Lollapalooza, Day 2

After running around like crazy on the first day of Lollapalooza, Day 2 was a bit more relaxed. Not that there were fewer acts I wanted to see - it was just that there were more popular acts that I knew would pull a huge crowd. So, in order to get a decent spot, I ended up pretty much camping in front of the Bud Light stage all day.

My first act of the day was Nada Surf. Frankly, I don't know much about the band other than their awful, awful single "Popular" from a few years back. But the band following them was Built to Spill, and, as I said, I wanted to get there early for a spot. So, I settled in and checked out about half of their set, sneaking closer and closer to stage with each song. Can't say I loved them, but they were surprisingly better than I expected.



After Nada Surf I settled in for an hour of waiting before Built to Spill came on. It's been a while since I'd seen them live, and I had forgotten that the band does all of its own setup. So it was pretty entertaining to see Doug and the band start setting up their own equipment, and have no one in the crowd realize it was them. It took about a half hour for people to start saying, "hey, isn't that Doug?" Good stuff.

Then, about 20 minutes before their set was supposed to start, the band finished their setup, looked at each other, and started playing. It took a minute to figure out if they were still tuning or if they were actually starting, but as they got louder and louder, it became clear the set had begun. Suddenly, some guy came running from the side of the stage giving the "cut this shit out" sign like crazy. The problem was that Feist was playing across the field, and BTS were about to start drowning her out. While that wouldn't have bothered me in the least, it wasn't something the festival wanted, so BTS had to stop.

When the band finally came back out 20 minutes later, the sound was flat out awful. It took close to 1/3 of the set before the mix was fixed. By the time it did, the band sounded great. They don't move around a lot on stage, so it's more about the music than about the show. But with a catalog of music as good as BTS (I'm ignoring Ancient Melodies), that's just fine. That said, I'm looking forward to seeing them in a (slightly) more intimate venue this fall (Irving Plaza).



After Built to Spill, I ran across the field to check out a few minutes of Calexico. I'd seen them two days earlier in Central Park, so I only stuck around for a couple of songs before heading back to the Bud Light stage for Sonic Youth.



I've only seen Sonic Youth live a few times, and I think the last time was opening for Wilco's two Summerstage shows a few years back. That was during the period when Jim O'Rourke was still in the band, and, well, I can't say I really got a whole lot out of the shows. This time around the band was Jim-less - though I half expected a guest appearance since this was Chicago - and I thought they were fantastic. I'm a big fan of the band's latest album, Rather Ripped, and the band played a number of songs from that disc, as well as several older nuggets, including "Eric's Trip". The biggest surprise of the set? The number of teenage kids going absolutely nuts for the band. It's good to see the kids paying tribute to their elders.



After Sonic Youth, I started pushing forward towards the stage again for the next act, The Flaming Lips. With an hour between bands, it gave a whole lot of people time to do the same thing as me. Within minutes it became clear that this was going to be the most crowded set I'd been to yet. By the time the band came on, it was completely nuts - but in a good way. A Flaming Lips show is always fun, but with this many people it was incredible.

The Flaming Lips' set is the set that I'm going to remember Lollapalooza for. Yes, it was the same set they've been doing for a while now. And yes, it was the same balloons and dancers and the like. But who cares? A Flaming Lips show is a celebration, and holy crap was it cool to celebrate with 15,000 (a guess) other people. The number of people dancing and jumping and bouncing around was just incredible. I seriously haven't felt a buzz in a crowd like this in years. Just a fantastic, fantastic set.



From the Lips I was going to try to run across the park to catch The New Pornographers, but unfortunately the crowd was so big that it took 20 minutes to get away from the Bud Light stage. By the time I got to New Pornographers, I'd be lucky to catch half their set. And since I'd seen them in New York a couple of days earlier, I decided to head back to the hotel to rest up for The Frames at the Metro that night. More on that later.