Lollapalooza 2017

I've attended festivals before; after all, I went to the Coachella festival twelve times (2004-2014, 2016), and I've had a sporadic showing at the Detroit Electronic Music Festival (or Movement, as it's now called). I've even been to festivals in Chicago before, from the 2006 Vice-curated Intonation Music Festival to multiple shots of the Pitchfork Music Festival. But I avoided going to things like Bonnaroo and Outside Lands and Riot Fest and Lollapalooza, thinking that they would somehow be lesser than what I'd already experienced.

That all changed almost two weeks ago, when I went to my first Lollapalooza festival, right in the heart of downtown Chicago. I almost didn't go, but I was swayed by two things -- a reduced-price guest wristband, and the promise of hang time with my friend Brian in one of my favorite cities -- so I took the plunge. (As an aside, I drove from Detroit, as I saw Roger Waters perform at the Palace of Auburn Hills the night before Lollapalooza. Unsurprisingly, flanked by guest performers like Jonathan Wilson and the ladies from Lucius, RW was A-OK. Even if parking at the Palace was $25.) But this time, I promised myself that the hang would be first, with the music secondary. And that's the way the extended weekend happened, for good and bad.

I got into Chicago on Thursday afternoon, as Brian's Apple responsibilities put off an earlier arrival. After we both got situated, we headed down to the fest and hit one of the VIP-ish lounges with two mutual friends. Then it was a quick walk-around of the grounds before we saw Spoon put on their usual excellent show. Muse was due to play after Spoon, but three songs in, the summer thunderstorms of Chicago hit in full force, which meant the festival was immediately closed. No Muse, no Lorde, and no dry clothes. But walking the streets of Chicago with tens of thousands of wet and whining kids was pretty entertaining itself.

We made a vow on Friday to see a bit more music, and we largely made good on that promise. Our (significantly drier) day gave us Phantogram, the end of Tegan and Sara, Ryan Adams, Run The Jewels, Little Dragon, and The Killers. As far as festivals go, that's a pretty nice day. We had two separate from-the-heart PSA's on suicide from Phantogram (the lead singer's sister committed suicide recently) and RTJ (who invoked Chester Bennington), so of course the morbid running joke was that every group would shoehorn in some well-intended but ham-fisted message about suicide prevention. The surprising MVP of the day was The Killers, who came out swinging from start to finish (and even tossed in covers from Joy Division and Muse into the mix). As Brian said, they looked like they were genetically engineered to headline festivals.

At this moment, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the reaction to my shirt on Saturday. For the other three days of the festival, I wore something featuring the Bowie Blackstar graphics -- a t-shirt on Thursday, a sweatshirt on Friday, and a long sleeve t-shirt on Sunday -- and I got a couple of hipster head nods each day. But on Saturday, I wore this shirt:

Now, I've had shirts that the festival kids liked. For a few years, I wore a Don Hertzfeldt Rejected t-shirt that would get a handful of love at Coachella. But I've never seen the wave of WTF?/OMG! that I got on Saturday with the Cage shirt. The boys loved it, the girls loved it, the cops loved it...it was pretty funny to see such a positive reaction from every demo. In movie terms, it was a four-quadrant smash. And when I ran into another kid at Lolla with the exact same shirt about 15 minutes into the day...well, that was extra special.

So Saturday was a bit of a coda to Friday, as we caught the tail end of San Fermin before the trio of Warpaint, Alvvays, and Colony House. After that, we saw too big of a gap between where we were and who we wanted to see later that night (Sylvan Esso, The xx, Chance the Rapper), so we decided to bail and go get dinner and a movie instead. After some great pizza and a solid-but-intense flick (Detroit), we were ready to regroup for the last day of the festival. We went to Brian's soccer league game early on Sunday afternoon, then closed out Lollapalooza with London Grammar, The Shins, a twin bill of blah (DVBBS and Grouplove), and Arcade Fire. Good stuff, even if we missed a bunch of bands in the process.

For all the years that I was Team Coachella, I have to admit that Lollapalooza did some things right. Having the grounds be a dog-bone shape, with two main stages on either end of the dog bone, kept the noise bleed to a nice minimum. With local hotels and the Red Line as a quick show-and-go mass transit, it was nice to have the option to check in and out of the festival at will, something you didn't have on Coachella Island. Four days is a bit strong -- it would have been nice to see a tighter three-day schedule -- but it added to the more leisurely vibe. It also helped that the weather was cooler and less humid than usual (although the Biblical thunderstorm on Thursday night was a debit). I'm not sure if I would do it again -- I'm feeling more aged out of festivals like these, and the body bounce-back isn't what it once was -- but it's something I'll strongly consider, especially if the Topo Chico with Lime keeps flowing.