The Post-Lollapalooza Post
As promised. This past friday, my little brother came to Chicago. After missing his stop and taking the red line train WAY too far, he eventually made his way to my apartment. We met in an arcade called "Dennis' Games". We walked around and decided to get some Thai food.* (foreshadowing) I had bought tickets for a White Sox/Red Sox game that night, so we headed toward the stadium, stopping to meet my friend Colleen for a couple pre-game beers. The game was a lot of fun. We were witness to five homeruns, and each hometeam homerun was followed by a barrage of fireworks overhead.
But suddenly, disaster struck. Somewhere around the 7th or 8th inning, I looked over to find a very pale and uncomfortable Holt. He informed me that he was extremely sick to his stomach. (and apparently, this was no "trip to the shitter" situation) We held out till the end of the game (the White Sox emerged victorious) and headed toward my apartment. It was clear now that Holt was in severe pain. He informed me that it felt like food poisoning. He then dropped his belongings and ran to the railing of the stadium walkway and puked his guts out repeatedly, while huge security thugs gathered and crossed their arms, clearly unhappy about the situation.
We moved along, tried fruitlessly to hail a cab, then finally decided to just get on the train, which was hot and packed shoulder-to-shoulder, clearly not ideal circumstances for a shaking, food poisoning victim. By now, Holt had thrown up several times, and yet was experiencing NO relief whatsoever. We took the train one stop north before Holt decided he couldn't do it. We got of the train and he somehow puked more. Eventually, we caught a damn cab and got back to my apartment. The cab ride was among the least pleasant I've ever had, as the driver kept threatening to kick us out, due to Holt's condition. He was such an asshole. Poor Holt was doing his absolute best to hang his head as far as possible out the window and this bastard STILL mumbled under his breath the whole ride. I finally leaned up and blurted "What's the problem here!?", after noticing that he had slowed and fallen a good 20 car lengths behind the highway traffic. He mumbled something about how his cab must be clean and I angrily responded that my fucking little brother has fucking food poisoning and we needed to get where we were going fast, people don't fucking pay 30 dollars for a 20 mph crawl down an fucking empty highway. (really pissed me off) He reluctantly picked up the pace and finally we arrived. Neither Holt nor I slept very well that night, as he jumped up to puke in what seemed like half-hour intervals, and each time we would clean up the inevitable mess. (he hosed a pile of my favorite books.) (its cool Holt, you didn't mean to) It was a rocky-ass beginning to Holt's Lollapalooza visit.
Miraculously, Holt woke feeling much better, and was actually able to swallow some water without immediately spraying it across my floor. So we suited up, grabbed my band schedule, and headed for...
We hopped on the train, which was fairly crowded with what proved to be fellow Lollapaloozers. The enormous event took place in Grant Park, home of the famous Buckingham fountain. Holt and I met Zach at the fermenting fountain, checked our park maps, and off we went to get situated for the first band we wanted to see, And You Will Know Us by the Trail of the Dead. The park was a wonderland. The main open field within the park was bordered by five or six huge stages, each color-coded. There were several merchandise tents, with all kinds of records and shirts for sale. Food and drink was available in abundance too, with an impressive and diverse menu of reasonably priced goodies. (BBQ Ribs, Jambalaya, gazpacho, Shaved Ice, Smoothies, BEER... etc.) There were also medical tents, a police tent.. it was almost like a little self-sufficient town.
The park is situated between Lake Michigan and Chicago's downtown loop, so the views of the skyline from the park were beautiful, and nearly every band that performed made mention of the view at some point in there performance.
As you may know, Lollapalooza was established and continues to be organized largely by Perry Farrell. Before each band mounted the stage, good ol' Perry would come out and introduce them. Also, he is a gay robot.
Alright, so now for the first band: AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF THE DEAD. (and by the corny stage banter and trail of broken instruments)
The band was very respectable instrumentally, and I really did enjoy much of the set. However, there was one band member who looked like John Travolta who kinda ruined the vibe. He was the attention hog, overdoing everything possible to embarrassing extremes. He jumped off the stage like 38 times, often not thinking ahead enough to realize that his singing part was coming up. I'm pretty sure he was on cocaine, or something similar. My assumption was furthered by the fact that at one point his nose began to bleed, and he yelled "Fuck it everybody!!! We're alive!!! We're not dead, WE'RE ALIVE!!!", followed by "LETS GET CRUNK AND PARTY!!!" All while the rest of the band members maintained a disciplined, reserved demeanor. Then, as the set drew to a close, Travolta got violent and single handedly began to smash the living shit out of every instrument on stage. (that part was pretty awesome, I have to admit)
OVERALL SCORE (Trail of the Dead): 7 (out of ten) (the rediculous stage antics by Travolta really helped the score)
Next we momentarily checked out THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE. (mostly cause I had just seen the documentary "DIG" about the forementioned band and The Dandy Warhols) Anton Newcombe, perhaps the world's biggest asshole, was originally in the Dandy Warhols but got kicked out and joined the Brian Jonestown Massacre. A viewing of "DIG" would inform you that he is the self proclaimed savior of music and that he "sneezes and hit songs come out". WRONG. It was lame. And full of confused political ramblings that no one gave a soaring shit about. The songs were like watered-down beatles imitations that ran painfully long. Anton can roll up his revolution and ram it up his a-hole.
OVERALL SCORE (Brian Jonestown Massacre): 3.5 (out of ten) (I thought it would at least be interesting.. it wasn't.)
Up next was CAKE, who I was really excited about. I have long been a fan. They have such a unique sound, when you hear a Cake song, you know its them... etc.
John McCrea walked out onto the stage looking a lot like the dude that sleeps against the dumpster outside my window. It was refreshing to see that not every band is stuck in this metrosexual image obsession bullshit. They began to play, McCrea strumming his jangly, cheap acoustic guitar. It all sounded good. Funky drumbeats interwoven with crawling basslines and honky tonk guitar solos punctuated by shimmering trumpet blasts. McCrea's vocals sounded great too. But it was weird. It just seemed to lack overall energy to me. So it was disappointing in that respect. The whole show seemed like this plateau, not a lot of dynamics or punch to it. Absolutely worth seeing, but not as good as I expected.
OVERALL SCORE (Cake): 6
After cake, we briefly checked out BLONDE REDHEAD, a trio composed of two Italian dudes and a Japanese woman.
I have one CD of theirs and I love it. It really dark and unique. Kinda got a little radiohead thing going on maybe. Didn't really see too much of this show, and we weren't very close, but it sounded great.
OVERALL SCORE (Blonde Redhead): 7
The next band was PRIMUS, a band I've listened to since I was in middle school. I kinda stopped buying the albums after Pork Soda though, when they switched drummers. I had heard that this performance, the only for Primus this year, would feature the original lineup! (kick ass) I had seen them once before in New Orleans, so I knew it was bound to be fun. It started sprinkling a little bit as we walked toward the stage, laughing at the enormous inflatable duckies.
The rain tapered off as the show began, leaving everyone's hair ready for some water-slinging headbanging. As I expected, the show was AMAZING. So completely full of punch and energy.
Those three fuckers are virtuosos. So precise. The drummer was fucking shit up Neil Peart style. Les was effortlessly thwarting baroque basslines forth. Larry was showing off his Satriani guitar tactics. I was head banging and slinging water everywhere.
OVERALL SCORE (Primus): 9
PIXIES were up next at the SBC East Stage, so we left Primus a little early (unfortunately) to get a good spot. I have long loved the Pixies and had recently seen them shortly after they reunited at the Aragon in Chicago. Regardless, I was very excited to get to see them again.
Most bands were allotted one hour in which to play. The Pixies were given and hour and fifteen minutes, and they used it well. Having the benefit of short but sweet songs, they were able to cram a shit load of great tunes in. And the pace of each song seemed accelerated too, perhaps this was a conscious tactic due to the limited duration of the set. Whatever it was, it was awesome. Frank Black was getting very into it, delivering several of his thunderous trademark screams.
They closed with "Where is my Mind?" and the voices of the Grant Park audience echoed the haunting howl even after the song had ceased. Frank spoke a simple thank you and they were gone.
OVERALL SCORE (Pixies): 9
We caught a little of WEEZER, but I hardly feel it is fair to give their performance a true review. Sounded good, they were beltin' out the hits, and a couple pieces of shit from their new album.
It had grown dark, and all of the sudden the park was packed shoulder to shoulder with kids, so it seemed logical to make our exit. It had been a LONG and AWESOME day, after all.
We hit the train and got the fuck out of dodge.
DAY TWO OF:
It was 105 degrees in Chicago on Sunday, the hottest its been here in recent history. (its presently back to being 73 and awesome) In addition, the cloud cover that had defended us from the sun was no where to be seen, so everyone was baking in the swelter. Fortunately, most of the bands we had wanted to see had fallen on Saturday, so this would be a much shorter adventure. We met up once again at Buckingham fountain, and began to assume concert viewing positions.
The first Sunday band was DINOSAUR JR, who I am only partially familiar with. I have two or three CDs and like a handful of tracks off of them. They can be pretty hit or miss, in my opinion. But J Mascis (who, to my surprise, had developed a full head of long, grey hair) can fucking wail on the goddamn guitar.
Unfortunately, he may have wailed to hard. The sound coming from the stage eventually just became a wall of indecipherable distortion. I do like some of the recordings a lot, but the melodic elements and the groveling vocals that make these recordings worthwhile were completely lost in the abrasive, unceasing wall of relatively boring white noise.
OVERALL SCORE (Dinosaur Jr): 5
Zach had been stung by something, and was feeling faint. So we walked to the medical tent, sat down and drank some much-needed water. We had also met up with my friend Christie. We watched BEN KWELLER for a few songs before deciding to head over and get into position for The Arcade Fire, a band Holt & I really wanted to see. Ben Kweller was good, I had heard a little of him and liked it, pretty poppy stuff, but with enough raw rock energy to be interesting.
It sounded good for what it was. I had previously been happy about the fact that he didn't quite adhere to current image-obsessions and trendiness in bands, only to find that the entire band had strokes hair, sunglasses and leather jackets and shit. So they lose points there. Ben himself is cool though, and a good little performer.
OVERALL SCORE (Ben Kweller): 5.5
We walked over to SBC East just in time to get a good spot for THE ARCADE FIRE.
Ok, I was admittedly reluctant to get into this band. Call it reverse psychology, but when absolutely everyone you encounter is going on and on about a particular band, it makes me NOT want to like them. But I finally got around to giving them a chance, and within a couple listens of their only full-length album, "Funeral", I began to see the good in this band. Initially, I have a tendency to write new bands off, especially those with the all-too-common "the" at the beginning of their names. But these guys (and girls) are different. Give 'em a shot if you haven't. The show was one of the best I've ever seen. One of the most entertaining, and emotionally charged performances I've ever witnessed. Once in a blue moon, when I see a musical performance, I get this knot in my throat and feel like crying. Its because of two things: 1) the music is truly beautiful 2) I'm jealous as HELL of the person or people responsible for making it. I had one of those moments here. If this band continues to move forward with this same intensity and passion, there will be no stopping them. (or something)
OVERALL SCORE (The Arcade Fire): 9.5
So that's it my friends. We packed it up and left Grant Park. Sure, we may have been able to see a band or two more, but it was 105 degrees out, and my sunburn was beginning to sting like a bitch.
Thanks for reading.
But suddenly, disaster struck. Somewhere around the 7th or 8th inning, I looked over to find a very pale and uncomfortable Holt. He informed me that he was extremely sick to his stomach. (and apparently, this was no "trip to the shitter" situation) We held out till the end of the game (the White Sox emerged victorious) and headed toward my apartment. It was clear now that Holt was in severe pain. He informed me that it felt like food poisoning. He then dropped his belongings and ran to the railing of the stadium walkway and puked his guts out repeatedly, while huge security thugs gathered and crossed their arms, clearly unhappy about the situation.
We moved along, tried fruitlessly to hail a cab, then finally decided to just get on the train, which was hot and packed shoulder-to-shoulder, clearly not ideal circumstances for a shaking, food poisoning victim. By now, Holt had thrown up several times, and yet was experiencing NO relief whatsoever. We took the train one stop north before Holt decided he couldn't do it. We got of the train and he somehow puked more. Eventually, we caught a damn cab and got back to my apartment. The cab ride was among the least pleasant I've ever had, as the driver kept threatening to kick us out, due to Holt's condition. He was such an asshole. Poor Holt was doing his absolute best to hang his head as far as possible out the window and this bastard STILL mumbled under his breath the whole ride. I finally leaned up and blurted "What's the problem here!?", after noticing that he had slowed and fallen a good 20 car lengths behind the highway traffic. He mumbled something about how his cab must be clean and I angrily responded that my fucking little brother has fucking food poisoning and we needed to get where we were going fast, people don't fucking pay 30 dollars for a 20 mph crawl down an fucking empty highway. (really pissed me off) He reluctantly picked up the pace and finally we arrived. Neither Holt nor I slept very well that night, as he jumped up to puke in what seemed like half-hour intervals, and each time we would clean up the inevitable mess. (he hosed a pile of my favorite books.) (its cool Holt, you didn't mean to) It was a rocky-ass beginning to Holt's Lollapalooza visit.
Miraculously, Holt woke feeling much better, and was actually able to swallow some water without immediately spraying it across my floor. So we suited up, grabbed my band schedule, and headed for...
We hopped on the train, which was fairly crowded with what proved to be fellow Lollapaloozers. The enormous event took place in Grant Park, home of the famous Buckingham fountain. Holt and I met Zach at the fermenting fountain, checked our park maps, and off we went to get situated for the first band we wanted to see, And You Will Know Us by the Trail of the Dead. The park was a wonderland. The main open field within the park was bordered by five or six huge stages, each color-coded. There were several merchandise tents, with all kinds of records and shirts for sale. Food and drink was available in abundance too, with an impressive and diverse menu of reasonably priced goodies. (BBQ Ribs, Jambalaya, gazpacho, Shaved Ice, Smoothies, BEER... etc.) There were also medical tents, a police tent.. it was almost like a little self-sufficient town.
The park is situated between Lake Michigan and Chicago's downtown loop, so the views of the skyline from the park were beautiful, and nearly every band that performed made mention of the view at some point in there performance.
As you may know, Lollapalooza was established and continues to be organized largely by Perry Farrell. Before each band mounted the stage, good ol' Perry would come out and introduce them. Also, he is a gay robot.
Alright, so now for the first band: AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF THE DEAD. (and by the corny stage banter and trail of broken instruments)
The band was very respectable instrumentally, and I really did enjoy much of the set. However, there was one band member who looked like John Travolta who kinda ruined the vibe. He was the attention hog, overdoing everything possible to embarrassing extremes. He jumped off the stage like 38 times, often not thinking ahead enough to realize that his singing part was coming up. I'm pretty sure he was on cocaine, or something similar. My assumption was furthered by the fact that at one point his nose began to bleed, and he yelled "Fuck it everybody!!! We're alive!!! We're not dead, WE'RE ALIVE!!!", followed by "LETS GET CRUNK AND PARTY!!!" All while the rest of the band members maintained a disciplined, reserved demeanor. Then, as the set drew to a close, Travolta got violent and single handedly began to smash the living shit out of every instrument on stage. (that part was pretty awesome, I have to admit)
OVERALL SCORE (Trail of the Dead): 7 (out of ten) (the rediculous stage antics by Travolta really helped the score)
Next we momentarily checked out THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE. (mostly cause I had just seen the documentary "DIG" about the forementioned band and The Dandy Warhols) Anton Newcombe, perhaps the world's biggest asshole, was originally in the Dandy Warhols but got kicked out and joined the Brian Jonestown Massacre. A viewing of "DIG" would inform you that he is the self proclaimed savior of music and that he "sneezes and hit songs come out". WRONG. It was lame. And full of confused political ramblings that no one gave a soaring shit about. The songs were like watered-down beatles imitations that ran painfully long. Anton can roll up his revolution and ram it up his a-hole.
OVERALL SCORE (Brian Jonestown Massacre): 3.5 (out of ten) (I thought it would at least be interesting.. it wasn't.)
Up next was CAKE, who I was really excited about. I have long been a fan. They have such a unique sound, when you hear a Cake song, you know its them... etc.
John McCrea walked out onto the stage looking a lot like the dude that sleeps against the dumpster outside my window. It was refreshing to see that not every band is stuck in this metrosexual image obsession bullshit. They began to play, McCrea strumming his jangly, cheap acoustic guitar. It all sounded good. Funky drumbeats interwoven with crawling basslines and honky tonk guitar solos punctuated by shimmering trumpet blasts. McCrea's vocals sounded great too. But it was weird. It just seemed to lack overall energy to me. So it was disappointing in that respect. The whole show seemed like this plateau, not a lot of dynamics or punch to it. Absolutely worth seeing, but not as good as I expected.
OVERALL SCORE (Cake): 6
After cake, we briefly checked out BLONDE REDHEAD, a trio composed of two Italian dudes and a Japanese woman.
I have one CD of theirs and I love it. It really dark and unique. Kinda got a little radiohead thing going on maybe. Didn't really see too much of this show, and we weren't very close, but it sounded great.
OVERALL SCORE (Blonde Redhead): 7
The next band was PRIMUS, a band I've listened to since I was in middle school. I kinda stopped buying the albums after Pork Soda though, when they switched drummers. I had heard that this performance, the only for Primus this year, would feature the original lineup! (kick ass) I had seen them once before in New Orleans, so I knew it was bound to be fun. It started sprinkling a little bit as we walked toward the stage, laughing at the enormous inflatable duckies.
The rain tapered off as the show began, leaving everyone's hair ready for some water-slinging headbanging. As I expected, the show was AMAZING. So completely full of punch and energy.
Those three fuckers are virtuosos. So precise. The drummer was fucking shit up Neil Peart style. Les was effortlessly thwarting baroque basslines forth. Larry was showing off his Satriani guitar tactics. I was head banging and slinging water everywhere.
OVERALL SCORE (Primus): 9
PIXIES were up next at the SBC East Stage, so we left Primus a little early (unfortunately) to get a good spot. I have long loved the Pixies and had recently seen them shortly after they reunited at the Aragon in Chicago. Regardless, I was very excited to get to see them again.
Most bands were allotted one hour in which to play. The Pixies were given and hour and fifteen minutes, and they used it well. Having the benefit of short but sweet songs, they were able to cram a shit load of great tunes in. And the pace of each song seemed accelerated too, perhaps this was a conscious tactic due to the limited duration of the set. Whatever it was, it was awesome. Frank Black was getting very into it, delivering several of his thunderous trademark screams.
They closed with "Where is my Mind?" and the voices of the Grant Park audience echoed the haunting howl even after the song had ceased. Frank spoke a simple thank you and they were gone.
OVERALL SCORE (Pixies): 9
We caught a little of WEEZER, but I hardly feel it is fair to give their performance a true review. Sounded good, they were beltin' out the hits, and a couple pieces of shit from their new album.
It had grown dark, and all of the sudden the park was packed shoulder to shoulder with kids, so it seemed logical to make our exit. It had been a LONG and AWESOME day, after all.
We hit the train and got the fuck out of dodge.
DAY TWO OF:
It was 105 degrees in Chicago on Sunday, the hottest its been here in recent history. (its presently back to being 73 and awesome) In addition, the cloud cover that had defended us from the sun was no where to be seen, so everyone was baking in the swelter. Fortunately, most of the bands we had wanted to see had fallen on Saturday, so this would be a much shorter adventure. We met up once again at Buckingham fountain, and began to assume concert viewing positions.
The first Sunday band was DINOSAUR JR, who I am only partially familiar with. I have two or three CDs and like a handful of tracks off of them. They can be pretty hit or miss, in my opinion. But J Mascis (who, to my surprise, had developed a full head of long, grey hair) can fucking wail on the goddamn guitar.
Unfortunately, he may have wailed to hard. The sound coming from the stage eventually just became a wall of indecipherable distortion. I do like some of the recordings a lot, but the melodic elements and the groveling vocals that make these recordings worthwhile were completely lost in the abrasive, unceasing wall of relatively boring white noise.
OVERALL SCORE (Dinosaur Jr): 5
Zach had been stung by something, and was feeling faint. So we walked to the medical tent, sat down and drank some much-needed water. We had also met up with my friend Christie. We watched BEN KWELLER for a few songs before deciding to head over and get into position for The Arcade Fire, a band Holt & I really wanted to see. Ben Kweller was good, I had heard a little of him and liked it, pretty poppy stuff, but with enough raw rock energy to be interesting.
It sounded good for what it was. I had previously been happy about the fact that he didn't quite adhere to current image-obsessions and trendiness in bands, only to find that the entire band had strokes hair, sunglasses and leather jackets and shit. So they lose points there. Ben himself is cool though, and a good little performer.
OVERALL SCORE (Ben Kweller): 5.5
We walked over to SBC East just in time to get a good spot for THE ARCADE FIRE.
Ok, I was admittedly reluctant to get into this band. Call it reverse psychology, but when absolutely everyone you encounter is going on and on about a particular band, it makes me NOT want to like them. But I finally got around to giving them a chance, and within a couple listens of their only full-length album, "Funeral", I began to see the good in this band. Initially, I have a tendency to write new bands off, especially those with the all-too-common "the" at the beginning of their names. But these guys (and girls) are different. Give 'em a shot if you haven't. The show was one of the best I've ever seen. One of the most entertaining, and emotionally charged performances I've ever witnessed. Once in a blue moon, when I see a musical performance, I get this knot in my throat and feel like crying. Its because of two things: 1) the music is truly beautiful 2) I'm jealous as HELL of the person or people responsible for making it. I had one of those moments here. If this band continues to move forward with this same intensity and passion, there will be no stopping them. (or something)
OVERALL SCORE (The Arcade Fire): 9.5
So that's it my friends. We packed it up and left Grant Park. Sure, we may have been able to see a band or two more, but it was 105 degrees out, and my sunburn was beginning to sting like a bitch.
Thanks for reading.
posted by Alejandro Francesco at 3:43 PM
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