archGFX

current tune: the arcade fire - wake up
I had this great idea about how I was going to compare lollapalooza and
intonation, who had the better bands, price of admission, price of water,
beer selection, etc. when I walked to the top of the stairs overlooking the
field at 2:30 on Saturday, I realized that would be wholly irrelevant.
Intonation was very cool, but definitely nowhere near the scale of
lollapalooza.

Friday Night

Lollapalooza had a little extra beginning on Friday night when the little
polish bar (replete with 2 regulars who spoke little English and bartender
straight outta 1989) in Ukrainian Village where we were was taken over by
some supposed members of Trail of Dead and Postal Service (???!@#$@? What?)
who had chosen that bar to take over and play DJ at for the night, unbeknown
to us. I don't know what this trend is, but it should stop. After Will
Oldham vs. James Grae (apparently of Yo La Tengo) at intonation, I feel it
needs to be said: Even if you're a great musician, that does not make you a
great DJ. Playing your 7"'es and LP's at home does not count.
(full disclosure: I have very little respect for "DJ's" in general, with
exceptions for the likes of DJ shadow who use turntables to create something
new, not just to mix old things together. Perhaps they would be better
labeled turntablists.)

Day 1

Back to the part at the top of the stairs. We made our way through the sea
of people towards the SBC west stage (a phone company as a concert promoter,
WTF?) to catch Liz Phair where we stood in the outer reaches amongst the
blankets, rather than squeezing upfront. She put on a good show, although
I'm still unable to get really excited about her music.
We decided after that to skip dashboard confessional in favor of getting
close to the front for cake, since we'd still be able to hear from the west
stage. So my summation for dashboard is this: there was much cheering when
chris walked onstage and played the first song. There was much less when he
closed, even though he closed with his "I hate D/C, but I like that song"
single.
Cake rocked, as they did when we saw them last summer. The singer has grown
a beard, in further attempts to be uncool, but only succeeds in making
beards popular. My only (tiny) beef was that stupid "no-phone" song. The
music is good, but the lyrics are too cheesy to bear.
Instead of seeing Blonde Redhead like we planned, we went to get food and
water. It was overcast, but that didn't make it a cool refreshing day.
Blonde redhead doesn't really scale well to the arena setting anyway. Much
better sitting-in-the-shade music.
Revived, we walked over to the bigger stages to see the last 5 minutes of
Billy Idol, whereupon he whipped of his shirt for "Rebel Yell" and showed
off a body far more ripped than you'd expect for a man in his 50's.
Primus. Big inflatable rubber ducks. Yep. I liked it, I think. It was
very... Jam-band. Which I wasn't a fan of. But it was primus. Les
Claypool is pretty goofy, but he didn't live up to the expectations.
After that, we decided to head home, since we were pretty beat. On the way
to the train, tho, we stopped by the planet stage to check out DJ Z-trip,
which was definitely a good decision. The b-boys were still there from the
the earlier contest, and they were breaking all the way through the set,
along with a girl who did amzing things with a hula hoop, and several other
excellent dancers. It was sooo much fun. DJ Z-trip, while not a
turntablist as defined above, is a great way to re-enjoy music you used to
listen to. It's like going to a dance club, except the music is great.
That was a far better end to the day than weezer could have provided.

Day 2

...Or, the day the sun moved a few miles closer to earth.
Seriously. Ouch.
We arrived later than we meant to, owing to laziness, and my foolhardy idea
that we should bike to the fest, since they had bike valet service. When
it's 100 degrees out, there is no cool breeze off the lake. So we missed OK
Go and most of Saul Williams. I actually walked past Saul Williams since he
no longer had dreds and had a drum machine operator, in stark contrast to
the mostly spoken performance he gave opening for The Mars Volta.
We proceeded to sit in the shade through Kasabian and Dinosaur Jr., because
it was too damn hot. Somehow, we also managed to sit right next to megan
(kim's once and former friend, who used to refer to me as andy or hairy long
toe), which was nice and awkward considering how much melanie dislikes her.
We ventured out into the harsh sun for Tegan and Sara. They tried really
hard to put on a good show for us. And what they played was excellent.
Sara got heat stroke halfway through, tho, so after one failed attempt at a
return, one cover featuring members of some other band and a sara-less "you
wouldn't like me" tegan left the stage to help look after her sister.
After that we headed back into the shade so melanie wouldn't end up like
sara. We grabbed some snacks, which nearly killed T, who had to miss out
on The Arcade Fire.
The Arcade Fire.
The whole reason we went to lollapalooza. And worth every penny of it.
They are seriously amazing. Not only did they manage a real stage presence
and energy with a dozen members, they had sideshow antics by the
percussionists in time with the themes of Neighborhood #2, but they managed
to inject impossibly MORE energy and heart into their songs than the album.
They played non-album tracks like "no cars go" from the first ep I didn't
know existed, they said intelligent and witty things between songs, they did
everything perfect. And, they fucking rocked. I know the album comes
across as half emo, half something else yet unheard of, but the set just
rocked, all the way through.
I would be remiss to not mention one downside, though. It was hot. Not
warm. Not uncomfortable. omggetyourhandsoffthestove, HOT. My bare chest
skipped the stages of sun tanned and sunburned and went directly to HEAT
RASH.
So after that, even though spoon is fun and energetic (musically at least),
we sat in the shade during their set. Since I saw them at Taste of Randolph
last year, the singer has indeed not learned how to perform. It's
forgivable, their music is pretty darn good. Not as good as people make
out, but good. The new stuff from "Gimme Fiction" was better live (my
mathematical mind, and the two sides of monsieur valentine, for example),
pushing it up to a close second behind "Girls Can Tell" for my favorite
Spoon album.
The only Dandy Warhols song I knew going into the show was "We Used To Be
Friends". That song is not typical of their catalog, so when D wanted
to go see the killers we were happy to oblige. They got old pretty quick,
too, so melanie and I went to sit in one of the air conditioned busses they
had pulled into grant park for the fest. Whoever came up with that plan
should get a medal.
After that, we went back onto the lawn for Death Cab For Cutie. Ben Gibbard
made the mistake of thinking that in order to ratchet his sound up to arena
level energy, he should play like he was in a slightly harder core emo
band. I'm not sure what he should have done, other than try to explain that
he should be headlining, but what he did, didn't work out so well. Shortly
after "License and Registration", we took off.

So the bands that you should see if you haven't are The Arcade Fire and
Tegan and Sara, Cake if you like them, and Saul Williams. And if you don't
own any spoon, go get "Girls Can Tell" and "Gimme Fiction" great examples
of reasons why the RIAA isn't needed anymore. Good clean pop/rock fun.