowd and crowd surfing inside of it. Eventually he jumped out and crowd surfed all the way back to the sound booth where he faded out of the last track he had started. It was theatrical, and awesome. The crowd was into it.
There he is after he dove out of the raft. Some other random kid jumped in and got his 15 minutes of fame being passed around as well.
The final show of the weekend was NIN (sorry Kanye, you're annoying). I went in with high hopes and was blown away. By far, my favorite show of the weekend. The show was amazing from start to finish. It started witha lot of tracks off Ghosts that were very chilling and beautiful to listen to, and then the second half of the show was straight rock and roll NIN. The crowd was into it, the lights were amazing, and it just couldn't have been a better way to end the weekend!!! Trent Reznor also gave an amazing speech about Lollapalooza and how appreciative he was that people enjoyed his music. It was very candid and really cool to hear. I went into the weekend expecting Radiohead to be far and away the best show, but NIN stole the show. Incredible start to finish.
All in all, the weekend was incredible. I can't say enough about it and I am not ready to go back to reality. I got to see my cousins who I had not seen in about 5 years, hung out with my brother, saw a ton of friends from the past and college, and witnessed some musically redonk performances. Let the countdown begin to next year.
1 comment:
Awesome post, Ross! loving the new layout, by the way.
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