Lollapalooza Blog

August 3-5, 2007

BY JIM DeROGATIS POP MUSIC CRITIC

Day one, entry one
And so it begins: Three days of cross-promotional synergy and unrelenting corporate hype masquerading as the jewel of Chicago’s summer concert season.

Welcome to the third year of Lollapalooza’s reinvention as a destination festival drawing more than 35,000 people per day to Grant Park.

Same as it ever was
The concert’s Texas-based promoters, C3 Presents, have slightly altered the orientation of the main stages in their third year in response to complaints from the ever-contentious residents who live in the high-rises ringing the park. But the first acts of the day soon made obvious that this has done little to alleviate the biggest sound problem: bleed from one stage to the next.

Otherwise, Lolla ’07 looks pretty much like Lolla’06, with even more of a corporate promotional presence and expanded VIP sections. (More about the latter shortly.) So much for heeding the complaints and suggestions of concertgoers in years one and two.

Where have I heard that song before?
My Lolla experience began with the first band on one of the two main stages in Hutchinson Field at the Southern end of the park. The Fratellis are a Scottish trio that debuted with the 2006 album “Costello Music,” although

they are best known, appropriately enough for this event, for having their song “Flathead” featuring in a TV commercial for an MP3 player. They’re pleasant and jangly enough, but nothing to get excited about — and nothing you wouldn’t see at any one of Chicago’s innumerable street fairs.

From next-door neighbor to Lolla performer
A few years ago, one of my next-door neighbors on the city’s Northwest Side was an earnest young guy gearing up for his first year at DePaul University and eager to make his mark as a musician. Every summer, he’d sit on his

front stoop at night and play his acoustic guitar, singing surprisingly sophisticated originals, as well as covers by Pink Floyd and Dave Matthews.

Now, Tom Schraeder is preparing to release a debut EP, “The Door, The Gutter, The Grave,” and in the tough-sell slot of Friday at 12:30, he held forth on one of the smaller stages in the center of the park along Lake Shore Drive, winning over early arrivals at the fest (who had to endure an entry line three blocks long) and shining brightly as he delivered his

tunes with the exquisite backing of a seven-piece band that included cello, violin, standup bass, drums, keyboards and, best of all, a singing saw.

“God damn all you women who are the same,” Schraeder sang in an endearingly gravelly voice and with a world-weary wisdom belying his age and experience. Combined with a moving sound equal parts alternative-country,

cornfield psychedelia and Neil Young, tunes like this one marked him as a real talent — and no, that observation isn’t at all influenced by the fact that I can say I knew him when.

This ain’t no disco
But it could have been, if the punishing heat and blazing sun weren’t so discouraging to dancers as Ghostland Observatory performed at the southernmost stage in Hutchinson Field as the afternoon wore on.

In stark contrast to the heat, Austin, TX-based vocalist and guitarist Aaron Behrens and his cohorts played an exceedingly cool set mixing analog electronica, vintage ’70s disco and sly hints of heavy metal (most of the

latter courtesy of Behrens’ high-pitched vocals).

If I wasn’t already fearing the onset of heat stroke, I might have even danced myself. But better anyway to save that sad spectacle for the night’s headling set by one of Ghostland Observatory’s main influences, the phenomenal Daft Punk.

This revolution will be corportized
Yes, it was odd to see heartfelt political punk Ted Leo and his rip-roaring band the Pharmacists hammering out their smart, galvanizing call-to-arms anthems in the couldn’t be more apolitical, oh-so-middle-of-the-road setting of Lolla. But it’s a testament to the strength of songs such as “Bomb. Repeat. Bomb.” and “Army Bound" and a credit to the fact that Leo never fails to give less than 110 percent on any stage he takes that his set lost none of the power it had two years ago at the Pitchfork Music Festival.

 

And speaking of the middle of the road
The high of Leo’s performance was soon dissipated by the next two acts in Hutchinson Field: Jack’s Mannequin and Slightly Stoopid, both of which were about as low as Lolla’s lowest points have ever gotten.

Jack’s Mannequin is a AAA radio-friendly combo from Orange County, Calif., that seemed to be vying to become the next Maroon 5, churning out generically jangly and instantly forgettable pop songs sure to be coming to a TV commercial near you soon. Worst of all, vocalist and keyboard player Andrew McMahon kept injecting inane stage patter about how thrilled he was to be performing at Lolla and what a wonderful audience Chicago was.

A sample: “What is a festival without some f---ing hand-clapping?” McMahon shouted. (Deafening silence resounded throughout the field.) “Yeah, looking good!”

Slightly Stoopid also hailed from California (Ocean Beach, to be precise), and they proudly describe their sound as “a fusion of acoustic rock and blues with reggae, hip-hop and punk.” Frankly, I heard none of the latter; this was a jam band, pure and simple, one of several Lolla has endeavored to book each year in order to bring that scene into the mix along with everything else.

Perry’s perspective
Last year, I described the new Chicago Lolla as the concert equivalent of Wal-Mart, and it is, in terms of offering lots of product for bargain prices — but even moreso for its bullying business tactics and the negative impact it’s having on the local music community.

Lolla requires exclusionary “radius clauses” in the contracts of every act that performs on its stages, prohibiting them from playing a club or any other venue in town for 60 days before and 30 days after the fest, thereby decimating much of the rest of the city’s concert scene in the clubs and smaller venues.

I briefly cornered Festival founder and figurhead Perry Farrell after a “press conference” that was really no such thing (it was a question-and-answer session moderated by a writer from Esquire, with no questions from anyone else), and I asked him about this policy.

“That’s a standard business practice that they’ve had in place for 30 years,” Farrell said. “Ever since I started playing music, they’ve always had that. [And] I think there’s, like, 10,000 bands in the world, right?”

I told Farrell that in fact, traveling tours such as Warped and Ozzfest do not have these clauses; neither did the original Lollapalooza. Other destination festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo do have them, but those are held, respectively, in the high desert of California and the woods of rural Tennessee, and not in the heart of the greatest music city in America.

“If we had our headliners coming and playing before [our festival], that would really affect our business wouldn’t it?” Farrell responded.

But Lolla promoters continually say there is no festival like this in the world, I noted. If Lolla really is the best, why is it afraid of competition from local Chicago clubs?

“I guess you’ve got me there, Jim,” Farrell said. “You got me.”

How the other half lives
As noted earlier, the VIP areas at Lolla seem to grow every year as C3 aggressively courts wealthier concertgoers and corporate groups willing to pay more than $1,000 per ticket to experience the concert with slightly more comfort than the have-lesses, who pay $80 a day or $195 for a three-day pass. This is, of course, supremely undemocratic and the antithesis of the egalitarian rock ’n’ roll attitude that prevailed at the original Lolla in the mid-’90s.

As John Lennon famously said at the Royal Variety Performance for the Queen in 1963, “Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? All the rest of you, just rattle your jewelry.”

So what do the VIPs get for the big bucks? Umbrellas shading plastic lawn chairs; a wine bar; a tented “Lolla Spa” offering “refreshing massages”; catered food (beef, turkey or Portobello mushroom wraps, salad and fancy cookies for lunch) — and pretty much no sight line to the newly positioned main stages. But hey, these folks are probably here to see and be seen rather than actually watching the performers.

What the rest of us are paying
Lolla’s policy of prohibiting attendees from bringing in outside food and drink would be much more egregious if the prices onsite weren’t fairly reasonable as concert fare goes. Sample prices: a 22-ounce beer in a “souvenir cup,” $7; a supersize, 26-ounce container of pinot grigio or merlot, $24; bottled water, $3; soda, $2; a slice of pizza, $4; veggie egg rolls, $5; jumbo hot dog, $3.

Gee, at these rates, I may still have some money left at the end of the day for my commemorative Lolla T-shirt ($20 or $25, depending on the design).

Day one, final entry
More patchouli-scented wankery
The jam-band vibe continued in Hutchinson Field as the afternoon wore on with moe., the Buffalo, New York, band whose most distinctive aspect is the lack of capitalization and the unnecessary period in its name. Though they are much-loved in the post-modern hippie community, these Baby Dead-challenged ears have never caught much to get excited about in the music of bassist-vocalist Rob Derhak, guitarist-vocalist Chuck Garvey and their three solo-happy band mates, and their seemingly unending set at Lolla was no exception.

 

A slight improvement
... Came courtesy of the next act in the southern end of the park, Blonde Redhead, the New York art-punk band that built to a climax with jamming of a very different sort: swirling, psychedelic, heavily-echoed and truly chilling space rock, delivered just as the sun was finally starting to set and the temperature was cooling around 6:30 p.m. It was another of the day's true musical highlights.

 

Perry's perspective, part two
During that non-press conference mentioned earlier, Lolla's leader railed against the increasingly corporate nature of the concert industry, stopping just short of calling out the giant national promoters Live Nation by name, but positioning Lolla as the true alternative in the live music field.

Of course, throughout Lolla's original incarnation in the'90s, Farrell was pretty much the poster boy for alternative ways of doing business, espousing and actually creating a version of the concert experience that made the music part and parcel of a true celebration of community.

Things are slightly different now. During our brief chat following the non-press conference, I also asked Farrell about the two-tiered, VIPs vs. regular concertgoers dichotomy at Lolla.

"Are you saying that you don't like rich people because they happen to be rich?" Farrell replied. "Well, that's screwed!"

I told Farrell I was just asking if the VIP sections aren't a bit un-democractic and anti-rock 'n' roll, a la Lennon's famous comment about clapping vs. rattling one's jewelry.

"What are you talking about?" Farrell said. "Democracy is based on capitalism, and if you don't have capitalism, you have communism. And capitalism is going to help the world beat these a--holes, because you have the right to take the money out of your pocket and say, 'I don't agree with you, I don't like foreign oil and I'm not going to use it. I'm going to take my money my capitalistic dollar, and put it down here.'

"All the people that come here are putting their money down here and saying, 'I like it here,' so I don't know what you're on about, Jim."

I thought these were fair questions from the perspective of the paying customers, and I just wanted Perry to have his say. I thanked him for doing so. But he wasn't through yet.

Perry's perspective, part three
The alternative icon and his current band, Satellite Party, took the stage in Hutchinson Field about an hour later. Though the group was stronger than it was last year, before mismatched hair-metal axe-slinger Nuno Bettencourt left the band, it was odd that Farrell chose to play less new material and more tried and true oldies, heavily padding the set with hits by Jane's Addiction ("Stop," "The Mountain Song," "Been Caught Stealing") and Porno for Pyros ("We'll Make Great Pets").

But the most curious part of the performance was that the singer had one more comment to add to our earlier interview.

"You guys want me to come back next year, don't you?" Farrell asked the crowd of about 20,000 in between songs. "The Sun-Times doesn't want me back! They don't think we have good manners."

Now, Perry: I never said that. I didn't misquote you; why were you misquoting me?

The best for last
Day one of Lolla finally came to a spectacular conclusion (at least in the southern end of Grant Park) with high-energy, thoroughly riveting sets by two of the best dance-punk bands ever.

LCD Soundsystem, the group led by New York super-producer and DFA Records co-founder James Murphy, were a raucous, riotous party band, merging free-flowing punk aggression and irresistible, polyrhythmic dance grooves from its first two albums, a stellar self-titled debut from 2005 and this year's equally strong "Sound of Silver." And yes, the group nicely set the stage for the final act of the day by playing its gleefully anthemic "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House."

Revered in the electronic-music underground and throughout the international dance-music scene, Daft Punk is a French group led by Guy-Manuel de omem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter that draws equally on elements of acid house music (as perfected in Chicago) and vintage punk rock (stated heroes include the MC5 and the Stooges, as well as the Beach Boys), delivering wonderfully over-the-top live performances. Unfortunately, they've played in the United States only very rarely, and booking them as Friday's headliner was the biggest coup of Lolla 2007.

As hoped, the show was powerfully motivating and exquisitely entrancing, making anyone who caught it sure to question whether Lolla could be able to top it on Saturday or Sunday.

Day two, entry one
The second day of Lollapalooza 2008 started slowly, both in terms of musical highlights in Hutchinson Field — given the distance between the main stages, I've ceded the northern platforms to my colleague Anders Smith Lindall, and I'm eager to see if he heard anything better — and with concertgoers only very slowly filtering back to Grant Park. (Promoters have said they will not have a number available for festival attendance each day until late Sunday.)

 

What did the other 999 sound like?
My morning kicked off at 11:30 with the winner of the "Last Band Standing" contest, Lolla's battle of the bands, which reportedly vied to find the best group out of 1,000 that submitted its music for the chance of winning "their dream gig."

Shock Stars is a Chicago sextet with a generic-circa-2006 sound — a mix of shopping mall punk and electronic dance flavorings — that is nearly as slick and polished as the aggressive marketing machine highlighted on its MySpace page. The best I can say of the group's underwhelming half-hour shot at stardom is: The other bands that fell over so this could be the last one standing must have been truly lame in comparison.

As in forest?
Only marginally better was Sherwood, a quartet from northern California that played more pleasantly jangling indie-rock, with a surfeit of memorable songs to distinguish it from the pack. 

Things finally started to pick up at 12:45 with Tokyo Police Club, the ultra-melodic garage-rock band from Newmarket, Ontario. To date, the group only has two short EPs to its credit, but both create the delightful buzz of a great sugar rush, thanks in large part to Graham Wright's pumping organ parts, which were as strong onstage as they are on record.

"It's really great to see so many of you here," bassist-vocalist Dave Monks said, surveying the still sparse crowd. But those who did return early were rewarded with a fine set.

 

Rock 'n' rock
The intensity continued to build in Hutchinson Field with a performance by the Minneapolis indie buzz band Tapes 'n' Tapes, whose pulsating, angular New Wave of New Wave dance-punk grooves were a highlight at the Pitchfork Music Festival last summer and were even more propulsive this year at Lolla as the group continues to grow more confident onstage.

 

Wake me when it's over
Wanting to assure that I could stake out a good position near the smaller stage at Jackson and Columbus in the north of the park, I arrived in time to hear the dreadful singer-songwriter Pete Yawn — er, Yorn — close his set at the Petrillo Band Shell with a cover of "Young Folks."

Ironically, the authors of that massive, irresistible hit, Sweden's Peter Bjorn & John, have been confined by a booking blunder to one of the smallest stages on Sunday, giving Yorn the unearned opportunity to rob them of their moment of glory by playing their hit for the masses.

Following in Yawn's spirit on the Jackson Street stage was the Montreal-based Sam Roberts Band. I've been searching all weekend for a name for the gently lilting, vaguely rootsy genre that they represent, and "Sound Opinions" producer Jason Saldanha finally provided one: "One Tree Hill" acoustic rock.

Looking over the list of what I've seen so far in the fest, Anders' accounts of what I've missed and what's still to come at Lolla's half-way point, I have to say that more than a third of the acts booked this year can easily be lumped into one of three thoroughly generic and instantly forgettable sounds: this sort of "One Tree Hill" acoustic rock; pointless jam-band wankery or pleasantly jangley indie-rock. Enough already!

Ah, well, next up on the intimate Jackson Street stage were two of the Lolla acts I was most eager to see, and there was nothing generic about either of them.

South Side's in the house
Although the start of his set was delayed 20 minutes by sound problems, and the rain that had been threatening all day finally started gently falling just as he began to perform, South Side rapper Rhymefest took the stage with his usual high-energy assault.

The rapper, whose mom calls him Che Smith, proceeded to spin his gruff-voiced rhymes about working-class life, including a new and still-unnamed track recently recorded with Just Blaze and another with Kanye West, over the accomplished but under-amplified and poorly mixed backing of a big band that included a hype man, a DJ, two keyboardists, bass, drums and a four-piece horn section.

Though his gig didn't quite match the intensity of last year's turn at the Intonation Festival, it still had a large and enthusiastic crowd shouting and clapping along as Rhymefest pulled out all the stops, rocking up some of his material for the occasion, free-styling with no musical backing at one point and taking a quick jog through the crowd at another.

We missed him, now he's back
Next up: psychedelic-rock pioneer and punk-rock icon Roky Erickson, the Austin legend who has recently recovered from years of battling schizophrenia to pull his life together and return to live performance. (He also made a memorable appearance at Intonation 2006, his first ever visit to Chicago.)

Erickson once again fronted a tight, hard-rocking three-piece band of fellow Texans who allowed him ample room to shine on driving rhythm guitar and powerful vocals that mixed equal parts Buddy Holly sweetness and Little Richard fury as he tore through timeless classics such as "Don't Shake Me Lucifer," "The Creature With the Atom Brain," "Starry Eyes" and, of course, his signature hit, "You're Gonna Miss Me," which was still as ferocious as it must have been in 1966, and lacked only the 13th Floor Elevators' amplified jug.

"And now I'm home to stay," Erickson sang as he poured his soul into a moving rendition of the Elevators' "Splash 1," and the fact that he looked and sounded as if that was a truth after so many years of troubles was reflected in the loving and joyful response of his fans.

Day two, final entry
Meet the new wave, same as the old wave
My second day at Lollapalooza ended back at Hutchinson Field in the southern end of Grant Park, with two strong bands offering two more different takes on that angular, jagged New Wave of New Wave sound, as well as the day's nominal superstars.

Taking the stage in an eye-catching outfit of black fishnet stockings and what appeared to be a latex dominatrix outfit, Karen O led her New York art-punk band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs through a spirited performance that channeled the electrifying attitude and energy of punk godmother Patti Smith (who was about to perform an hour later in the north of the park, following her second annual surprise appearance at Kidzapalooza earlier in the day) through alternative-rock heroine PJ Harvey and into the present with her own uniquely captivating sound and stage presence.

As always, Nick Zinner's effects-drenched shoegazer guitar was the perfect musical foil and compliment for O's ululating vocals and flamboyant stage moves, and the band proved to be playing together as a much tighter unit in the wake of its second album, "Show Your Bones," released last year.

The New Yorkers were followed by another band from Austin, the wonderfully clever and melodic art punks Spoon, who mixed songs from throughout their lengthy catalog with material from the excellent recent release, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga," which suffered only from the absence of the horn section that pushes parts of that new album deliciously over the top.

Nevertheless, guitarist-vocalist Britt Daniel's haiku-like choruses were as effective as ever as they pulsed through the now sporadic rain driven by Jim Eno's machine-like drums and the group's throbbing keyboards, a sound that brings vintage '70s Wire and Talking Heads in exciting new directions.

Black holes but no revelations
Finally, day two ended in Hutchinson Field with the weekend's most mediocre headliner (though Interpol in the north was barely more worthy), the English quartet Muse.

The inferior English answer to America's similarly theatrical, atmospheric but much more clever My Chemical Romance, core band members Matthew Bellamy, the group's philosophically minded guitarist-vocalist, bassist Chris Wolstenholme and drummer Dominic Howard attempt an unlikely merger of radio-friendly alternative, vintage symphonic/pomp-rock (heavy on the imitation Queen), funk, electronica and hair metal. Live at Lolla as on the group's most recent album, last year's "Black Holes and Revelations," the whole mess just falls flat, toppling under the weight of its own bombast and pretensions.

The band kicked things off with a bit of taped oratory by John F. Kennedy, and that was the most coherent and eloquent part of its show. Keyboards tinkled, Bellamy trilled, a synthesized orchestra swelled, drums boomed and guitars laid useless, flashy filigrees atop it all, making my head hurt, my ears ring and my second day at Lolla end with a pompous whimper rather than the bang I really could have used.

Of course, there's always tomorrow.

Day three, entry one
The third and final day of Lollapalooza's reinvention as a destination festival in Grant Park began on Sunday with the oppressive heat and humidity back and worse then ever; Grant Park thoroughly drenched by late-night and early-morning thunderstorms, and threats of more to come later in the day.

Good thing I brought my plastic poncho. Now, as our ace photographer Marty Perez said, if only someone would invent a portable personal air conditioner.

 

More generic jangle
Once again, my music experience began in the southern end of the park as the New York sextet White Rabbits took one of the two big stages in Hutchinson Field to spew more of this festivals omnipresent generic indie-rock jangle. After three days of this, I'm beginning to think there's really just one band that keeps changing names and outfits to deliver the same mildly pleasant but instantly forgettable jingle-jangle song.

The next Hutchinson act, Indiana native Dax Riggs, a former member of last year's Lolla performers deadboy & the Elephantmen, rose above another of Lolla's ubiquitous genres, "One Tree Hill" acoustic rock, while stretching one song out into a grungy guitar work-out worthy of Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Unfortunately, the rest of its set was instantly forgettable.

 

It's all about you know
An interesting footnote: Riggs is one of several acts managed by Lolla's Austin-based promoters, C3 Presents, which explains why he was booked this year and why his old band played last year. Their management roster also includes Sparklehorse, which played on Friday; last year's acts Blues Traveler and Ben Kweller, among others — and the next band in Hutchinson Field on Sunday, the Heartless Bastards, a Cincinnati power trio that was none too potent as it put its own stamp on generic indie-rock jangle (should I just start calling it GIRJ?) via a slight hint of the blues and

the vaguely Chrissie Hynde-style vocals of front woman Erika Wennerstrom.

 

Kick, push, dig it
Both the music and the weather brightened considerably by the time Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco took the main stage in Hutchinson Field in mid-afternoon to fulfill the promise he showed last year when his cameo appearance was a highlight of Kanye West's headlining gig.

A huge crowd, one of the biggest of the fest, filled the once-again sun-drenched softball field to hear the unapologetically geeky, politically and socially conscious middle-class everyman rhyme. He played his hit "Kick Push," of course, but he also took some chances by unveiling some unfamiliar but strong new material, just like Rhymefest did on Saturday, and the fans were with him every step of the way.

"Can you dig it?" Lupe continually asked between tuneful mid-tempo jams, and thousands roared back, "Yes I can!" A rumored appearance by Kanye never happened, but Lupe did bring out another Chicago hip-hop hero, Twista, whose always startling display of rapid-fire verbal gymnastics wowed the crowd and offset the indignity of his recently being kicked off a corporate promotional tour sponsored by a fast-food franchise because his material was potentially offensive to

children — a real injustice, since his rhymes are barely in the same realm as many chart-topping gangsta rappers championing sex, drugs and violence. Lupe did risk offending some listeners, but his edgy introduction of the song "American Terrorist" actually seemed to energize the crowd and stood out as a rare political statement at Lolla. "Do you all know George Bush?" Lupe asked. [Long pause.] "You may know him as the President of the United States of America. [Another pause.] Well, I know him as the President of the United States of American terrorism." And once again the crowd cheered. 

 

Day two, final entry
Meet the new wave, same as the old wave
My second day at Lollapalooza ended back at Hutchinson Field in the southern end of Grant Park, with two strong bands offering two more different takes on that angular, jagged New Wave of New Wave sound, as well as the day's nominal superstars.

Taking the stage in an eye-catching outfit of black fishnet stockings and what appeared to be a latex dominatrix outfit, Karen O led her New York art-punk band the Yeah Yeah Yeahs through a spirited performance that channeled the electrifying attitude and energy of punk godmother Patti Smith (who was about to perform an hour later in the north of the park, following her second annual surprise appearance at Kidzapalooza earlier in the day) through alternative-rock heroine PJ Harvey and into the present with her own uniquely captivating sound and stage presence.

As always, Nick Zinner's effects-drenched shoegazer guitar was the perfect musical foil and compliment for O's ululating vocals and flamboyant stage moves, and the band proved to be playing together as a much tighter unit in the wake of its second album, "Show Your Bones," released last year.

The New Yorkers were followed by another band from Austin, the wonderfully clever and melodic art punks Spoon, who mixed songs from throughout their lengthy catalog with material from the excellent recent release, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga," which suffered only from the absence of the horn section that pushes parts of that new album deliciously over the top.

Nevertheless, guitarist-vocalist Britt Daniel's haiku-like choruses were as effective as ever as they pulsed through the now sporadic rain driven by Jim Eno's machine-like drums and the group's throbbing keyboards, a sound that brings vintage '70s Wire and Talking Heads in exciting new directions.

Black holes but no revelations
Finally, day two ended in Hutchinson Field with the weekend's most mediocre headliner (though Interpol in the north was barely more worthy), the English quartet Muse.

The inferior English answer to America's similarly theatrical, atmospheric but much more clever My Chemical Romance, core band members Matthew Bellamy, the group's philosophically minded guitarist-vocalist, bassist Chris Wolstenholme and drummer Dominic Howard attempt an unlikely merger of radio-friendly alternative, vintage symphonic/pomp-rock (heavy on the imitation Queen), funk, electronica and hair metal. Live at Lolla as on the group's most recent album, last year's "Black Holes and Revelations," the whole mess just falls flat, toppling under the weight of its own bombast and pretensions.

The band kicked things off with a bit of taped oratory by John F. Kennedy, and that was the most coherent and eloquent part of its show. Keyboards tinkled, Bellamy trilled, a synthesized orchestra swelled, drums boomed and guitars laid useless, flashy filigrees atop it all, making my head hurt, my ears ring and my second day at Lolla end with a pompous whimper rather than the bang I really could have used.

Of course, there's always tomorrow.

Day three, entry one
The third and final day of Lollapalooza's reinvention as a destination festival in Grant Park began on Sunday with the oppressive heat and humidity back and worse then ever; Grant Park thoroughly drenched by late-night and early-morning thunderstorms, and threats of more to come later in the day.

Good thing I brought my plastic poncho. Now, as our ace photographer Marty Perez said, if only someone would invent a portable personal air conditioner.

More generic jangle
Once again, my music experience began in the southern end of the park as the New York sextet White Rabbits took one of the two big stages in Hutchinson Field to spew more of this festivals omnipresent generic indie-rock jangle. After three days of this, I'm beginning to think there's really just one band that keeps changing names and outfits to deliver the same mildly pleasant but instantly forgettable jingle-jangle song.

The next Hutchinson act, Indiana native Dax Riggs, a former member of last year's Lolla performers deadboy & the Elephantmen, rose above another of Lolla's ubiquitous genres, "One Tree Hill" acoustic rock, while stretching one song out into a grungy guitar work-out worthy of Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Unfortunately, the rest of its set was instantly forgettable.

It's all about you know
An interesting footnote: Riggs is one of several acts managed by Lolla's Austin-based promoters, C3 Presents, which explains why he was booked this year and why his old band played last year. Their management roster also includes Sparklehorse, which played on Friday; last year's acts Blues Traveler and Ben Kweller, among others — and the next band in Hutchinson Field on Sunday, the Heartless Bastards, a Cincinnati power trio that was none too potent as it put its own stamp on generic indie-rock jangle (should I just start calling it GIRJ?) via a slight hint of the blues and

the vaguely Chrissie Hynde-style vocals of front woman Erika Wennerstrom.

Kick, push, dig it
Both the music and the weather brightened considerably by the time Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco took the main stage in Hutchinson Field in mid-afternoon to fulfill the promise he showed last year when his cameo appearance was a highlight of Kanye West's headlining gig.

A huge crowd, one of the biggest of the fest, filled the once-again sun-drenched softball field to hear the unapologetically geeky, politically and socially conscious middle-class everyman rhyme. He played his hit "Kick Push," of course, but he also took some chances by unveiling some unfamiliar but strong new material, just like Rhymefest did on Saturday, and the fans were with him every step of the way.

"Can you dig it?" Lupe continually asked between tuneful mid-tempo jams, and thousands roared back, "Yes I can!" A rumored appearance by Kanye never happened, but Lupe did bring out another Chicago hip-hop hero, Twista, whose always startling display of rapid-fire verbal gymnastics wowed the crowd and offset the indignity of his recently being kicked off a corporate promotional tour sponsored by a fast-food franchise because his material was potentially offensive to

children — a real injustice, since his rhymes are barely in the same realm as many chart-topping gangsta rappers championing sex, drugs and violence. Lupe did risk offending some listeners, but his edgy introduction of the song "American Terrorist" actually seemed to energize the crowd and stood out as a rare political statement at Lolla. "Do you all know George Bush?" Lupe asked. [Long pause.] "You may know him as the President of the United States of America. [Another pause.] Well, I know him as the President of the United States of American terrorism." And once again the crowd cheered. 

Day three, entry two
Crashing back to Earth

Alas, my Lupe high was soon bummed while enduring parts of the sets by Blue October — yet more GIRJ with a slight gothic tinge — and, as I made my way to the northern end of the park, more jam-band b.s. from Toronto's Apostle of Hustle at the Jackson and Columbus stage, followed by more "One Tree Hill" acoustic-rock crap from Scottish-Italian crooner Paolo Nutini on the Petrillo Band Shell.

All three dismissible genres here in one half-hour stretch! But that wasn't why I went hiking through the oppressive heat: I made the trek for what I hoped would be an explosion of violent, cathartic energy from some reunited proto-punk gods, and I wasn't disappointed.

Raw power
No, Iggy and the Stooges didn't play that one — guitarist Ron Asheton refuses to perform anything from the legendary band's third album, for which he was relegated to bass once James Williamson came onboard — but Iggy Pop hit the stage like a tornado, and the intensity only built from there.

"Hello, motherf---ers!" Iggy shouted after opening with "Loose," which was followed by "1969," "I Wanna Be Your Dog" and "TV Eye," making for four of the most incendiary rock songs ever written in row. "We are very happy to be here at f---ing Lolla-pop-apalooza!"

While families straggling over from Kidzapalooza may have cringed at all of the cussing, I for one was glad to have the Stooges in all of their vulgar, deliciously dirty, incredibly ugly, blood pressure-raising power, and even the songs from their lame comeback album, "The Weirdness," sounded good live, especially "My Idea of Fun (Is Killing Everyone)," which Iggy sang from the midst of the stunned, somewhat frightened but nonetheless energized crowd. All oldies/nostalgia acts should be this good — and for that matter, so should many of the current up-and-comers a quarter the Stooges' age who polluted the park throughout the weekend.

The climax of the band's set: "No Fun," during which Iggy invited the crowd onstage, and hundreds of fans jumped the security fences and climbed up to dance beside him in a wild frenzy, thoroughly freaking out security and the promoters, just like great rock 'n' roll should. No fun? No way; quite the opposite! Though I couldn't help but wonder what the Stooges' No. 1 fan and original champion of punk rock, rock critic Lester Bangs, would have thought about seeing his heroes here, at this time and in this most corporate-rock of settings. It would probably have killed him, if he wasn't dead already.

Day three, entry three

The final day of Lollapalooza Mach III began to wind down for me back in the southern end of Grant Park, where I knew it would be difficult if not impossible to top the high point of Iggy and the Stooges — or, for that matter, LCD Soundsystem and Daft Punk on Friday or Roky Erickson and Rhymefest on Saturday.

I got back to Hutchinson Field just in time to hear the last half of the mostly Brooklyn-based band !!! presenting the weekend's least distinctive take on that New Wave of New Wave groove. (Yeah, I know I've been repeating myself with these shorthand genre descriptions — but not nearly as much as Lollapalooza has.) Basically, !!! was more like ??? or.

Oh to live on Sugar Mountain (again)
Next up were the Louisville, Ky., alt-country cult favorites My Morning Jacket, who churned out their ersatz Neil Young grooves and in the process impressed only those who had never heard that giant himself. Then the group promised to offer something a bit more than its ordinary musical Xerox act by joining forces midway through its set with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra.

Unfortunately, the young classical musicians were very poorly amplified, and band leader Jim James hadn't really thought out beforehand how to utilize them to best effect — a problem he shared with the Decemberists when they joined forces with the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra at Millennium Park a few weeks ago. But the band almost redeemed itself with its final song when it covered Kanye West's "Touch the Sky," an appropriate and fitting tribute to Chicago, and the sort of simple but moving effort to acknowledge the festival's home that too few bands made this weekend.

For much of this fest, if you didn't happen to be facing the skyline or Lake Michigan and were simply standing in a crowded, dusty softball field, you'd have seen or heard nothing that indicated that all of this music was happening in Chicago. You might as well have been plopped down in a corn field in Iowa or a dust bowl outside Oklahoma City.

TV on the radio in the park
Though these Brooklyn experimental rockers are certainly a buzz-worthy act, they were hardly deserving of the penultimate slot of the fest before the big headliner. One suspects that their prominent booking was a response to the fact that this was the one Lolla act that last month's much more adventurous and musically rewarding Pitchfork Music Festival was sorry to lose to this bigger and much better funded shindig.

TV on the Radio's polyrhythmic rock only really got the massive crowd in Hutchinson Field (which was rapidly filling up for Pearl Jam) moving and cheering when it played its best known — and just plain best, period — song, "Wolf Like Me." In fact, the rest of the quintet's set was so underwhelming that it was drowned out several times whenever a Pearl Jam guitar or drum tech simply walked onstage to check the Seattle grunge band and festival headliner's equipment.

Still no numbers
Despite numerous requests for attendance figures throughout the weekend, as in the last two years, Lolla publicists did not make these available to the press as of Sunday night. Early on, they said they expected "as many as 60,000" per day. But to these experienced concert-going eyes — as well as the estimates of police officials, stage production veterans and security workers — the total probably only reached that peak on Sunday.

 

And, finally, Eddie comes home
Although I get grief from fans complaining that I'm holding them up to an impossibly high standard (even though it's a standard they set) whenever I mention this, my benchmarks for a great Pearl Jam show are the two I caught at the Blossom Arts Center outside Cleveland and what was then the World Music Theatre in Tinley Park when the group performed as part of Lollapalooza 1992, and Evanston native Eddie Vedder literally climbed the rafters of those outdoor venues during the shows as a very physical expression of how exciting the band's music was back then.

It's a different Pearl Jam 15 years later, better in some ways — the band is certainly more subtle and varied in the differing textures it brings to its songs — but not nearly as good in others. There was a time when Vedder was as exciting to watch and listen to as Iggy Pop, at age 20 or at age 60. I won't apologize for saying I miss that.

To its credit, though, Pearl Jam delivered one of the most intense and hard-rocking shows I've seen it deliver since Soldier Field in 1995, when everything seemed to be on the line for the band as it played one of the few American gigs it was able to during the midst of its battle with Ticketmaster. This was especially true during a hard-charging opening that included "Go" and "Do the Evolution," and it was possible to accept, as Eddie sang in "Corduroy," that "Everything has chains ... absolutely nothing's changed."

"It needs to be said that as a young man who used to spend many a day riding on the 'L' train, listening on his Walkman to bands like Patti Smith and Iggy Pop, it means a lot to be playing here," Vedder said, eloquently voicing a passion missing in far too many acts this weekend.

Other magical and inspiring moments during Pearl Jam's set:

* The fireworks show in Soldier Field that erupted in the midst of "Evenflow."

* Vedder urging concertgoers to boycott BP/Amaco until it abandons its plans to further pollute Lake Michigan: "Think of it like a girlfriend or boyfriend who never brushes their teeth: You wouldn't kiss them. So don't show BP/Amaco any love until it cleans up its act!" (Tens of thousands responded by chanting "No BP!" as Vedder proceeded to improvise a short song with that lyric on the spot.)

* A gorgeous, acoustic-guitar-driven version of "Daughter" that merged after a while into Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall, Part II," with Vedder segueing from the massive, crowd-aided sing-along chant of "We don't need no education / We don't need no thought control" into "George Bush, leave this world alone!"

* The blast from the past that was "Alive," which Vedder introduced by saying how much its appearance on Lollapalooza 1992 meant to the band.

* And the group's moving cover of Victoria Williams' "Crazy Mary." Pretty great stuff, all of it.

A FINAL THOUGHT. FOR NOW

Although this was the third Grant Park Lolla, it was the first year as part of a five-year, $5 million contract between Austin, Texas-based promoters C3 Presents and the Chicago Park District. This means the fest will be back every summer for the next four years — and it needs to do better to provide the festival experience Chicago deserves.

In addition to strengthening the bookings by cutting down on quantity and concentrating on quality — a move that would also eliminate the distracting and pervasive sound bleed — C3 should heed the complaints of many concertgoers and cut down on the obnoxious corporate hype and snooty VIP areas, which claim the best parts of the park at the expense of the average paying customers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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