Lollapalooza: A Review Is In

On Friday we previewed Lollapalooza, today we'll recap it. My friend Mike lives in Chicago, site of this year's festival, and was committed enough to the event that he took Friday off to go and Monday off to recover. I emailed Mike and asked him how it was, and his response was detailed enough that we'll just post it here, essentially unedited, to replicate for you the glorious experience of getting an email from Mike. (You can also check out his pictures from the festival, and video clips he shot of Pearl Jam singing "Elderly Woman" and "Keep on Rockin' in the Free World.") Mike really likes Pearl Jam, but he's less a fan of capitalization...

 

overall it was a really awesome experience. really the only problems we had were yesterday at pearl jam. we got there after lupe fiasco (315) to stake out a spot for pj (8pm). we didnt really get to enjoy the pj set because we were worried about crowd surfers landing on us, as happened twice before we started paying attention, and dumb people trying to still push their way to the front. we were between the stage and soundboard, to the right of the stage. i expected it to be crowded, and i expected it to be drunken, but i didnt expect a mosh pit to break out 5 rows in front of us, or to have to have my head on a swivel waiting for the next dude to land on my head. so that kind of sucked. but honestly, pj didnt play a great setlist - they played a high energy setlist to keep everyone bouncing around and into it after 3 days of music, but they only played 1 song that's considered special and cool (state of love and trust) - everything else was pretty stock. ben harper came out on stage and sang an antiwar song as the second to last song - that was cool. eddie joined him at the end of his set on friday night, which was cool.

here's the list of bands i saw and for the sake of brevity ill give them a letter rating (i can expand on it later if you want, but i have an AAA guy coming because we have a flat and i need to take care of that):

Friday:
the fratellis - b+
ghostland observatory - a
soulive - c
polyphonic spree - a
slightly stoopid - c+
electric six - b
mia - b
g love - b
black keys - a-
femi kuti - b+
lcd soundsystem - b
ben harper - a-

Saturday:
sherwood - b
tokyo police club - b+
tapes n tapes - a
silverchair - b+
lady gaga - b-
rhymefest - a-
cold war kids - b
the roots - a
regina spektor - c
snow patrol - a
patti smith - a

Sunday:
dax riggs - b
rodrigo y gabriela - a
amy winehouse - b
lupe fiasco - a
kings of leon - b
my morning jacket - b+
pearl jam - b+

as for your other question - you could get pretty close to any stage if you wanted, the exception being pearl jam. for amy winehouse, jen wanted a picture so i walked up to the side of the stage and was maybe 20 yards from her. the key is to go around the side, and then cut in at the front - no one's there - everyone is trying to be in the middle. we generally chose not to be near the front except for snow patrol and pearl jam, which we talked about and if we could do it again we wouldn't have wasted 3 hours trying to be up front.

i have some pics and video i took and ill send you the links when i do. and ill check out that link you sent this afternoon some time. right now, need to shower and get ready for my tire change...