A week later, We’ve finally had a chance to recharge and gather our thoughts and reflect on what was an insane weekend of music. So here are some thoughts on what was the best Lollapalooza ever (and yes, I know that every year I say that).
Highlights
- one of the surprising sets of the weekend came early Friday afternoon, 1:45 pm to be exact, at the tiny BMI stage. I was convinced me and a few hundred would be loosely gathered to enjoy the piano pop rock of Jukebox the Ghost. Man was I wrong. In one of the largest crowds I’ve seen at that stage (and the largest crowd Jukebox the Ghost admitted to playing to) Jukebox the Ghost put on a performance worthy of being seen in front of thousands on a main stage. Combine danceable beats with strong vocals and 3 gracious a likable lads and you had a great way to kick off your Lollapalooza. (Note: they’re about to embark on a small club tour, so if you can, catch them in your city. I promise it’ll be worth the $15 or so price of admission.)
RB: I can’t speak for Jukebox, as I was over on the North end of the field watching the legendary Mavis Staples. Can’t say I regret it. Staples is the personification of Gospel, R&B and Soul. Watching her felt like watching history. Imagine watching George Washington chop down a cherry tree or Michael Jordan sinking free throws, and that’s kind of like watching Mavis sing onstage. You’re watching a certified icon mastering her craft. And at 71, she’s still got enough fire and conviction in her voice to captivate a young crowd, and that’s saying something because the Lollapalooza audience is VERY young. It says something when someone plays outside their demo and still wins the audience. Of course it doesn’t hurt when Jeff Tweedy from, as Staples put it herself, “the Wilco Band,” pops in to play a few songs. You can’t deny Mavis Staples. You’re only recourse is to love her.
- independent artists shine. Lollapalooza gets a lot of flack of a lot for being the “Wal-Mart by the Lake,” where you throw in many big name musicians as possible into 3 days and let the fans sort it out themselves over who to see. While indie friendly Pitchfork Music Festival is just a few weeks pre-Lollapalooza, the Palooza never gets the credit for giving indie artists a chance to shine. Whether it’s a band who’s been around for over a decade like the The Walkmen, New Pornographers or Spoon, if it’s hot indie acts like WAVVES or the Soft Pack, or everyone in between from Grizzly Bear to Yeasayer to Frightened Rabbit, Lollapalooza has always given indie acts props, even giving them the opportunity to headline. 2007, Interpol, 2008, Wilco. 2009, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, 2010, Arcade Fire. Having this caliber of artists, indie or not, is a coup for any festival, and almost every year, you can count on Lollapalooza to deliver. and every time these bands perform, they perform like it’s their last gig, completely bringing it and dominating for their set. and that’s why i love these artists.
RB: Waaves was awesome, even though they threatened to kill each other at least three times during their early set Friday. And what was with the drummer dissing on Jimmy Cliff? Fucker.
- the aftershows. yes, Lollapalooza typically has a hard curfew of 10 PM before they have to pay insane curfew fees (thanks Green Day), the Lollapalooza experience continues through official and unofficial aftershows throughout the city. This year, I had the fortune of seeing The Walkmen up close and personal at the historic Double Door. I was mere inches away from up and comers The Soft Pack at Schubas. And I got to see Phoenix perform “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix” from start to finish for the first time ever. And oh yeah, I met Rob Pope and Jim Eno from Spoon at the Phoenix aftershow, and had to opportunity to talk up music and festivals and touring with Jim Eno. Aside from these chance encounters (believe me artists attend aftershows, you just have to find them, as I spotted Mark Stoermer from The Killers at the Arctic Monkeys aftershow last year), it’s an opportunity to see some great music in some killer and intimate venues. Saturday night, Phoenix plays to 30,000. To have an opportunity to see them in a venue that comfortable holds 1,000 is amazing. It’s definitely something you want to consider adding to your Lollapalooza weekend in the future.
RB: Agreed. The Walkmen were fucking phenomenal from top to bottom, an end result that had as much to do with the band’s performance as it did with the setting. The packed and feverishly sweaty Double Door was a perfect setting for the band, who did their excellent back catalogue great justice with a balls out 90 minute late night set. It takes a lot to keep a festival-worn crowd on their game past 1 AM, but we came in tired and left ready for more. Can’t wait for Lisbon to hit stores Sept. 14 (Shameless plug? Why yes. Yes it is)
And while we’re talking aftershows, let’s not forget Thursday’s Preshow at the Congress Theatre. After an irritating DJ set that felt endless and an equally frustrating opening set by the Dirty Projectors, Devo saved the day with a reliably awesome set composed equal parts of new material and vintage classics. Decked out in matching gray haz-mat suits and masks, the aging art rockers started with a good five or six songs from Something For Everybody, their first release since 1990’s Smooth Noodle Maps. Songs such as “Don’t Shoot (I’m a Man),” “What We Do” and “Fresh” prove that time has been good to the band and their starched yet danceable brand of synth-driven art rock. After a brief costume change the band broke out the yellow jumpsuits and energy domes for classics such as “Whip It,” “Girl U Want” and “Beautiful World” among others. Older yes, but their energy was boundless, easily rivaling their Lolla counterparts more than half their age. They are not men. They are Devo.
- weather. for the first time ever, the weather was excellent the entire weekend. typically by 6pm Friday, i’m burnt to a crisp, drenched in sweat, and need to have 10 pounds of ice water dumped on me. not so this year. the weather gods for some reason looked down on chicago with favor. with the exception of some rain early sunday afternoon and a bit of humidity, we really couldn’t ask for better weather.
-the return of the strokes. the strokes. seriously, can anyone figure them out? the answer is no. and if anyone answers yes, i would call them a fat liar and kick them in the shins. lead singer julian casablancas has already gone on record to say they ended their 4+ year hiatus because the money was too good. they’re supposedly working on a 4th album. although reports say its been a nightmare process, some reports have said it’s been a good process, you don’t know who to believe. which is why seeing them perform for the first time in over 4 years in the US was a must, and man did they deliver. playing a short 65-minute set of all their hits, the strokes showed why music needs them: because they’re fucking awesome. so they were 10 minutes late, and they ended 15 minutes before their time was up. i’ll take it, and i’ll fucking run with it. a 65-minute set of the strokes playing all of their sets and being together long enough to not kill themselves is better than many bands playing a full 90-minute set. i was relieved to read the next day from several sources that they were in good spirits, they were all smiling and friendly and they all enjoyed the set. i’m hoping this is true. because we need the strokes. we need to cool swagger of julian casablancas, we need the shredding solos of albert hammond jr, we need fabrizio moretti drumming away. we need the strokes to save us from the biebers, nickelbacks, miley cyrus, and mike posners of the world.
RB: You more or less covered it, so I’ll just say yup, the Strokes were damn good. As a less passionate Strokes fan than Phil, I actually didn’t realize this was their first US show since 2006. But you couldn’t tell by the way they played. Every song oozed with boozy, ramshackled grace into the next, and Julian Casablancas charmed the crowd with affably inane and scatterbrained stage banter between cuts. Yeah they were late coming on and yeah, they played with the kind of nonchalance that suggested they didn’t car they were headlining a major festival. But fuck it, isn’t that exactly why we like the Strokes? Bottom line is these guys do rock and roll really, really well. End of story.
-arcade fire. their set was one for the ages. that’s what a headlining set should be. epic. anthem after anthem. 30-40,000 people singing in unison for 90 straight minutes, even to new songs from an album that was released just a few days prior. their closer, “wake up,” was simply bone chilling. anyone who was there to experience that will agree. and if they don’t, i would question whether or not they’re alive. after 6 lollapaloozas, this was the first time i’ve left with thousands upon thousands STILL singing the last song as they exited the festival. this truly was their coming out party, and hopefully the rest of the world will be ready. it was one of the top headlining performances in lollapalooza history. there, i said it.
RB: Yes, you did say it Phil. Unfortunately you didn’t weigh the set against that other band playing across the park. Soundgarden’s Sunday set was all the talk along with Lady Gaga leading up to the festival, and it led many to wonder how the band would hold up for their first appearance on stage in 12 years (that’s like 87 years in rock time y’all). Well, I’m here to tell you that apart from Chris Cornell looking like homeless drifter, the legendary Seattle vets were in fine form. From the outset it was clear the band relished their position as the festival’s reunion band, as they were more than happy to pack their set with choice cuts such as “Spoonman,” “Fell On Black Days,” “Rusty Cage,” and “Black Hole Sun” to name but a few. There wasn’t much in the way of bullshit and banter, as Cornell, guitarist Kim Thayil, bassist Ben Shepherd and drummer extraordinaire Matt Cameron took a workman-like approach to the set by grinding out as many songs as possible. I didn’t catch the end, as I felt it worth my while to catch at least some of the Arcade Fire, but there was absolutely zero room for disappointment on the Soundgraden side of life Sunday night.
Not So Highlights
-seriously guys, not many lowlights. that’s how good this weekend was. Green Day’s performance was completely 100% over the top, and lots of the things they pulled out was unnecessary. Fireworks after half their songs? Waterguns? Toilet paper rolls? REALLY? Then again, as RB pointed out to me during their set, Green Day is in the unenviable position of putting together 1 show that will cater to basically 3 or 4 different audiences. There’s the old school Kerplunk/Dookie fans, there are the current Broadway fans, there are the fans who are only familiar with their American Idiot/21st Century Breakdown albums. How do you put together a show to satisfy people from each of these groups, and possibly even more groups of fans? While technically speaking, the show was pretty good, it isn’t for a lot of people. There were endless amounts of pandering, endless amounts of being told to scream/wave your arms/sing throughout their set. (NOTE: you don’t need to tell your fans to do all of that. they’ll do it! just ask arcade fire!) If you don’t go to a lot of shows, this could very well have been the greatest show you’ve ever seen. But if you’re someone like me, who basically goes to an awesome show a week or so, a lot of it was fluff and not needed. Then again, it’s the beast Green Day itself created. So kudos to them for being a group of guys who were a punk trio, and finding a way to stay musically relevant over 20 years later.
RB: Phil makes a lot of good points here. Green Day has come a long way since breaking out as the snot nosed East Bay punk band that could back in 1994 (yikes), and their Lolla set on Saturday was a testament to that. The trio, Billie Joe Armstrong in particular, have really developed a taste for the lavish, theatrical rock show in recent years, and their sets have as much in common with a circus or the 4th of July as they do a rock concert. Lots of fireworks, lots of yelling and rallying the crowd and all other prerequisites of a BIG rock show. Yes it was excessive and overindulgent at times, and at points it felt god damn interminable ( a 2 hour and 20 minute set?). But you know what? I left that night feeling impressed by Green Day for the first time in probably 10 or 12 years. There were some genuinely cool moments, namely when he brought some unsuspecting 12 year old up on stage to sing “Longview” to a crowd that went certifiably apeshit. And on top of that he got Billie Joe’s guitar. Granted this is probably standard issue for any Green Day show these days, but he gave one young kid the kind of memory he’ll never in a million years live down. For as big a band as they’ve become, it was reassuring to see that they still believe in having fun and giving back to their fans in such a big way. In my mind it rivaled the Strokes for best headliner of the weekend.
-FYE Store autograph policy. If you want to meet (insert band no one’s heard of here), then all you needed to do was stand in line. If you wanted to meet a band like Devo, or Phoenix, or Spoon, or any other big act, then you had to buy a CD and then wait in line. it’s just another way to make a few more dollars. But seriously, why? Everyone at the festival has already forked over shit tons of money on tickets, on accommodations, on food, on t-shirts, etc. at the festival. now in order to meet my favorite band and get their autograph you’re charging me more money? seriously, not needed dudes.
like i said at the beginning, greatest lollapalooza ever. i don’t have the time to go into deep detail about every performance i saw. but i’ll put it this way. i didn’t see a bad performance all weekend. and that’s what special about lollapalooza. bands and musicians fucking bring it. to paraphrase ac newman from the new pornographers, it’s his favorite festival because you can’t not play in front of 40,000 people. so you better bring it if you’re performing in front of that many people.
now the countdown to lollapalooza 2011 begins. and you should go. because it’ll top lollapalooza 2010. i don’t know how. but it will. and you’ll want to be there.
