7 posts tagged “lollapalooza”
Well, it's over. I meant to post a recap of who I saw on Saturday yesterday morning, but I got sidetracked; and I've been in bed feeling like rubbish all day today. Not sure whether Lollapalooza's to blame or some other source of lurgee, but I can at least see straight now.
So, Saturday. We got to Grant Park in time to see a snippet of Foals. I had no opinion on them either way, which is odd considering they're one of the many "saviours of rock n' roll" that get trotted out by the NME every year. I also caught a little snippet of The Gutter Twins, featuring the inimitable Mark Lanegan. I wasn't paying too much attention, but they sounded alright.
The first band proper for me was MGMT, whose weird Bowie meets dance sound was perfectly suited to the festival vibe. I really enjoyed them, and their guitarist's shredding all over 'Kids' was fantastic.
Josie went off to see DeVotchKa, who are like a Hispanic gypsy folk take on The Smiths, while Jess and I hung out waiting for Brand New to come on. We saw them live already, but in a terrible venue full of teenyboppers, so we were hoping they'd be better at a festival. Not so much. The highlight of their set was the dudes brawling a few metres away from me. It's a shame, because on CD, they're great.
At least frontman Jesse Lacey was as disappointed as us, at one point telling the crowd "You should all be watching Explosions In The Sky."
Somehow, there was a big gap for us, until we ended up watching Okkervil River while waiting for Broken Social Scene to come on. They weren't what I expected (the name conjured up rootsy blues, but they were more folky and upbeat). I liked them.
Then Broken Social Scene... Broken Social Scene were my second favourite band after Radiohead. For a band with such an inconsistent line-up, they manage to be consistently awesome, and played some of my favourites including '7/4 (Shoreline)' and 'Farewell To The Pressure Kids'... and they had Amy from Stars with them, awesome.
We caught the tail end of Toadies' set (apparently they were big in America, never heard of them... and gladly so), then sat patiently waiting for Rage Against The Machine. I had chosen them over Wilco as I don't know that I would get to see them again.
I was... kinda non-plussed. While musically, they were tight, it sounded exactly the same as the CDs. To me, part of the appeal of seeing a band live is seeing how they mess with their arrangements. Add to that the fact they *kept* stopping so Zach could lecture the moshpit, and it wasn't all that entertaining. A massive shame. I wish I had seen Wilco now.
Sunday was the least action packed of the three days, reflected by the fact we were able to head down so late (not helped by The Weakerthans pulling out).
As we arrived, we could hear Iron & Wine and decided against them as they would be a bit of a Debbie Downer. So, our first act of the day was the brilliant Saul Williams. The girls weren't fans, but he did put on an energetic performance.
We caught snippets of Blues Traveller and Love & Rockets, but the next band proper was The National. Having seen them in the colossal United Center supporting REM, I wanted to see if their sound fared better in a relatively smaller environment... and I am pleased to say it did. I love them.
After they left the stage, the girls went over to catch the start of Kanye West's set while I watched Nine Inch Nails. I'd seen them before and really enjoyed them, but for some reason, the magic just wasn't there this time around... I think mostly because they decided to kill the mood a short way into their set by playing some of the instrumental pieces from Ghosts I-IV... which, while great to listen to when you're chilling out, is not really much fun when you're stood in a field.
They did play an awful lot of material from The Downward Spiral, though, which sort of made up for it. Especially 'Closer'.
Overall, it really was a good weekend, marred only - really - by feeling horribly ill today.
It's hard to believe that it's already August, and odd that I'm attending my second Lollapalooza since moving here. Crazy!
Yesterday, after an oddly productive morning at work, I left the office to meet Jess for lunch then headed to meet our friend Josie. She's in town to join in with the shenanigans.
When we dropped her stuff off and endured the slow buses down to the festival grounds, we had missed the first few songs by Gogol Bordello, the band she wanted to see. Their music wasn't really my thing, but their gypsy punk was at least entertaining to watch.
We started to watch Mates Of State, but live they're very difficult to endure - the already ear-damaging vocals do more damage when they're out of key - so we went to wait for Jess by the merchandise stand, hearing little snippets of what I think was Grizzly Bear, judging by the schedule.
With Jess now a part of the gang, we went on down to see Bloc Party. Last year, we bought tickets to see them but didn't think we knew them well enough to justify going. They're really great live, so naturally I regret that decision. They didn't play their best song, 'Little Thoughts', but they busted out 'Helicopter' and 'Like Eating Glass', so I was happy.
After hemming and hawing about whether to stay in place for Radiohead (who were over an hour away), we decided instead to go get food. This had the added bonus of putting us in line with the stage CSS were playing on. I feel bad that I didn't give them my full intention, they sounded tight live, and were obviously far more entertaining than the annoying-sounding Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks they were competing against.
- 15 Step
- Airbag
- There There
- All I Need
- Nude
- Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
- The Gloaming
- The National Anthem
- Faust Arp
- No Surprises
- Jigsaw Falling Into Place
- Reckoner
- Lucky
- The Bends
- Everything In Its Right Place
- Fake Plastic Trees
- Bodysnatchers
- Videotape
- Paranoid Android
- Dollar And Cents
- House of Cards
- Optimistic
- 2+2=5
- Idioteque
Highs:
- 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi'!
- The awesome radio sampling on 'The National Anthem'
- 'Idioteque' (even though we heard it from outside of the venue as we didn't want to be crushed by the rumoured 75,000 people as they left)
Lows:
- 'The Bends' was played way too slow. There are awesome guitar lines on the verse with the line "The planet is a gunboat on a sea of fear", but the build-up to them didn't work.
- We were too far to see Thom's crazy dancing, boo.
- NOTHING from Pablo Honey? Boo!
I think 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi' is a strong contender for my favourite song of all time.
This year's Lollapalooza line-up was announced this week. Jess and I already had tickets on the strength of the rumour of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, meaning we paid $175/£88 instead of $205/£103. Boy, am I glad we decided to go... the line-up is pretty intense. Bolded acts are acts I love, asterisked acts are acts I would be interested in seeing.
Radiohead
Rage Against the Machine
Nine Inch Nails
Kanye West
Wilco
The Raconteurs*
Louis XIV*
Love and Rockets
Gnarls Barkley*
Bloc Party*
The Black Keys* (they played last year and I enjoyed them)
Broken Social Scene
Lupe Fiasco
Flogging Molly
Mark Ronson
Cat Power*
The National
G. Love & Special Sauce
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
Explosions in the Sky*
Brand New
Gogol Bordello*
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks*
Dierks Bentley
Okkervil River
Amadou & Mariam
Blues Traveler
John Butler Trio
Girl Talk
Your Vegas
CSS
Eli "Paperboy" Reed & the True Loves
Battles*
Steel Train
Jamie Lidell
Bang Camaro
Butch Walker
The Blakes
Mates of State
Tally Hall
Spank Rock
White Lies
Brazilian Girls
Magic Wands
Chromeo
Electric Touch
Duffy
Innerpartysystem
The Kills
The Postelles
Rogue Wave
The Parlor Mob
The Go! Team
Bald Eagle
Mason Jennings
Krista
The Gutter Twins*
Ha Ha Tonka
Yeasayer
Witchcraft
Grizzly Bear
We Go To 11
MGMT*
Sofia Talvik
The Weakerthans*
Booka Shade
Santogold
Black Kids*
Black Lips
Dr. Dog
Nicole Atkins & the Sea
The Ting Tings
Kid Sister
Office
The Cool Kids
What Made Milwaukee Famous*
Does It Offend You, Yeah?*
The Whigs
Manchester Orchestra
Foals*
Uffie
The Octopus Project
Cadence Weapon
Ferras
De Novo Dahl
Noah and the Whale
Margot & the Nuclear So and So's
K'NAAN
Serena Ryder
Newton Faulkner
I only went to V and Glastonbury in the UK, but for the past three years, Lollapalooza has far outclassed both of those... and being hosted by Chicago's gorgeous park land, it's a short bus ride from home, with decent places to eat, drink and stay nearby.
Out of all the music festivals this year, which were the coolest? Did you travel to attend any of them?
I only went to Lollapalooza, and that was pretty darn cool. It was just a bus ride away from my place, too.
I keep noticing weird coincidences.
A couple of weeks ago, Jess and I were looking at t-shirts online. One caught my eye - it was red with a distinctive symbol (apparently it was merchandise for the show The Greatest American Hero). We also saw a Boston t-shirt. On the bus to work that day, we saw a guy wearing that Greatest American Hero t-shirt; and Jess found a very similar Boston t-shirt in Urban Outfitters.
At Lollapalooza, I recited a quote from the TV show Arrested Development. A little while later that day, we passed someone wearing a t-shirt with that quote on it - I wasn't even aware there were Arrested Development t-shirts.
Yesterday, I saw a news story about Owen Wilson's apparent suicide attempt. Through the usual click trail of Wikipedia, I went from Owen Wilson to his new movie The Darjeeling Limited, to his co-star Jason Schwartzman, to a band called Rooney fronted by Jason's brother, Robert. Today I got an email about Rooney from their record label - I hadn't signed up for it, they send me emails about all new bands on their roster.
These are just the most memorable examples of the last couple of months. Strange!
Here are the bands I saw, in chronological order.
FRIDAY
- Chin Up Chin Up
- Bang Bang Bang
- The Polyphonic Spree
- Electric Six
- MIA**
- The Rapture
- The Black Keys
- Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals
SATURDAY
- Tapes N' Tapes
- Silverchair
- Cold War Kids
- Motion City Soundtrack**
- Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
- The Hold Steady**
- Yeah Yeah Yeahs
- Spoon*
- Muse
SUNDAY
- Smoosh*
- Rodrigo Y Gabriela
- Amy Winehouse
- Paolo Nutini*
- Apostle Of Hustle*
- Blue October**
- Kings Of Leon
- !!!
- Modest Mouse
- Pearl Jam
* heard an incomplete set, usually while eating/while passing through a section of the site.
** heard while passing through a section of the site, but so shit they were scarcely worth mentioning.
The heat was scorching all weekend, and money seemed to vanish just as rapidly as I perspired. Despite that, and being surrounded by Americans, it was a great weekend.
HIGHLIGHTS
Silverchair - I didn't care for them before (mostly because of their teenage Nirvana wannabe phase), but they were great and put on a great show.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Just really great fun, as I knew they would be. I definitely want to see them live again, and spend more time with their second album.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - They really deserve their live reputation. Karen is as crazy as shit (and looks more than a little like Marilyn Manson), and their set rocks from start to finish.
Muse - Whether you like their music or not, the light show, ridiculous musicianship and 'Sunburn' (played on a piano this time, natch) make them one of the most exciting bands of the weekend.
Pearl Jam - As one of the bands on my list of bands I had to see before I died, it was a given that I was up for it. They played an awful lot of older material including 'State Of Love And Trust' from the Singles soundtrack, and really engaged the crowd.
Eddie took the two encores as opportunities to talk about serious issues. During the first, he talked about BP Amoco dumping shit into Lake Michigan and urged everyone to boycott their products. For the second, he brought out Tomas Young. Tomas introduced Ben Harper, who joined Eddie on a song called 'No More' about the Iraq war.
Then they started playing 'Rocking In The Free World', pulling people up on stage to shake tambourines (they seem to have a lot of them - earlier in the day, Eddie had trashed two while helping out Kings Of Leon on a song). Apparently among the folks on stage with them was Dennis Rodman. I thought he looked more like Wesley Snipes.
Today is the first day of Lollapalooza. I'm working a half day then meeting Jim and Sinead down at Grant Park. So freaking excited, I've not seen much live music since I got here.
The line up is sparse today, but I hope to see Blonde Redhead at least. They're awesome. I'm sure Jim and Sinead will want to see LCD Soundsystem and Daft Punk, and I don't mind watching them as there's nothing else doing. Tomorrow and Sunday are the main events (hence Jess only getting a ticket for tomorrow). <3
