Despite a great line-up of bands, Sunday was the most challenging day of the Lollapalooza festival. Mother Nature teased with some early morning rain before bringing on one of the hottest afternoons of the fest. By early evening, the rain returned with a vengeance turning the last bit of the festival into a mudfest. With our expensive camera guitar, we were less than thrilled about the rain, but it didn’t stop the thousands of other festival goers from having a blast.
We avoided the early morning rain by taking an extended breakfast at the Hard Rock Hotel and entered the festival as Noah and the Whale were wrapping their set. We found them a little dull at SXSW, but they seemed a lot livelier during their Lolla performance. The big crowd singalongs during “L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N” and “Five Years Time” made the set a lot more fun, too.
We then went to check out Canada’s City and Colour. With a new album on the way, Dallas Green and company treated us to a few new tracks, but also plenty of classics such as “Sleeping Sickness.” During one moment of the set, Dallas even asked everyone to put down the cameras, hide your phones and just enjoy the music. The vibes were just all around pleasant as the audience obliged and joined with an amazing singalong.
Next on the agenda was a classic: The Cars. These guys still can rock and I think even some of the younger folk that missed out on the Cars in their prime were surprised by how much energy these guys had. We were surprised to find ourselves saying more than once, “I didn’t realize this was a Cars song! I love it!” Looks like we need to revisit this music catalog.
From classic to completely brand new, we then went over to check out Boy & Bear. Hopefully some of the City and Colour fans made their way to this set as well because it also was full of some beautiful harmonies, acoustic guitars and sweet musicians. This charming folk music left us with a smile on our face and this is an act to keep on your radar.
We had to really switch gears for the next act. Cage the Elephant faced the threat of storm clouds opening up over their set, but they seemed to face the weather with a “bring it on, bitches” sort of attitude. The band ripped open with some of the most intense energy of any set and it wasn’t long before the singer was crowdsurfing. When it did start raining, it only seemed to intensify everyone’s desire to rock out. This set was a big improvement from Cage the Elephant’s Lolla performance a few years ago and finally helped us see what the fuss about Cage the Elephant is all about.
Because of the rain, we dashed into cover under the press tent. Arctic Monkeys delayed the start of their set, finally going on 30 minutes after their start time when the rain let up a little. It was still raining enough that we just listened to them from the safety of the press area as they quickly started delivering some of their older radio classics with a few new songs sprinkled in.
The rain stopped and we began our muddy trek to Explosions in the Sky. It was fascinating to watch the division in the crowd as half tried to carefully trod the least muddy path and the other half just embraced it and began mudsliding down hills. As for us, we weren’t thrilled to be muddy on the last day with our heavy gear and the prospect of riding the CTA back covered in dirt, so we were feeling a bit ruffled as we prepared for the next few performances. Fortunately, two things quickly made life better. #1: Lobster Corndogs. OMG. If you are ever in Chicago, you must try a lobster corndog at Grahamwich. As great as the music was, so was the festival food and these things were heaven. The best spent $8 ever. The #2 thing that made life better: Explosions in the Sky. These instrumental rockers politely apologized for beginning late (Arctic Monkeys cut into their set a bit) and began with a beautifully orchestrated dynamic piece that was the most cathartic moment of the festival. The anger at the rain quickly dispersed as their cleverly built songs continued to carry us over a range of emotions.
We were in much better spirits as we made our way through the mud toward the Music Unlimited Stage where the Foo Fighters would soon be taking the stage. The mud must have been going to people’s heads because we saw some stranger and stranger things on this walk: people making mud angels, mud fights and the worst: people using the mud as their personal bathrooms…ew. Fortunately, we had Foo Fighters to distract us from some of the less pleasant members of the audience.
The energy was electric as anticipation grew for Dave Grohl and company to take the stage. When the band finally came out, they looked almost as giddy as the audience–it is always heart-warming to see musicians that really love what they do and don’t look like they’re just here for a check. From the first guitar strum, the band dived right into non-stop hits from their record – we can’t believe how prolific they are! Crowdsurfers were going wild, the audience singing along was almost as loud as Grohl’s amplified voice. Grohl knows how to play to a crowd and quickly ran across the stage to the left, dropped a true rock star pose and played some killer riffs before running back to the right. Forget Willow Smith, Grohl knows how to whip his hair back and forth. He was as dynamic to watch as he was to listen…the whole band was that way. These guys were everything that headliners should be. The rain decided to challenge the band during their third song, but this is the Foo Fighters; rain can’t stop them. Grohl shouted some encouragement at the audience before the fourth song and cheers reverberated through Grant Park bigger than any thunder clap.
This was an epic way to close out Lollapalooza and I would have been content ending there, but there were two other performances going on: Kid Cudi and Deadmau5. We’ve seen Deadmau5 and had no doubt that people were dancing and swimming through the mud to his electronica beats, but Kid Cudi was in a tent and we’ve never seen the up-and-comer, so we made our way to Perry’s (the appeal of it being covered also factored into our decision.) This was the first time we braved the tent at this year’s festival. It had been expanded to being the size of football field and it looked like people were having a blast every time we had walked past, but it also looked a lot more intense than any other stage. I don’t know where some of these fans were getting their energy from to keep up with Perry’s non-stop dance party. In the end, we’re glad we made our way into Perry’s, not only to check out the new digs, but because Kid Cudi generally surprised us with how enjoyable his set was. Kid Cudi brought great rhythms, witty lyrics and a spectacular light show. We can see why he was selected to round out the last night of Perry’s 3-day party. He sent us off into the night, amped up for the return of Lollapalooza in 2012.
Check back to PopWreckoning.com for more Lollapalooza recaps, interviews and photo. See coverage from Friday here and Saturday here.
