Lollapalooza

When Lollapalooza started, I was a huge Jane’s Addiction fan, so I wanted to be into whatever the next thing Perry Farrell was doing was. Plus the early lineups contained so many musical acts I really like. But there are two things I love about a certain kind of music, which Lollapalooza couldn’t offer: I like my rock and roll in dark nightclubs at, ya know, night and I feel that both performers and fans should get to look interesting. When I say, “interesting”, I am thinking androgynous eyeliner, DIY jackets, rude T-shirts, unusual hairstyles, larger than humdrum life, that sort of thing. I’m just not thinking that it would be awesome to spend a day covered in porta-potty-spillover mud, drying on my body in the hot sun, while I strain to enjoy bands on a distant stage.

Looking over this year’s lineup, A Perfect Circle is the only one of those bands I ever went to see on purpose. And, even there, the thing about this sort of band is you generally end up seeing them in a really large venue. In the case of A Perfect Circle, the venue was Universal Amphitheatre, which has awesome sound. But the show was so big that, when my party went backstage, we were puzzled that we did not know anyone. And our passes had different art on them from the various others we could see there. Eventually, a member of the band came out and ushered us to the real backstage, which felt simultaneously great and awful. Like it was nice to be special, but I just kind of crave a sense of community which is not available in an enormous venue setting.

However, there were 270,000 or so people in Chicago’s Grant Park this week who did not share my goth-industrial fastidiousness and reports are that Lollapalooza 2011 was a great time. Eminem turned in one of the most well-received performances by a hip hop artist in Lollapalooza’s history. (No matter what anyone says, I’m not sure I buy that Eminem exactly blew Ice T’s “Let’s Get Buck Naked and Fuck” off the mic, but still nice.) The Foo Fighters snuck out and did a long set at Chicago’s Metro, which is a very fun club and an intimate venue to see a band like that in. And, for my taste, Cee Lo “Fuck You” Green stole the show by actually dressing like a rockstar.

The Lollapalooza festival itself, did a cool high tech thing and broadcast much of the show on YouTube. You can still watch some rebroadcasts linked off the Lollapalooza site.

What do you all think of outdoor rock shows?

Cee Lo Green photographed by Dave Mead at Lollapalooza 2011

Lollapalooza 2011 Bands Lineup

A Perfect Circle, Afrojack, An Horse, Ana Tijoux, Arctic Monkeys, Atmosphere, Beats Antique, Beirut, Big Audio Dynamite, Black Cards, Boy & Bear, Bright Eyes, Cage the Elephant, Ceci Bastida, Cee Lo Green, Chico Trujillo, Christina Perri, Chuckie, City And Colour, Coldplay, Crystal Castles, Cults, Daedulus, Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley & NaS, Dani Deahl, deadmau5, Death From Above 1979, Deftones, Delta Spirit, Disappears, DJ Mel, DJ Neil Armstrong, Dom, Electric Touch, Ellie Goulding, Eminem, Explosions in the Sky, Feed Me, Fences, Fitz & The Tantrums, Flogging Molly, Foster The People, Friendly Fires, Girl Talk, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Haley, Imelda May, J. Roddy Walston and The Business, Joachim Garraud, Julia Easterlin, Keller Williams, Kerli, Kid Cudi, Kids These Days, Kyle Lucas & Captain Midnite, Lady D, Lia Ices, little hurricane, Local Natives, Lord Huron, Los Bunkers, Lykke Li, Manchester Orchestra, Maps & Atlases, Modeselektor, Muse, My Morning Jacket, Narcisse, OK Go, Patrick Stump, Phantogram, Portugal. The Man, Ralph’s World, Ratatat, Reptar, Rival Schools, Ruby Jane, Ryan Bingham & the Dead Horses, Ryan Leslie, Savoy, Skrillex, Skylar Grey, Smith Westerns, Super Mash Bros., Switch, TAB the Band, Tennis, The Black Lips, The Cars, The Chain Gang of 1974, The Cool Kids, The Drums, The Glitch Mob, The Kills, The Kingston Springs, The Mountain Goats, The Naked And Famous, The Pretty Reckless, The Vaccines, Tinie Tempah, Two Door Cinema Club, Typhoon, Walk the Moon, Ween, White Lies, Wye Oak, Ximena Sariñana, Young Man, Young the Giant

Around The Park Lollapalooze 2011 crowd pics by Jack Edinger

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Posted by Amelia G on August 7, 2011. Filed under Headline, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry