Lolla 2009 Recap: Day 1

As those who know me, or even have had the pleasure of living with me, can attest, I love music. You get me at a party, and before long I find out where the music is at and I start blazing some beats on that i-pod. So, you get me in a park with 130 bands playing over the course of three days, and it's like Christmas, St. Patrick's, and NFL draft day all rolled up into one. Well, as it turns out, this uber-holiday was this past weekend, and it was called Lollapalooza 2009. 130 bands, eight stages, three days, and I'd say ohhhhhh about 8 thousand pallets full of beer.

Sound pretty good right?? Well it was good....pretty hella-damn good in fact. So, at this time, I'd like to give some of you who didn't get a chance to attend this year a little rundown of some of the great music on display. I plan on going through each of the three days, one by one, and break down all the sets I was able to see. My only caveat is that I'm not a music expert. If you want to know all the technical ins and outs of what makes one band better than the other, I'm not the guy to ask. But I know what I like, and I know a good sound when I hear one. So without further ado, I give you day one of Lollapalooza 2009.



2:18 p.m. - My friend matty ice and I arrive at grant park amid gray skies and a steady drizzle of rain. Despite these gloomy conditions, the crowds are pouring in. As we enter the park we are immediately greeted by the imposing "Budweiser stage" located on the north end of the park. No band was playing at the time, but on each side of the screen were two jumbotrons, playing clips of sets from lollapaloozas past. "What a novel idea," I thought, "why there's Jane's Addiction back in 1991, and there's a clip of Girl Talk in 2008...the set was sickkkk yo!" (mind you i thought that, i don't really talk like that...seriously) We then made our way to the nearest info tent to get the day's schedule and plan out our concert viewing.

3 pm- Matt and I meet up with our other friends Nathan and Chris. We decide to head over to "Perry's" which is a stage dedicated solely to dj sets. As soon as we entered Perry's we knew that we were in store for a good weekend, as the crowd assembled was jumping up and down, with many clutching bud tall boys in one hand. It basically looked like the dance floor at Finny's, only transplanted to the great outdoors. The group playing at the time went by the name of dark wave disco, and their music did not disappoint. They kept the dancefloor moving with remixes of mgmt's "kids" and cut copy's "hearts on fire", and before long the four of us started bouncing along with the crowd. At one point a young and clearly intoxicated lass turned around and started dancing all up on yours truly. Luckily, I was wearing a backpack out in front over my chest (so I can keep an eye on my stuff, you dig???), which created a nice buffer zone between myself and the young lady. Doing my patented double fist pump dance, and with the girl jumping up against my backpack, we looked like a girl humping a pregnant walrus.


4:09 p.m.- the rain has started falling harder, and as the breeze blows in over the lake the crowd starts to shiver. luckily, we've assemble back at the bud stage, and crafty rock veteran ben folds has stepped on stage to warm the crowd up. Now I'll be honest, I've been over the whole ben folds phenomenon for a couple years now. Nonetheless, I'll have to admit he put on a pretty good show. Playing crowd pleasers such as "rockin the suburbs" and "b*tches ain't shit", mr. folds kept the fans satisfied and singing along throughout.

5:38 p.m.- matty ice and i have now made our way to the south side of the park to catch a little of electro-pop band crystal castles in action. the stage conveniently sat on a softball field, which on this rainy day had turned into a mud pile. Since neither of us really felt like dancing in a cesspool (people, i've grown standards since leaving the poo-water soaked dancefloors of south bend), we quickly left after a few songs.


6:29 p.m. back at the north field, where matty ice and i were meeting up with coadman and carol. meanwhile on the bud stage, the decembrists were playing their set, and matty ice made the observation that they sounded good....maybe too good. Carol then points out that she heard that they perform with special microphones that play their album through the mike and sort of corrects their voices and instruments as they play...sort of like an auto-tuner. Sorry decembrists, that's a deal breaker, if you want to be on a boat with t-pain that's fine, but if you come to an outdoor festival like lolla, you better bring the real thing. major fail.


7:34 p.m. - we've managed to nudge our way up to the sound-tent in front of the bud stage where cas and his bro matty cas are, and await friday's main event kings of leon are set to go on at 8:15. I notice that the jumbotrons are still playing clips of lolla past, and this time I take notice of some other clips. "Oh snap!" I thought, "Butthole Surfers played in 1991? What I wouldn't do to be at that show! Wow, and there's....slash playing guitar at the kids stage in 2008? ummm, yeah that's kind of creepy, but pretty cool!"

8:15 p.m.- kings of leon steps on stage. I had already seen them once before at a smaller venue, but in front of tens of thousands at grant park these guys were truly in their element. after opening with "be somebody", they rolled through a string of old favorites like "taper jean girl" and "charmer." throughout the show the lead guitarist showed off his skill with some tasty licks on the guitar, and lead singer caleb kept the audience in the palm of his hand with powerful and southern-fried voice (no auto-tuner there!) all in all, a very fun set, and these guys showed that they can be a headlining force to be reckoned with for years to come.

9:45 p.m.- i cut out of KOL a little early to catch the end of kanye west protege kid cudi's set back at the perry's stage. i enjoy hip-hop as much as anyone, and based on what i heard, he was ok. a few catchy numbers, but he's still very raw at this point. at one point he cut the music out entirely, and went into a free-style verse. as long as he has mr. west backing him though, he should be just fine.

at this point, i remembered that i had video capabilities on my camera, and took this little video, seen below:






Kid cudi finished up day one of the show for me. Afterward it was off to hit the town. What would day 2 have in store? Would the sun ever come out? Would I even make it after a long night out? Stay tuned.


-PG