This past weekend, my good friend Curt Keller and I attended all three scorching days of Lollapalooza here in Chicago, and since my E3 writeup was so popular with ya’ll (even the Neos enjoyed it), I figured I’d write about what I saw at Lollapalooza. Plus, it gives me a nice way to keep track of my memories, something I don’t always do so well.

Friday
We started out early on Friday — a few friends told me that I’d never be able to keep up with my planned schedule, and I wasn’t so sure. How hard could it be to listen to music all day? But it turned out going to Lolla was one of the most physically grueling things I’ve done lately — between the sun, the insane crowds, and walking back and forth on the grounds, every single day was exhausting.

But I don’t mean to start with the bad news. The first band we saw, after exchanging our tickets for wristbands at the gate, was Manchester Orchestra, and they were a wildly raucous group of kids from Atlanta whose sound and musical weight far outstrips their age (our program says they have an average age of 19). From there, we walked on out towards one of the festival’s two big concert stage areas (one north and one south, with two stages each) to see Rogue Wave. I didn’t know them (Curt did), but I did enjoy them — kind of a Snow Patrol-esque vibe, seemed to me.

I should say, before I go too much farther, that I am not actually a rock critic. A rock critic would probably compare bands to larger bands, touchstones of culture and musical sense. I just compare bands to what I know, so don’t be offended if I mischaracterize your favorite band or happen to ignore a huge back catalogue that completely disproves my statements. I just calls ‘em as I sees ‘em here.

After listening in for a while, we headed back up to the opposite end of the park (the first of many grueling treks, growing more grueling as the days went on) to see Go! Team. I don’t know much about Go! Team — I’ve heard a few songs, I dig their sound, even if they’re a little too happy for my own tastes. But I did enjoy the show — the band members did a lot of instrument switching, was very high energy, and any band that has not one but two full drum sets gets my vote.

But boy it was hot out there. There was no shade at all near the main stages, and the sun beat down relentlessly on our heads. The Police could have been playing that stage, and we’d have done what we did: turned around to look for shade and cooler climes.

We found a little stand they were calling a “biergarten” — it was a set of shaded picnic tables near one of the many drink stands. Beer was $5, and with the heat, we were in no mood to drink all weekend (a first for me, I think — how old am I getting?), but water was a much more affordable $2, so we grabbed bottles of that and swigged it as we watched The Kills (not that impressive) on a large video screen.

There was a Rock Band setup there, and you know how much I love Rock Band. They were having a contest to see Cat Power from the side stage later in the day, but we needed four and were only two, so we passed. Another group needed a bassist though, so I threw in with them. We played Metallica’s Ride the Lightning on Expert, and I’d like to say that I did well — 87% on a track I’d never played before — but the other guys had percentages in the 90s. In the end, we scored over 950,000 — a respectable score, but not enough to win the contest, as someone earlier in the day had already beat 1,000,000. Bastards.

Onward we went to the Black Keys, who were back out on the main stage, drenched in sun. They sounded great — from the shade, where most of the festival had taken refuge, and from where we stood and listened to them.

After they finished, Cat Power started up on the opposite stage, and we listened for a few songs, but I never really got the whole Cat Power thing, and I didn’t hear anything that made me get her there. Sorry, fans, guess it’s just not my thing.

We then headed back across the festival towards the other stages, and on the way stopped to hear an awesome DJ set from a guy named Million $ Mano. He had the crowd jumping, literally — I probably didn’t see a crowd that ecstatically happy to be listening to music the whole time. No coincidence, I’m sure, that he was playing on a stage under the trees, covered in shade. We also listened to Your Vegas for a bit, and they sounded pretty good, even if they were pretty standard rock.

We finally made it back to the south stages, and from a distance saw the whole Bloc Party set, and they were terrific. The lead singer had an Obama t-shirt on (they’re from England, though, so no voting for them), and he seemed thrilled to be on a big stage like that. This was to be a running theme — the best performers at the festival really enjoyed being there, and their happiness was contagious. I’ll never hear “Like Eating Glass,” or “Banquet” the same way again — they were great.

Finally, the night ended with what we thought was the best concert of the festival, Radiohead. By the time they got on stage, the sun had set, things were cooling down, and since they were the only show still going that night, the entire place was full of people, and songs like “Weird Fishes,” “Nude,” and “Everything in its Right Place” rang out perfectly while a fireworks show even blazed overhead. There were minor annoyances — a few punks pulled up alongside us during the show, and wouldn’t shut up about how they were waiting until the fall to go hang out at their parents’ cottage (while drinking simultaneously out of a JD flask and coke bottle and smoking a roach), but when we moved far enough away from them, the concert was just beautiful.

One note: my writer’s sense went off wildly when, during “Everything,” scrolling text being projected on the stage spelled out “EVERYTHING IN IT’S RIGHT PLACE.” Oh Radiohead, fire the people who write your lightshows.

Exhausted, sunburnt, feeling excruciating foot pain, and yet exhilirated, we headed back to meet up with Curt’s sister at a diner and drink all the water they had. Already, we’d seen Bloc Party and Radiohead, and we still had two more days.

Saturday
Friday night we’d determined that we wouldn’t subject ourselves to that morning sun again, so we planned on Saturday to have DeVotchKa, at 3:30, be the first band we saw. And when we got there, our wait was rewarded: they were terrific. DeVotchKa’s lead singer is amazing — he played the guitar like a pro, took swigs of wine on stage, and even played the theremin very admirably (at one point, he even played both the guitar and the theremin at the same time). It was the first time I’d ever seen one of those played live, too. Jeanie Schroder, who played both a gigantic tuba and a standup double bass, was awesome — I joked that she should play onstage with every band that day.

We also faced our first choice of the day: both DeVotchKa and MGMT were playing at the same time, and we wanted to see both. So with about 15 minutes left in the hour, we raced across the festival again, and caught MGMT… leaving the stage. They had finished off their set (we just barely heard the last bars of “Time to Pretend) a full 10 minutes early. Very lame of them, and they win my award for Worst Performance, only because I didn’t get to hear any of it. Curt said we should have stayed for the rest of DeVotchKa’s set, and I agree — I’d see them again in a second if they make it back to Chicago.

We stayed for a few minutes to hear some of Brand New (I’d never heard of them, and wasn’t too impressed, but Curt liked them), and then went back across the festival for an also unimpressive Explosions in the Sky. They’re a band that is fun to listen to as atmosphere, but not really all that cool at a concert in the middle of the day. We had an alternative motive for sneaking back to their stage, though — we wanted to make sure we got in prime position to see the next band, one of the best shows we saw at the festival.

Yes, Okkervil River was one of the groups we most wanted to see, and they didn’t disappoint. We got in close, and it was awesome — Will Sheff put almost everything he had into every song, caterwauling around the stage and joking around with his bandmates. They were terrific — he enjoined the audience to scream out the chorus on a great take of “For Real,” and we did, and when he asked for handclaps on “Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe,” he got them. And they finished things off with a beautiful song he called “What Gives This Mess Some Grace Unless it’s Kicks” (the album only uses the last three words as a title), with a woman I think was Julie Doiron standing in playing a tiny little guitar for a perfect solo. Great show — besides the top three closers, was one of the best shows we saw all weekend.

We cut once more back across the festival (I wanted to at one point count how many times we did this, and multiply it by the length of the area to find just how far we walked that weekend) to the southern stages to see Battles play while we ate some impromptu dinner. They were good, but I remarked that it didn’t seem like they were playing songs, just playing in general, messing around with all the sonic equipment they had around them. Their “Atlas” was good though, and there was a few other tracks in there from the album that the crowd really dug.

At Radiohead, we’d sat pretty far back and as a result had to deal with those talking kids, so for Rage Against the Machine, I’d decided that we’d try to get fairly close — not super close, but close enough to where we got in among people who actually cared about the music. So while the Toadies played their set behind us, we squeezed in close to the Rage stage.

And when Rage came out, they rocked — everyone around us started going nuts. Full disclosure: Ok, I was, too, jumping up and down and pumping my fist to “Bulls on Parade.” But what I didn’t do was start moshing, and some folks in front of us did, jumping around and pushing each other back and forth. Two songs in, Zach de la Rocha had words with security and stopped the music, pleading with everyone to “step 5 or 10 steps back, please.” We tried to do so as best we could — we later found out that not only were people getting hurt in front of the stage, but people were also trying to rush the gates outside, after a security guard opened a gate they weren’t supposed to during the concert. After another break, Rage started up again, and while I was a little disappointed that they didn’t play some of my favorite songs (nothing from the cover album, so no “Renegades of Funk” or “Pistol Grip Pump,” though I knew they wouldn’t play that second one), they did rock. I didn’t see as much as I wanted of Tom Morello playing, though — every time he was doing an amazing solo, the camera stupidly cut away to the bassist or drummer pounding out a background rhythm — it was like the director had no idea that Morello wasn’t supposed to be making those kinds of sounds with his guitar. The few shots we caught of what he was doing were great — at one point, he slid his finger up the strings, and then plucked them as he pulled off at the top, and it sounded just like a siren — but there wasn’t nearly enough. What Tom Morello does with a guitar should be documented.

We jumped a bus home again (after sitting down for a while — at the end of all the nightly concerts, our feet and legs were dead tired from standing and walking all day), and grabbed a pizza at my favorite neighborhood place to eat, Forno Diablo. If you’re ever in Chicago, give me a call and we’ll go there — it’s great.

Sunday
The last day of the festival. I was surprised I could still walk, though after a night’s sleep and a lot of water drinking, I was able to move enough to get downtown one more time. We started the day off with a trip to see the Black Kids, a slightly overhyped group (consisting, famously, of only two African-American kids and three others) that sounds a little bit like a less-depressed Cure. They’re only starting out, and as raw as they were, they did sound good. They need a little more gelling, and a lot more practice, but if they keep at it, they’ll be an interesting group going forward.

We unfortunately missed Chromeo, but considering how much buzz they got around the show, I made a mental note to pick up some of their music. We instead walked back north to see Iron and Wine, and I was unfortunately disappointed. On his low-fi records, Sam Beam whispers the words of his songs, a very intimate, quiet feeling. But on a big festival stage, he actually sings, and he’s backed up by a band of what look like hippies, and we got more of a Grateful Dead vibe off the whole thing than anything else. I still like his music, and he’s a talented guy, but the show we saw was not as advertised.

More walking back across the grounds to see Saul Williams, who had the line of the festival: “I pity you all for having to choose between Nine Inch Nails and Kanye West tonight. I work to make music where you don’t have to choose.” He was good — very spare guitars and beats over him basically just saying what he thinks. Probably not for everyone but I enjoyed it.

Then it was down to the south stages to check out the end of Blues Traveler’s set (spoiler: they played “Runaround,” and “The Hook,” which is a song I hadn’t heard for years), and then see Gnarls Barkley. I really loved seeing them on stage, and if they come back in town, I’ll try to see them again — Cee-Lo’s voice is almost tame on the record compared to how much he get into it on stage. You could tell that he was really loving it, throwing all kinds of vocal curlicues and even a “Good Gawd, uh” in at various times. They were really terrific — even songs I don’t much like on the record (”Blind Mary” for one) shined with the full band and Cee-Lo’s live enthusiasm behind them, and songs that I do like (”Whatever” and “Gone Daddy Gone”) were amazing fun.

Finally, we made one more trip back up the park, checking out Girl Talk on the way. He was on the Citi stage, which everyone agreed was the worst placed stage in the place, and his crowd was so big that he blocked major thoroughways. He was a crowd-pleaser, too — his stage was full of fans dancing, and he had people tossing crap into the crowd all over the place. I thought he performance wasn’t that great — instead of the mixed up pop music melanges that he’s known for, he was playing a pretty standard DJ set with relatively slow transitions — but he did have the crowd jumping like crazy. Awesome to see that a guy whose whole catalogue is actually completely illegal has a gigantic fan following like that — he could have been on the main stage and filled most of the place up with dancing people.

Finally, we arrived back at the main stage area to see the last two shows of the festival. The first was another concert we’d been waiting to see, and we snuck in fairly close to see The National perform an amazing set (they and Okkervil River were definitely my favorites, outside of the three closing shows). Their drummer looked as amazing as he sounds on Boxer, and Matt Berninger, though loose and cordial while not singing (he joked with fans and bandmates between songs), was an emotional rollercoaster otherwise, at times apparently crying and falling to his knees, so overcome by what he was singing. And in a few places he even screamed like I never thought he could, howling with the sheer beauty of what the band was doing around him. Great stuff — they played almost all of Boxer, with “Slow Show” (”You know I dreamed about you for 29 years before I met you” — just awesome) and my favorite “Apartment Story” being standouts. When the guitars wailed and the drums beat relentlessly and the horns wailed, it made all the heat and waiting and crowds of the weekend worth it.

And I never thought I’d call a Nine Inch Nails show sedate but that’s exactly what it was — we finished off the show with an appearance from Trent Reznor, who despite the fact that he was nursing a very croaky voice, still cranked out all their great songs. He did throw in a few too many instrumentals, and when he got really quiet, we were able to hear a little Kanye West floating across the park (I did want to see Kanye, but Curt isn’t a fan of him — or rap in general, I’m trying to cure him of that — and he is a huge fan of NIN, not to mention that I’d never seen them live before). But when Trent roared, everyone else roared with him, and older stuff like “Head Like a Hole” and “Terrible Lie” rocked right along with newer tunes like “The Hand that Feeds,” “The Warning,” “Vessel,” and “Survivalism.” He ended the show with “Hurt,” and by then his voice was so bad (and Kanye was leaking in from behind) that everyone there threw their own voice into the mix to keep the song going, and Lollapalooza ended for us with a whole crowd of people singing, with the glowing Chicago skyline over the trees around us, “If I could start again/ A million miles away / I would keep myself / I would find a way.”

Lolla was a terrific experience — at the end of it, we were completely crushed and worn out, and personally, I really think I’m too old to run all out on a big music festival like that (at least unless I go as press or VIP — looking back, I probably would have paid the extra money just to sit in the shade and enjoy the free food and drinks that VIP status supposedly grants). But all of our running around was worth it — we hit roughly 26 bands, enjoyed almost all of it, saw three legendary groups (one of which is probably on their last tour together), saw terrific sets from Okkervil River and the National, and got to check the hype on a few up-and-coming bands (we’re looking at you, MGMT).

As painful as it was, it was a terrific weekend and a great festival, and I’m glad we went. In fact, Chromeo just finished downloading — I’m off to check it out.