Its that time of year again when I bring you the latest installment of Lollapalooza. Definitely was not the same this time, kind of a bummer actually as the usual cronies who come into town could not make it this year. What, you getting to old Swifty? Oh right, you have family obligations now. Growing up sucks doesn’t it. So not one to miss an opportunity, I decided I would go regardless on the last day of the 3 day festival. I don’t think I could handle much more than that anyway, the physical hangover is just too much.

Maybe its lost its charm, or it could have been because I trekked alone, or I was completely sober, but flying solo sorta sucks its not like going to the movies alone. The show sold out all three days, and much to my disappointment I could not get a one day walk in ticket. So after a long train ride I was just about to turn back and come home. Dammit, the one year I really wanted to see a headliner and I can’t get in. Somehow, as luck would have it, this dude asked me if I had a ticket. I said nope, and he offered to sell me a spare, and as any good oppurtunist he tacked on a premium for himself and wouldn’t budge on the price. “See I can be a dick about it, it is sold out you know.” Fine dammit, so I bought it from him. It was as if we were doing a drug deal on the street, money exchanged hands and I got the ticket. After the guy took off I couldn’t help but wonder if he sold me a fake ticket. It looked nothing like last years, no fancy logo, no nothing, just a plain stub.  Walking all the way to the gate I was looking feverishly for others who had tickets so I could compare them. Nope, everyone had the wristbands. Crap, would I be turned away from the gate and be out a hundred bucks?

After going through ‘security’ (laughable actually), the gate person scanned my ticket and..bingo! I was in, whew! The first thing I noticed was it was crowded, really really crowded. Definitely not like the last few times. Traversing anywhere meant merging into the river of traffic. Oy this was going to be a hot one with all these sweaty bodies. But I made it in, groovey.

I texted Brad a few times to see where he was at, naturally the odds of finding a single person in a crowd of 75,000 people are slim. I wandered around to the north end to see if I could find him. No such luck, so instead since I didn’t have lunch I grabbed something to eat. Not bad, and price was reasonable. So after more back and forth texting I wandered around from stage to stage and didn’t hang around long to listen. Although I did catch the tail end of Perry Ferrell and Slash playing the Kidapalooza stage. That was…strange to see these two rock legends playing Jane’s Addiction songs with a bunch of kids.

I wandered over to the Playstation stage and it was between acts so I had a chance to harrass Jen Howard who was working camera for Lolla. I wandered around some more while Iron and Wine was playing the main stage at the north end. Meh, a style of music thats just too mellow for me. I took a seat and waited for Flogging Molly to start, people watching is certainly interesting at these sorts of things. I saw everything from drunken shirtless concert idiots, mohawk punkers, card carrying AARP members to a kid in a stroller with green hair. This place has everything.

Flogging Molly was awesome. From Ireland, this group takes the traditional Irish drinking music and adds some punk rock riffs that creates a distinct sound. Heavy Metal meets the fiddle, accordion and banjo. Aye, the local Irishmen in the crowd were going nuts.

I made the executive decision that I would get dinner and bathroom out of the way afterwards so that I could claim good real estate for Love and Rockets and Nine Inch Nails for the evening. One hamburger and portapotty visit later I was making my way to the main stage. Wouldn’t you know it, there was Brad. So we enjoyed the goth retro stylings of Love and Rockets for a bit. It was like reanimating the dead, who let these guys out of long term storage? It was a good set though, the wall of noise was deafening but familiar. Brad and his posse didn’t want to stick around for NIN, probably a good choice for them, and we exchanged goodbyes.

I claimed my spot on the grass, this was the closest I have ever been for a NIN show and I was not about to give it up. An hour passed, the stage was being loaded and the crowd slowly grew thicker. Eventually it was so crowded I had to stand or risk a boot in my face. The time drew nearer, the anticipation grew. Cheering and chants of “Kanye Sucks!” were heard. Then the trademark smoke, which lead to the prerecorded 999,999 track. The crowd surged forward, I had no choice. We were packed in there like sweaty hogs when Trent Reznor and his crew came out to kick our asses. The crowd went nuts, the lights, the sound were in overdrive. Then, the third song in was March Of The Pigs, a classic from the early nineties. This of course was an invitation for meatheads everywhere to start a mosh pit, and naturally it was right next to me. Oh man, I spent quite a bit of the evening in defensive mode from these morons. Thats all well and good though, it is after all a Nine Inch Nails show.  The lighting for this tour is just incredible. They did some really cool stuff with the video walls, it just gets better everytime. The pictures and video do not do it justice.

After two hours of getting my ears pummeled from songs like Wish, Head Like A Hole, Terrible Lie, Only, Survivalism and so forth it was over. Wow, that went by fast. It was time to go home. Like the sweaty lemmings we were, the crowd spilled out of Grant Park into the streets. I had 30 minutes to make the train or have to stay a lot later than I wanted to for the next one. Once again, I ran my ass off to get to the station. Let me tell you, running downtown after spending all day in the sun on your feet is not fun. I passed many others trying to do the same in flip flops. I did make it though, 8 minutes to spare.

I’m getting past my prime for this kind of stuff though. We’ll see about next year.

So its the day after, my legs are sore, I’m tired, and my ears are ringing. This can only mean my return to Lalapalooza. Like last time, although nothing could ever top that one, it was a ton of fun. As usual Swifty came in as well as Scotty’s bro James. One thing is for sure, this time it was sweltering hot, finding shade was at a premium so we were chugging the water (with an occasional fermented brew mixed in).

I had some reservations about going in the first place because I felt the lineup was rather weak. There weren’t too many names on the list that I recognized or had a desire to see. This year, the bill featured a diverse range of music from the usual rock fare, shoegaze, punk, blues and surprisingly electronic music. The short list of the acts we caught:

* Ted Leo and the Pharmacists * Charlie Musselwhite * The Polyphonic Spree * Against Me! * Silversun Pickups * The Black Keys * LCD Soundsystem * Daft Punk

The acts that I thought were stand outs were Charlie Musselwhite (Blues), Against Me! (Punk), Silversun Piackups (Shoegaze), LCD Soundsystem (Pop electronica?), and Daft Punk (Electronica). Daft Punk I have to say was fantastic! You know the genre of dance electronica has come a long way when two guys dressed as robots spinning turntables is headlining a rock festival. The whole place turned into a giant rave, it was euphoric. Everyone was groovin, I mean everyone which was really cool.

[youtube T9H-9gOxcLg]

[youtube fiy074GnNtA]

After the show, despite my legs were going to fall off I ended up running back to the train station to make the 10:40. Whew! Made it with one minute to spare!

So this is only Day 1, I plan on returning for Day 3!
Uh..scratch that idea. My damn knee is really sore today so the idea of standing around all day, walking and then running to the train again doesn’t work for me.