Lollapalooza 2009
Tim Mosenfelder
Dan Deacon
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Like it or not, Lollapalooza is a festival of moments. Due to its sheer size, it always does best as a sampler platter of some of the biggest bands from yesterday and today—it's impossible to see it all, but entirely possible to see a little of everything. And simply because the experience involves a fair amount of walking from one end of the park to the other, it's easy to spot festgoers acting foolish. This year's Grant Park takeover was mostly par for the course, though plenty of entertaining performances and moments stood out—and credence must be paid. Here's The A.V. Club's awards-style round-up of the most notable Lolla happenings. (For a running commentary of the fest, check out The A.V. Club's Twitter feed from the weekend.)
Making the most of the rain
“You can really tell a lot about a city by how it deals with rain,” The Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon said admiringly to the rapidly dampening crowd on Friday. After a drizzly morning, the rain began in earnest during the 2:30 set by the New Jersey roots-punk quartet, but spirits remained high amid the poncho-and-umbrella-laden crowd. Gaslight’s set started off a little shaky as the group struggled to find its groove on the biggest of the fest’s 10 stages, but Fallon and his bandmates tightened up by the second song, turning in high-spirited renditions of “Old White Lincoln,” “Great Expectations,” and the title track from last year’s The ’59 Sound (a clear audience favorite), though they also brought a bit of arena-rock bombast to slow burners like “Even Cowgirls Get The Blues.” It all sounded especially epic and celebratory contrasted against the decidedly dreary atmosphere.
Making the most of the sun
With the rains from Friday subsided, Los Campesinos! took the Budweiser stage at the peak of Saturday's heat—Gareth Campesinos red-faced already from the sun. But showing no signs of fatigue, the band wailed on guitars and glockenspiels through all the best songs on its two LPs (and one great new song, too), and by the time the set ended, three members had crowdsurfed. Gareth even threw bottles of water out into the crowd at one point—commitment to hydration is always a plus.
Fightin' underdogs
All the speculation about whether the Yeah Yeah Yeahs could fill the vaunted shoes vacated by the Beastie Boys Saturday night was for naught; the group put on a great set, mining heavily from its latest, It's Blitz!, and digging into Karen O's most colorful, Native American-inspired wardrobe pieces. (In an especially nice touch, guitarist Nick Zinner also threw in a bit of the iconic guitar lick from the Beasties' "So What'cha Want in tribute to the original headliners.) It provided nice contrast to the nostalgia-laden Tool set across the field. Earlier that day, Randy Randall from No Age knocked out an awesome set on the intimate Citi stage, while seated, with his arm in a sling. Fans had prescription drugs to thank. Friday's nicest surprise came in the form of Peter Bjorn And John, who played a set that conflicted with heavy draws Andrew Bird and Of Montreal—whose sets, in turn, were populated by people waiting for headliners Kings Of Leon or Depeche Mode. The crowd was tiny, but Peter Morén hopped around and sang like it was 10 times the size.
Most inventive ways to cool off
By the end of the day Saturday, the fountain outside Perry's had been turned into a wading pool, with club kids stripping down to their skivvies and hopping in, continuing to bounce to the beats coming from the stage. The cops came by at one point, but only to rope off a very specific section of the fountain, not to kick anyone out; sometimes you have to just accept the inevitable. But fountain antics didn't stop there: As the Sunday evening crowd dispersed to opposite ends of Grant Park for the evening’s headliner sets, a minor hubbub was occurring at the festival’s epicenter, Buckingham Fountain. A hot—and presumably, very, very drunk—festival-goer waded across the fountain’s pool and began scaling the center structure. A growing crowd egged him on as he scrambled toward the top—and a copycat soon jumped in and joined him—though he seemed at a loss as to how to go about conquering the fountain’s final, foothold-less tier. Instead, he contented himself with basking in the adulation of a crowd starved for some drunken antics at this year’s otherwise sedate festival.
Playing to his strengths
Maybe it was just the dense fog of marijuana smoke permeating the crowd, but Snoop Dogg's set was a bit like stepping into a time machine and emerging into MTV Spring Break circa 1993. Clad in a Lakers jersey, Calvin Broadus happily played ringmaster while he paraded out a non-stop succession of his well-established hits, including "Gin & Juice," "Who Am I (What's My Name)?," and even playing Dr. Dre's "Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang" to scads of white people boogying down. (This also marked the first occasion in recent history that The A.V. Club has seen someone in Crocs getting down without even a hint of shame.) When Snoop left the stage, everyone in the crowd knew his "mother-fucking name," and with good reason.
Playing to his weaknesses
When Ben Folds took the Budweiser stage on Friday, it was supposed to stop raining. It didn't. And try as he might, the sunny pianist was unable to be engaging and fun enough to warrant not seeking shelter from the elements. It was sort of fitting, because he largely played songs from his latest, 2008's Way To Normal—its cover depicts Folds taking cover under an umbrella. Folds also dipped into 2001 single "Rockin' The Suburbs," which sounded jazzy with the piano playing the guitar part, but it all seemed a bit too, well, familiar. Like Snoop Dogg, Ben Folds also reached into Dr. Dre's gangsta-rap catalog during his Lolla performance, covering "Bitches Ain't Shit," but the whole white-guy-reworking-a-hip-hop-song shtick is starting to show its age.
Best way to catch some Z's
Electro-popsters Passion Pit proved to be the perfect band for napping on Sunday afternoon. While some people jockeyed in the blazing sun for a closer spot to the stage, the field immediately to the left of it was positively packed with concertgoers laid out on towels to recover.
Group having too much fun
Still cruising on the buzz created by last year’s awesome Remind Me In 3 Days, The Knux were obviously excited to be at Lollapalooza and enjoying themselves… maybe too much. The New Orleans-via-L.A. duo of Krispy Kream and Rah Almillio made a few references to being high during their early Friday-afternoon performance, and it showed. Songs lurched to a stop, with members of The Knux’s live band looking confused; they started “Powder Room” wrong before abandoning it for “Roxxanne”; and generally looked unpracticed. They were still fun, though.
Surprisingly great Warped Tour-like addition
“Punk bands don’t play Lollapalooza,” Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath told The A.V. Club a couple of years ago when asked why the Chicago punk stars had never played Grant Park. It just took a couple of hit records to get Lolla organizers to notice, apparently, as the quartet earned a sweet spot on the Chicago 2016 stage before Tool headlined Saturday night. Playing the most aggressive set of the festival by far, Rise Against didn’t take it easy on the festival’s “hey, we’re just here for the music, maaaan” more mainstream audience by opening with a couple of gut-punchers: “Collapse (Post-Amerika)” and “State Of The Union.” Rise Against also earned points for actually acknowledging Grant Park’s storied history, citing Obama’s acceptance speech last year to the 1968 Democratic National Convention riots. McIlrath's reference to overzealous cops beating hippies undoubtedly drew some consternation from the cops at the front of the stage.
The "I’m Lou Reed. You’re not" Award
The gist of Lou Reed’s set Sunday evening: He’s Lou Reed, and he can do whatever the hell he wants. Start 15 minutes late? Sure. Use a TelePrompTer? Yessir. Go over his allotted time? What, are you gonna stop the man who led The Velvet Underground? No, you’re not, so sit back there and take it. Old Man Reed looked vaguely cranky, though traces of a smile popped up occasionally. And he sounded surprisingly good—even if his set pushed back Band Of Horses, leading to some headliner drama later.
Not most or least of anything
The A.V. Club’s general feeling about Lollapalooza ’09: totally okay. While full of acts who played good, solid sets, the festival lacked the kinds of moments that will go down in local-music lore. Among the performers turning in completely solid, no-frills sets: Andrew Bird (good as ever, but nothing special), Neko Case (the last show of her five-week tour, Case is probably ready to go home), and The Killers (their biggest U.S. show ever, the middle of the set lagged but they finished strong).
Stepping on toes
Lollapalooza runs on a strict schedule: When one band stops, another on the neighboring stage begins. That’s how it happened again this year, with a couple notable exceptions. Saturday night, Animal Collective ran long on the Vitaminwater stage, but headliner Tool, playing the big Chicago 2016 stage on the same field, started at its appointed time anyway, mostly drowning out the New York indie band with its powerful prog-metal. Sunday night, Lou Reed began late and played long, pushing back Band Of Horses. Rather than cut its set short for the headlining set from Lolla founder Perry Ferrell and Jane’s Addiction, BOH kept the pleasant indie rock rolling in the face of Jane’s introductory spectacle (which included a helicopter buzzing the crowd). Not only that, it played two more songs after JA had actually taken the stage and started playing, resulting in 10 minutes of awkward cacophony on the north side of Grant Park.
The promise, and delivery, of stage antics
Dan Deacon seemed like he would be the best contender on this year’s lineup to provide a worthy follow-up Girl Talk’s near-legendary Lolla ’08 party-starting performance; while his Sunday afternoon set didn’t have people dangling from trees and storming the Vitaminwater stage, he and his 14-plus-member orchestra created a danceable racket that inspired the crowd to forget the 90-degree heat and go nuts. Twenty seconds into the show—which saw Deacon presiding from behind his soundboard over an orchestra featuring three drum kits, a phalanx of keyboards, and even a tuba—the crowd rushed toward the stage, all thoughts of sweat-stink and propriety buried under a surge of synths. Before long, Deacon jumped into the crowd, as he is wont to do, to organize a soul-train-style dance chain that continued to snake its way through the crowd for most of the rest of the set.
Come-from-the-middle victory
While most of the Sunday night crowd split between headliners Jane’s Addiction and The Killers, a dedicated mob of club kids and raver wannabes swamped Perry’s DJ stage for a dance party overseen by Deadmau5 that looked like one of those once-in-a-lifetime, end-of-the-world affairs. We may have been too cranky and tired to grab a glowstick and jump in ourselves, but the positive energy emanating from the crowd managed to brighten even our festival-fatigued spirits. Perry's didn't just pulsate for the headliners: No longer a hit-or-miss venue, the stage drew consistent crowds all weekend and exposed skeptics to all sorts of club music. Countless attendees at The Hood Internet show approached with quizzical looks, later replaced with broad grins. If there's one thing that benefits Lollapalooza attendees, it's an open mind.
