Well I made it through all of Lolla. I was so exhausted from day 2 that I couldn't bring myself to post impressions on Saturday night, so here goes -
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Day 2:
Started out as only a music festival could when we saw a punkass kid tell a religious activist that "jesus could suck on his balls, dude!" while we were walking towards one of the entry gates. Allison and I went to Perry's right at the start of the day to check out some early electronic stuff by L1ght. We also got to witness the aftermath from Girl Talk's closing set at that stage the night before, where apparently 20,000 people crammed into a tent the size of a football field. It was already fairly muddy and beat up, as you can imagine.
Anywho, we left Perry's within 25-30 minutes because the music was pretty generic and headed to the main field. We picked a nice spot to lay out on the blanket and listened to Walk The Moon from a distance. They were a lot of fun and have a pretty creative combination of vocalists including one who plays a single drum for most of the songs. They said that they'll have an album out soon and I'll be sure to check that one out after hearing them live. After they finished, Phantogram started playing on the opposite stage across the field. We both really like this group so we decided to walk up to the crowd in front of the stage. They might have had the best sound quality of any band for the entire weekend and kept my head bobbing the entire time. They also have an album coming out soon (September) and the new stuff they played was obviously rehearsed and already refined. Great execution all the way... I highly recommend them.
My friends met up with us at the end of Phantogram and we all headed back to Perry's for Super Mash Bros. I really was looking forward to these guys after grabbing their first two albums; they sound better to me than Girl Talk. The tent was as crazy and suffocatingly-humid as day 1 and we ended up only staying in there for 20 or so minutes, then went outside and listened to them in the shade.
The next couple hours are kinda of a blur. We went through 2 or 3 bottles of pinot grigio and saw Local Natives at one of the larger stages. I was fairly tipsy throughout their set but they are a great band with a lot of potential. 4 of the 5 members share group vocals for most of their songs and they have a great percussion setup. For having only one album out so far they really had a massive crowd, but I guess it doesn't take much when 90,000 people are moving throughout the grounds. But yeah, Local Natives finished and Cee Lo Green started, but he was so fucking bizarre that we decided to skip him and walked over to Lykkie Li. She was pretty decent and played some of her really popular stuff first. She has solid stage presence and really worked the crowd up when it was clear that we were getting tired. We stuck around for about 30 minutes and left for Eminem.
Now, I'm a bit of an anomaly when it comes to Eminem. I'm not at all familiar with his material and rap really isn't my thing, so I was a little unsure about going to see him. The crowd was huge, I would guess at least 60,000 crammed in (I heard that the other headliner playing opposite, My Morning Jacket, had barely anyone show up). His set ended up being a lot of fun even though I was totally out of my element. The crowd had a great vibe without him really having to put much energy forward.
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Day 3:
We left for Grant Park a few hours later than the first two days just out of laziness. Decided to stop walking all over the grounds and opted to camp out between two main stages so we could listen to the groups as they rotated back and forth. First up was Noah & The Whale. They were far more upbeat than I was expecting (think modern Johnny Cash) and had some great instrumental americana sections in a majority of their songs. City And Colour followed them. They were very very generic and I don't recall much about their stuff.
Flogging Molly was our third band, and by this point we could start to see come clouds moving in to the city. It got darker and darker as they played. The irish guys are awesome, really fun and had the best energy out of any of the bands I saw throughout the event that had a daytime slot. By the time they finished, it looked as though we were about to get a monsoon. The temperature dropped about 15 degrees within 30 minutes while Cage The Elephant played. They were alright and have some okay mainstream rock songs. Their lead singer is nuts and was crowd surfing within the first 5 minutes of playing, which is fun to see.
About 15 minutes before Damien Marley and Nas were scheduled to start the sky opened up and soaked the every-living crap out of every single person in the park. Allison had an umbrella and managed to keep our shit dry but we might as well have jumped in a pool. The rain felt kind of nice, but it made everyone a little nuts. All of the fields were turned to mud and there was garbage everywhere. Before the weekend I was hoping nothing at this event would make me think of Woodstock, but this was pretty much Woodstock through and through. Anyway, Marley and Nas played once it cleared up a little and I chilled out to some pretty decent reggae and rap tunes. Just like Eminem, I was totally out of my standard music fair with these guys but it was fun.
The weekend ended with Deadmau5. He is seriously a badass motherfucker. He started his set 20 minutes early because it began downpouring for the second time (didn't last for too long luckily) and I think he was afraid people would get fed up with the weather and take off before he finished. I really doubt that, because his set was a single giant rave party the entire time. His dubstep breakdown during "Raise Your Weapon" was probably the highlight of the entire weekend for me. I heard that Foo Fighters had a great show and had a much larger crowd than the mouse, but I don't regret going to see him. Good stuff.
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I've already made plans to be at Lollapalooza 2012. It is very commercialized and there are way too many people, but the organizers have done well logistically and planned out the event pretty damn well. I do hope for a better selection of artists next year. Day 3's lineup was really weak and I honestly could have skipped everyone except for Deadmau5, but for my first Lolla experience it was a lot of fun. I'm also planning on wearing shoes that can handle mud next year.
