Sat Aug 8th
Was gonna be hooking up with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs today, as they were asked last minute to replace the Beastie Boys who were forced to cancel because of Adam Yauch’s cancer scare. Then the mini-gig between acts on Perry Farrell’s stage. This city has this whole thing so perfectly organized. I was at this (since its been a destination festival in Chicago) once before when I was touring with Ween in 2006.
Got checked in and wrist-banded and all that and in time to catch the last half of Atmosphere who were awesome as always, and headed to my little between act mini-gig I was doing for Sony Playstation.
Insanely hot, and more crowded than I expected it being so early. Farrell had just done a little something on this stage so people were still around checking it out. Massive amounts of people.
Thankfully my go-cart driver was savvy but I still had to fight to get to the stage to Santigold. The love for her was off the charts and got some of this biggest reaction all weekend. She was so freaking awesome, and probably the most fun I had of all the bands I saw. I saw her at the Moveon.org Pre-Inaugural Ball in D.C. earlier this year and this was no less fantastic. Did her portion of Jay-Z’s “Brooklyn (Go Hard)” and covered The Cure’s “Killing an Arab”. Astounding.
I opted out of seeing Lyyke Li again for TV on the Radio, whom I can’t recall ever seeing in spite of the fact that they live down the street from me. I’m sure I have I just couldn’t remember because if they were this good last time I would have remembered, wow. They are one of those bands that I’m so sick and tired of hearing people heap praise upon, but it’s pretty undeniable, they rule. One of the most original bands in recent memory, and I have no one to compare them to.
Now it was time to get the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s stage. One of the big moments of this band’s shows is the anticipation of what singer Karen O will be wearing this time. It’s literally just as much as part of the package as anything the band will play. It usually an original piece she has pulled together and its always over the top and never fails to steal the spotlight. When I saw her putting it on backstage, the look of glee on her face in a “wait till they get a load of me” smirk, let me know this more than a gimmick to her as she was visibly nervous as the stakes had been raised since they were filling in for the Beastie Boys. Acknowledging this by just doing the first couple bars of “Sabotage” was classy and subtle.
“Tv on the Radio are so freaking good. #Lollapalooza2009 ”
“Santigold is doing the Cure’s “Killing an Arab”
“the love for Santigold is off the charts! my goodness”
“just saw Atmosphere tear shit apart. #Lollapalooza09 “
Free booze and the like were flowing when I met two more locals that made the trip memorable. A really charming girl was chatting me up while holding her boyfriend’s camera equipment while he was shooting in the next room. One of the best conversations on the whole tour, I found out she’s a writer and all around bad ass. Her boyfriend was (obviously a photographer) and equally as cool. Ended up hanging with them for the rest of the evening. They insisted on taking a pic with me despite the fact that due to the events of the day I looked eerily similar to a member of Lynard Skynard.
Said goodbye to the Yeahs and my new friends after Passion Pit finished and made the walk back down Michigan Ave to my hotel before the sun came up. Knew tomorrow was gonna be more of the same. Good times.
Sun Aug 9th
I go have dinner where I met back up with Chasity. She was even more lovely than the day before and such fun that one, as who else could have talked me into going to see Snoop Dogg while in a food coma?
Chasity and I parted and promised to meet back up for Jane’s Addiction later, as I returned to my comfort seat in the south end to catch a bit of Lou Reed. Now no one can take away this man’s legend, or underestimate his contributions to the tapestry of Rock and Roll, but none of those also offer him a pass for the shit he pulled on this day. Every interview I’ve read with him as far as I can remember paints him to be a prick of the highest order. That bitter curmudgeon, with little regard for anything outside of his sphere. After living in NYC for awhile I’ve encountered these types in an albeit less famous capacity, but as far as I can tell, they walk around with a sense of entitlement that may be afforded to them, but they seem to think it makes them exempt from everything.
I will refer to Lou Reed’s “appearance” as more of a tantrum as compared to an actual performance. He bitched and moaned about technical specs, stopped more songs than he started and didn’t seem to care about momentum. Even more in bad taste was that if he seemed like he was reading instead of actually singing its because he was. Get a load of the lyric monitors:
Now it was time for the big buildup for the final band of the festival. Fittingly the weekend should end with Lollapalooza’s founder and the headliner of its original year: Jane’s Addiction. One thing that does annoy me at these events that the last band always pulls some ego thing where suddenly everyone’s credentials are deemed worthless during their set and you have to have these sudden new ones only distributed by the band. How fucking velvet rope horseshit can you get? And yet I’ve seen ALOT of bands do it. This time Jane’s pulled that shit, but coming from them, it wasn’t like a big shocker. I could really care less anyway, they meant literally NOTHING to me in the 90’s and I saw them earlier this year at the Playboy Party in Austin in a small intimate setting. The only thing is that I was already backstage and it made it difficult to get through the traffic to go out into the field to find Chasity and some other friends. So I ended up watching by myself and really I was so tired at that point they could have been joined by The Police and I couldn’t have cared less. However the show did yield a special guest in the form of Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry (I guess just looking for something to do while Steven Tyler is recuperating) on Jane Says.
The band had no album, no single, not so much as a snippet, with given the climate of today is nothing short of a miracle, making it truly a debut, as NO ONE had heard ANYTHING. But again given the people onstage, expectations were extremely high, and were met and exceeded. We didn’t even know what to call the band as we learned later with their “official” name was. When you entered that night, instead of a ticket you just received a wristband that had the date/venue name, and 3 symbols (a la Led Zeppelin IV) with the Foo Fighters logo, the Q from the Queens of the Stone Age logo, and naturally John Paul Jones’s symbol from Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album.
Monday Aug 10th
So to illustrate how awesome Chicago is, I was staying across the street from Millennium Park and since today was my last day in Chicago I wanted to check it out and it being so close why not. I really wanted to do some John Hughes stuff but the weather in the early part of the day didn’t really permit it.
So I grab some food and after eating I cross the street to check out the park when I stumble upon a FREE Shellac show about to start! Holy freaking awesome!
The park is gorgeous and it looks like a place where a symphony would get down as compared to a weird punk band, but it had that same feel of like Fugazi in D.C., when a band is just embedded in the DNA of a city like that.
Right as I sit down in the seats up front, another staple of Chicago sits down with his family right in front of me. I didn’t want to bother him but like a loser I had to try to sneak a photo. Can you spot Jeff Tweedy in this pic?