Lolla-ing, Reflecting

It's always hard to encompass a whole weekend as long as Lollapalooza into a single post, it's hard to even quickly recall everything that happened. Thursday night feels like forever ago. I have developed a quick answer to 'what were your favorite performances that you saw,' and honestly most of them weren't even at the actual fest. My absolute fave was Nine Inch Nails on Friday. I've heard a lot of people didn't think it was very good, and I know exactly why. They didn't have the side screens on, so you couldn't see shit if you weren't up close, and the shadow screen stage show wasn't much to look at, but we moved over to the far right of the stage where we could see the stage perfectly, and it wasn't at all crowded. Reznor showed off his guns in a sleeveless shirt and they played a ton of old stuff from the Downward Spiral years, so those of us of a certain age were happy as pigs in, well, you know.

That same night we went to see The Thermals in Logan Square. They weren't even on the Lolla roster this year, but they did a free show at Ultra Lounge that was one of my top shows. I was dragging by midnight when they went on, but seeing them in that tiny club amped me up and reminded me that this is why we cover music, not free parties with plastic girls who are way to pretty-fied to have even seen a band anywhere all day (well, not playing on a stage anyway). I even got a high-5 from the drummer after the show!

The next night we braved the crowds at the Hard Rock for the #ASOSRocks party to see the special guest that they hinted on facebook on Thursday, Salt-N-Pepa, and it was rad. The bf had me pushed close to the front of the room thanks to an open side door, and they bantered and played all the hits for all the ladies. A big fuck you though to the obnoxiously tall basketball players that wormed their way to the front towards the end though. I don't care how famous of an athlete you are, you stand in front of the ladies at a Salt-N-Pepa show, you ain't nothin but a jerk. Read up on how not to be a jerk at a concert.

And finally, as my two legs could barely hold me anymore, we made our way to the Metro for the final Postal Service show. I'm realizing now that not everyone knows the whole story behind this band. Basically Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie) and Jimmy Tamborello (Dntel) sent tracks back and forth via the mail (hence the name) and they ended up with this really well received album, oh and Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley) did some of the vocals. That was ten years ago. I forgot how well I knew those songs, singing along, right along with the whole rest of the venue. Ben Gibbard wasn't quite as nerdy as I thought he would be, even with those dance moves, and Jenny Lewis is my hero, my spirit animal, my whatever. I want to be her. She had kitten heel saddle shoes on, played the drums, and played the guitar with her face. We got a little clip of the last song they'll ever play together for Chicagoist, a little ditty that might sound familiar...

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Call me a snob for saying that most of my favorite shows were at small after parties, but there's something special about experiencing a band in a small room. Festivals are great for what they are, a shared experience with tens of thousands of other people who can say they were there when it happened, man, and that experience goes far beyond music. Bottom line I guess is that we all deserve to just lose it for a couple of days, forget all those daily responsibilities of school or work. But, as Lollapalooza gets closer to celebrating a decade in Chicago, it's changed, and it changes more every year. It shifts, it morphs, it gets bigger and bigger and the attendees get younger and younger as the fest becomes more accepted in the mainstream (that's the only reason I can think of why these teen's parents would let them go), and I keep getting older and older. The experience has changed for me, too as I've gotten more involved. In 2005 I was camped on a blanket with my friends all day balancing out our drug/alcohol intake. Now I'm moving around so much I barely get to sit down unless I take a quick break in the media area. Sometimes drinks are free, especially at parties, but I barely drink anything in order to keep my shit together. Also, I get invited to parties now, and I have friends that take me as their guest to other parties. I get to meet cool people, have celebrity sightings, but I also want to be a reliable writer so I try to balance fun with responsibility. There is a lot more stuff happening outside the festival than ever before--day-parties, after-parties, official and unofficial after-shows, some of them exclusive and some of them not. One could still have a Lollapalooza experience and never even step foot inside the festival grounds, whether you're some level of VIP or not.

Oh, and those small venue shows?? They're happening all around the city all the time. The names might not be as big as The Postal Service or the Foo Fighters, but I guarantee that you can have just as good of a time, maybe even better times. And then when that tiny little band you saw at the Empty Bottle headlines a festival in five or even ten or twenty years, you can say that you were there when it really happened, man.

Another Great Pitchfork for the Books

Yes, I know it's Tuesday, but some of us are just getting moving after the weekend that was Pitchfork. The one thing I did do yesterday was write my wrap-up for Transmission:

(We also have tons of great pics from George Aye on Flickr)

Pitchfork 2009, in Hindsight

Many of you are probably nursing a hangover from the excess of music that was Pitchfork Music Festival this weekend. Another successful year under our belts, this was the most crowded I've ever seen the festival. It was an unprecedented 70 degrees all weekend--people were donning jackets and scarves instead of sunscreen all weekend, and finding refuge from the rain at times on Saturday.

Walking in on Saturday, I arrived just in time for the beginning of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. While I wouldn't call them shoegaze, they had a pleasant mix of rolling teenesque pop; a nice soundtrack for relaxing under the trees.

Final Fantasy (Photo by George Aye)

Next, while I wanted to see Ponytail, I decided to stick around the A stage for Final Fantasy. I heard that he had opened for Arcade Fire before and was amazing. Owen Pallet takes the stage solo and starts recording and looping, creating his own background for the songs. Think if Andrew Bird took on the stylings of Jamie Lidell. While his music isn't as compelling as Bird, he has a much heavier classical influence. I would love to see him in a smaller venue.

Wavves were delayed for about 20 minutes while crews were beefing up the barrier in front of the stage that came apart during Ponytail. Anticipation for this group was huge after Nathan Williams' freakout in Barcelona at the Primavera Sound Festival where he basically od-ed mixing too many drugs and alcohol, barely able to function and was booed off the stage. Then, last week he broke his hand, so I was interested to see what would transpire, or if Williams would take the stage at all. Well, they didn't live up to the hype. I spent most of my time thinking how good Yeasayer sounded on the opposite stage.

The B stage was running behind for the rest of the day after the initial delay, and Lindstrom took the stage 15 minutes late. Donning a yellow cowboy hat and working the laptop, out came some serious techno groove. There really wasn't anything groundbreaking to be heard, but it was good lounging music.

Matt and Kim (Photo by George Aye)

You can't help but smile when you're watching Matt & Kim--their high-energy stage show and happy pop music is infectious. I find most of their songs, and especially Matt's vocals kind of annoying, but I was really enjoying their set, the crowd energy was undeniable. They closed with their most popular song, "Daylight," right after playing "Final Countdown."

I closed out the evening still on the B stage with The Black Lips, I decision I was kind of regretting after hearing how amazing The National was on the main stage. Still, The Black Lips put on a great show. It was loud, it was punk, it was dance, a super '60s The Kinks vibe.

Sunday I arrived early, just in time to see the tail end of The Mae Shi. The Flaming Lips' lighting rig was already up on the stage, creating a heavy anticipation for the entire day (especially when I was constantly hearing reports of Wayne running around backstage and the crew blowing up balloons prepping for the show). While I didn't see much of The Mae Shi's actual show, I did see that Kid Static had joined them on stage and used the soundboard to ask Pitchfork to review their album. "We sent it to you!" he yelled, "Give us a four! We don't care, just review it!"

Frightened Rabbit (Photo by George Aye)

Frightened Rabbit and Blitzen Trapper were next on the main stages. Both groups were comparably mild, good daytime music. Blitzen Trapper brought their alt-country rock, and Frightened Rabbit's Scott Hutchinson brought a Scottish touch to Snow Patrol's alternative aching romance rock. As much as I want to hate that type of desperate longing, Frightened Rabbit are a really good band with strong songs. Seeing them later at Bottom Lounge for one of Pitchfork's official after-shows just reinforced that opinion even more.

I popped over to the B stage a little early to see Women at 3:35 and caught the end of Killer Whales and found four shirtless skinny white guys. Their performance seemed kind of chaotic, but one thing was for sure, they were enjoying themselves. Women was the band I was most excited to see at this year's fest (besides The Flaming Lips that is) because I love '60' psychedelic rock and their self-titled album has an incredibly heavy Velvet Underground influence. I believe it was overlooked as one of the best albums to come out last year. I was slightly disappointed that they didn't sound as good as on the album; at times vocals were even pitchy. It didn't help that they were up against hip-hop artist Pharoahe Monch on the other stage and even though I was on the far left side of the stage, the sound was bouncing off a building. The highlight of the set though, was their most known song "Black Rice" and the crowd was excited. They ended the song (as they ended most every song) with an exciting drone noise wall.

The Thermals (Photo by George Aye)

The crowd was starting to thicken as folks got in place for the evening's headliner as I made my way back to the blanket camp we had laid out by the main stages. The Thermals were already on and rocking a high energy set. The crowd went crazy for their hit songs "Pillar of Salt" and "Now We Can See" (which they closed with). Their set was filled with covers from Nirvana, Breeders, Sonic Youth and Green Day. I started to wonder if they had enough material to fill an entire set, but I couldn't deny that the covers were actually really good and fun, and Hutch Harris' unique vocals added a nice touch.

M83, The Walkmen and Grizzly Bear were a little hard to sit through while waiting for the evening's spectacular ending. All three groups are pretty mellow--I actually slept through most of The Walkmen's set. M83 was good, but would be better in an indoor venue. Some of their spacey, dreamy effects felt lost in the open air. They started to jam in about the third song and the sun came out and added a little bit of warmth. The energy really picked up towards the end as super rave swells put the crowd's hands in the air.

I had to take a break before writing The Flaming Lips portion of this review. It was, as it has been every time I have seen them, one of the most incredible sensory overload things I have ever seen, and certainly the most mind-blowing thing I saw all weekend. As I've noted, anticipation was building all day for the band's performance. If the lighting rig wasn't enough of a reminder of what was to come, I heard that Wayne was practicing getting in and out of his bubble backstage, I saw pictures of balloons ready for the stage, orange "construction " crew members were prepping the stage throughout Grizzly Bear's set, one lone balloon was sent out across the crowd and there were a couple confetti test bursts.

The Flaming Lips (Photo by George Aye)

The opening image on the video screen was no surprise to anyone who has seen Christmas on Mars with the focus on female anatomy. The band entered the stage by coming through the video screen at just that point. Then came Wayne's signature crowd surfing in an inflatable bubble. It's pretty amazing when you know that you will have a big enough draw to pull something like that off and engineer it as a staple in your stage show. With Wayne back on stage, confetti lit up the sky and the band launched into "Race For The Prize."

The group took the "Write the Night" picks as more of a suggestion than a rule, Wayne stating that as much as they love Pitchfork, they play the fan favorites every night. List in hand, many of the songs they played he would just state where they fell: # 7 was "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song," #2 was "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots" and #1 was the closing song "Do You Realize?" One thing they did take the opportunity to do was play some old favorites that only hardcore fans would know. One song was dedicated to Sun Times music critic Jim DeRogatis, one that Wayne said they hadn't played live since '96 (later corrected that they played it once in '99). They also played "Enthusiasm For Life Defeats Existential Fear" for the fans in the front row that follow them to almost every show.

The Flaming Lips (Photo by George Aye)

All the typical craziness and interactive-ness was there: this time sheep and frogs took the place of Santas and aliens dancing on stage, the facecam, the big balloons in the crowd (and boy do people get excited when one of those balloons comes near), the air gun blowing confetti and bursting balloons, and, of course, Wayne on the shoulders of a gorilla. Wayne Coyne is one hell of a genuine frontman, but there is humility, and not humble for being humble's sake--he really loves what he does and loves his fans. He wants everyone to have fun, and he has fun doing it.