If you aren’t familiar with Lollapalooza, you should know that C3 makes it pretty darn easy to see as many bands on your schedule as possible, with their strategic timing and genre-centric sides of the park. This year, the North end of Grant Park (Budweiser and PlayStation stage) is more hip and indie while the South side (Parkways Foundation stage) tends to be a bit more mainstream; of course there are a few anomalies, but for the most part we haven’t had to hoof it back and forth too much.
Yesterday was a great day. A few notables: Stars performed a fantastic set while the crowd threw a glitter party amongst themselves. Then everyone migrated over to the Playstation stage for The xx. It’s amazing to see this band again after watching them perform to a 55-person crowd during a secret show at CMJ back in October. Now there are 55-year old men, along with everyone else in the audience of thousands, singing every lyric. Their live show remains the exact same (lackluster), with the exception of a few more head bangs from Oliver Sim; however, their live sound is a perfect replication of their recorded selves, which is a quite a good thing for these shoegazers.
There were a few surprising disappointments: Warpaint’s vocals sounded off-key…we heard from other artists who played the same Sony bloggie stage, there were problems with the sound and monitors. Let’s chalk it up to technology, cause musically they were spot on. Grizzly Bear’s set left the crowd feeling a little confused as well.
Deer Tick was phenomenal and invited everyone back to a pool party at the Hilton, which would have been lovely considering the 90 degree weather. Speaking of hot, Green Day absolutely killed their performance. They’ve been playing Chicago since 1990 and it shows: these guys know their audience, engage them well and perform their asses off. As usual, Billy Joe made some kid’s year by popping his stage diving cherry.
Our optimistic agenda for today includes: Miniature Tigers, The Antlers, Blitzen Trapper, Freelance Whales, Mumford & Sons, Chiddy Bang, Yeaysayer, Mutemath, The Temper Trap, The National and ARCADE FIRE. It’s raining, so that’s fun.
