Recap Lollapalooza 2011: Singin’ in the rain

Despite grumblings that this year’s lineup was weaker than past installments (and torrential rainfall on Sunday), Lollapalooza still did very well this year, drawing more than 270,000 ticket-buyers and, according to reports, several hundred gate-jumpers. But was the music worth paying for? The A.V. Club was there for all three days in order to answer that very question.

FRIDAY

YES

• Even with some fairly disheartening technical problems at the top of the set—including a busted amp and broken set of pedals—Wye Oak managed to pull out a hell of a set to open up Lollapalooza on Friday afternoon. As one of the better and most notable acts playing at noon, the band drew a pretty sizable crowd, which was appropriately assaulted with the duo’s wall of sound on tracks like “Holy Holy” and “Hot As Day.” Despite being visibly shaken by her equipment problems, guitarist and singer Jenn Wasner was charming and chatty, winning over even the most apathetic fans with her stories about grandparents and Parade Magazine. [Marah Eakin]

• Grace Potter & The Nocturnals’ boogie-blues vibe isn’t the most original thing going, but it is a great way to kick-start a summer festival. Potter’s sexy-Janis Joplin routine was accentuated by her fine vocals (and a spangly, barely there mini-dress) as she attacked the Hammond organ and later strapped on a Flying V while she and The Nocturnals made their way through a mid-afternoon set heavy on tracks from last year’s self-titled album. The ever-smiling Potter couldn’t resist changing up the chorus to “Paris (Ooh La La)” to “Ooh-la-la-Lollapalooza,” a corny-but-effective move that summed up the group’s unpretentious charm. [Genevieve Koski]

• The breezy, summery tunes of Tennis were a perfect way to start off the festival, especially on a day that boasted some of the most pleasant Lollapalooza weather of the past few years, including a nice breeze off of Lake Michigan. Though light and airy, the live versions of the band’s songs carried enough oomph to keep them from drifting away. “Take Me Somewhere” and “South Carolina” were dreamy but had enough kick to keep early fest-goers shaking and shimmying, as did a handful of new tunes, like “Robin.” As on record, there’s not a whole lot of variation from song to song except for tempo, but with music this pleasant—and plenty of space and shade under the trees at the Google+ Stage—no one seemed to mind. [Marcus Gilmer]

• Georgia band Reptar sounds like a poppier, less quirky Yeasayer (with some nods to Talking Heads), or as some have referred to it, “sex pop.” The quartet’s vibe doesn’t seem especially carnal, though keyboardist William Kennedy’s sky-blue leotard doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Some of Lollapalooza’s best sets happened on the smaller side stages, and at the shady Google+ Stage, Reptar was all enthusiasm and good spirits. The one-two finale of “Stuck In My Id” and “Houseboat Babies” closed out a solid set that left the audience chanting for an encore. [Kyle Ryan]

• Shortly after Reptar finished, L.A. (by way of Mexico) trio Le Butcherettes calmly set up its gear and went through the motions of a line check before its performance. Frontwoman Teri Gender Bender asked for more guitar in the monitors, and bassist Jonathan Hischke sorted through some issues with his pedals. Then at the stroke of 3:30 p.m, the band went from zero to 60 in about one second as its attitude-heavy garage punk erupted from the stage. Gender Bender has drawn comparisons to Karen O and Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill—the band’s sound is definitely similar to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who took Le Butcherettes on tour—and as she prowled the stage, looking a little feral, it was easy to understand why. She gave the crowd the kind of look Linda Blair gives the priest when she’s possessed in The Exorcist. About 15 minutes later, drummer Gabe Serbian wandered to the front of the stage, leaned over the edge, and threw up. The only way to end this show is how Gender Bender did it: diving off stage and crowd surfing as the last song ends. “Sold!” said a guy behind me. “New favorite band,” added his friend. [KR]

• British it-rapper Tinie Tempah has been making moves for Stateside acceptance the past few months, and his Friday afternoon set certainly won him some points with the crowd assembled at the Google+ Stage. Hoisting cardboard signs of the cover of Tempah’s recent Disc-Overy (handed out pre-show by a savvy publicity team), the crowd bounced enthusiastically to “Frisky,” “Pass Out,” and Tempah’s current radio hit, “Written In The Stars.” Backed by a full band and a hype man, Tempah gave a rock-star performance, conducting the audience through chant-alongs, fist-pumping, and explosive jumping with delight and good humor. “This is the most fun I’ve had at an American festival,” he enthused, adding that Lollapalooza was better than Coachella. Whether that was genuine or blatant ingratiation, the crowd ate it right up, along with the rest of Tempah’s solid, high-energy performance. [GK]

• “It’s good to be back—I’m gonna try to make it through the whole set without fainting,” said singer Alison Mosshart as The Kills took the big Bud Light Stage. That’s what happened the last time the band played Lolla, back in 2008. Although her face was beet-red just a few songs into the set—which opened with the title track to 2005’s No Wow—Mosshart kept it together. She was later joined by two backup singers for a particularly great rendition of “DNA” from this year’s Blood Pressures. [KR]

• In their slacks, blazers, and dress shirts, the three men of The Mountain Goats looked especially dapper on the PlayStation Stage. Bespectacled frontman John Darnielle looked like a cool-guy college English professor who had to let his Friday class out early so he could make it in time for the gig. Playing to a surprisingly small but enthusiastic audience, the band tore through a slew of great tracks, including “Wild Sage,” “Birth Of Serpents,” “For Charles Bronson,” and a particularly affecting version of “You Were Cool” (played solo by Darnielle). Later, rejoined by the rest of the band, Darnielle prefaced a song by saying it was by an important Chicago band he and his bandmates like—but chances are, no one expected to hear “Babe” by Styx. “You are a kind and tolerant audience,” Darnielle said afterward. To reward the crowd, he brought out Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner for a fantastic rendition of “This Year.” [KR]

• Conor Oberst says he plans to retire the Bright Eyes name, so that makes this year’s The People’s Key possibly the last album under that moniker, and this appearance on the big Bud Light Stage its final Lollapalooza performance. His face filled out but still looking younger than his 31 years, Oberst is no longer the wunderkind from Omaha, but he has an impressively deep discography to draw from. The band opened with the great “Four Winds” from 2007’s Cassadaga, but got the biggest response from “Shell Games” (from The People’s Key) and “Landlocked Blues” (from 2005’s I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning). [KR]

NO

• Considering Cults only has one half-hour disc’s worth of material to draw on, it’s not that surprising that the duo—fleshed out to a quartet onstage—ended its afternoon set 15 minutes early. Unfortunately, the 30-minute performance didn’t make up for that lost time in terms of energy: Brian Oblivion and Madeline Follin made their way through their self-titled album—plus an extra song called “The Curse”—competently but perfunctorily, interacting minimally with the crowd and each other, with Follin clutching her mic stand throughout as if she would float away without its grounding force. The detached, cool performance was an aesthetic match of the album’s precious girl-group/bedroom-pop vibe, but not very exciting to witness outdoors in the blazing sun. [GK]

• All weekend, the Perry’s tent seemed like the epicenter of the most fun you’re probably too old and tired to partake in, teeming with teenagers wearing various shades of neon and in various states of inebriation. For the most part, the massive tent—and its many industrial-strength fans—was a good match for the pseudo-rave dance parties that occurred there throughout the day, but when it came to Girl Talk’s end-of-day set, the enclosed nature of the tent proved somewhat of a drawback. Unlike Girl Talk’s sprawling 2008 set, which saw revelers climbing trees and telephone poles, this party felt strangely confined. As is the custom at Girl Talk shows, fans swamped the stage roughly 30 seconds into the set, dancing like crazy around the button-pushing Greg Gillis, but the hyper energy dropped off precipitously toward the back of the tent, and was practically non-existent outside of its walls. Girl Talk sets are always an exciting dance riot, but in this case, only those willing to venture into the thumping heart of Perry’s got to experience the full brunt of it.

MAYBE

• Love it or hate it, there’s no getting around the fact that Coldplay is the perfect band to headline a sprawling festival like Lollapalooza. The band’s arena-ready bombast—which comes complete with laser show and fireworks—translates perfectly to the outdoor festival setting, even if that music is middling, adult-oriented modern rock. Pounding through hits like “Yellow,” “In My Place,” and a thunderous “Lost,” the band sounded spot-on and very, very safe. The lone curveball came when Chris Martin crooned a few lines of Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” before launching into “Fix You.” It was a nice tribute, but on the whole, Coldplay offered little emotional nourishment. By the time the show ended with “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall,” I felt like I had eaten a batch of cotton candy: It was sticky, sweet, and appealing, but ultimately unsatisfying. [MG]

• If last year’s Lolla breakout band was Mumford And Sons, this year’s was Foster The People, who drew an incredibly large crowd at 3 p.m. on Friday. As the latest radio-friendly indie-ish radio sensation, the band has earned props from such acclaimed music lovers as Perez Hilton and Paris Hilton, as well as tons of airplay for its song “Pumped Up Kicks.” Live, the five-piece act definitely went for broke with its enthusiastic drumming and dancing, inspiring countless crowd-surfing teenagers, as well as a sing-along or seven. While the band’s mojo is to be respected, its songs read a little thin and monotonous. It’s completely understandable why this act is popular—the fact that all its members all handsome, well-dressed dudes from Los Angeles can’t hurt—but that doesn’t mean they’re going to be sitting in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 20-odd years. [ME]

• Even in the best of situations, Crystal Castles’ sound is murky by design: Singer Alice Glass frequently has her vocals heavily processed (and often unintelligible), and the layers of synthesizer from bandmate Ethan Kath add to the cacophony. As much as the Canadian duo (rounded out by a drummer for live performances) can drop dancefloor hits, it can wrap them in a dense digital fog. Crystal Castles came out with guns blazing, but after a few songs, the muddy sound became repetitious: hard base beat, synthesizer washes, and Glass’ vocals buried in the mix and often impossible to understand. [KR]

• Smith Westerns’ youthfulness was equal parts obnoxious and cute, the goofy I-can’t-believe-we’re-here sheen they wore at Pitchfork last year having almost completely worn off. Cullen Omori joked halfway through the set that his wireless mic would let him “do some Justin Timberlake shit,” but the band instead just slumped up and down together for the duration of the set, like puppets controlled by a single, lazy hand. This gave Cullen’s vocals an in-and-out hiccup since he approached the mic only on the beat. The group played faithful renditions off its 2009 self-titled EP and this year’s great Dye It Blonde, but the performance felt more like a well-polished studio rehearsal than an energy-fueled festival show. [Emily Withrow]

SEEN & HEARD

Tat watch:
• 20something guy with giant cross intersected by prayer hands across his full back, along with a sacred heart on his shoulder with a grenade replacing the heart. Perhaps canceled out by another guy who had a pentagram filling his back.

• Early 20something guy with “Blood does not make family” tattooed over his heart

• Woman with a tiny “M” with a circle around it—which looks a lot like the logo for legendary Chicago music venue the Metro—on the back of her neck. Her companion has Bad Religion (a cross with a strike through it) and Strike Anywhere (three arrows with a circle around them) tattoos on his right calf.

• Giant question mark on the lower right part of a guy’s back, with a yin-yang for the dot.

• Spotted watching Wye Oak from side stage: Four cast members from Ace Of Cakes, who presumably know the band from Baltimore, as well as Mountain Goats frontman John Darnielle.

• Celebrity sightings at Foster The People: Scott Michael Foster (Cappie from Greek), Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad), and a surprisingly good-looking David Arquette.

SATURDAY

YES

• Drawing a healthy crowd for an early set, Fitz & The Tantrums delivered one of the more rousing sets of the day, with the six-piece neo-soul outfit easily filling out the big stage with its big sound. Stomping through most of their debut album, Pickin’ Up The Pieces, the band made its Lollapalooza debut by displaying swagger and talent befitting the setting. Noelle Scaggs’ soaring vocals played an even bigger role live than on the album, filling out the band’s sound while Michael Fitzpatrick easily belted out his own lines, sauntering the stage. Throwing a few covers into the mix is standard fare at these large fests, but Fitz had a little fun, breathing new, funky life into Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams” and The Raconteurs’ “Broken Boy Soldier.” [MG]

• The problem with having a reputation for being out of control is the subtle pressure to live up to—and top—it. Atlanta “flower punk” band Black Lips, famous for its raucous live shows—and being expelled from India—looked pretty tame on the PlayStation Stage. The band played a loose, shambling set that was energetic but well under control. When guitarists Cole Alexander and Ian Saint Pé Brown stuck their tongues in each other’s mouths near the end of the set, it felt a little rote. (There’s a photo online of them doing it at another show, too.) But the instrument-bashing climax of the closing song didn’t feel that way—intense, raucous, with a hint of danger. Alexander smashed his guitar, threw its broken neck into the crowd, then leapt from the stage. Saint Pé Brown smashed a still-full beer can on his forehead. Now it’s a Black Lips show. [KR]

• In the years since Beirut’s debut, the band has grown beyond the one-man show of Zach Condon and into a fully fleshed-out unit, which was reflected in this performance. Performing at the same time as My Morning Jacket and Eminem, the crowd gathered was small but appreciative, with die-hard fans hanging on Condon’s every syllable, as well as every trumpet note exchanged between Condon and Kelly Pratt. Whether on the soaring “Elephant Gun” or the revved up “Santa Fe” (from new The Rip Tide), the band was a cohesive collaboration. Even though the newer material occasionally has poppier leanings than previous Beirut efforts, it still carries the undeniable Beirut sound, something not lost on the appreciative crowd who welcomed the new material—including the ragged shuffle of “Vagabond”—as readily as older songs, like the sprawling “The Gulag Orkestar.” [MG]

• With The Cars on Sunday and Big Audio Dynamite on Saturday, this was the most ’80s Lollapalooza yet. The audience was overwhelmingly under 25 (and many under 20), so it’s hard to imagine them getting too psyched for Big Audio Dynamite, whose original lineup hasn’t played together in two decades. Mick Jones’ work in The Clash would understandably take up most of his bio, but BAD wasn’t exactly a footnote. The band had found success in the mid-’80s, after Jones was fired from The Clash in 1983, and Big Audio Dynamite II, a sort of sequel to the original lineup, did well at the dawn of the alternative era with The Globe. Now reunited with the original lineup, Jones is clearly enjoying himself. The band excels at playing a worldly funk captured in songs like “Sightsee MC” and “C’mon Every Beatbox,” and closer “Situation No Win” still sounds great. Jones looks like your kindly British uncle who has a secret rock ’n’ roll past—it’s heartening to see that it’s part of his present, too. [KR]

• Atmosphere had the unenviable task of going before Eminem and specializing in the same kind of intense, wordy hip-hop employed by Marshall Mathers. But this is a group—MC Slug and DJ Ant—that has been grinding it out in the underground for years, taking cues from the punk scene in its do-it-yourself approach. Complacent they are not, and if anything, Eminem would have to reach for the bar set by Atmosphere. The group—rounded out by a drummer and guitarist—blew through an intense set that put Slug’s deft wordplay on display: “Until The Nipple’s Gone,” “Guns And Cigarettes,” “Between The Lines,” “Just For Show,” with “Sunshine” eliciting the biggest cheers from the crowd. (It was appropriate, too, as Slug confessed he was fighting a hangover from playing the Metro the previous night.) “The Last To Say,” which came later, set the stage thematically for Eminem’s “Stan.” Nothing makes a summer festival like songs about domestic violence! [KR]

• Lykke Li’s albums sometimes box her into a detached, almost clinical study of Swedish cool, her voice seeming far away, steady, and unwavering against the other instruments. In Saturday’s afternoon heat, though, all of that melted away, with Lykke Li wheeling and grooving and stopping for only brief moments to say things like, “I’m shy. You’re so sweet.” The Google+ Stage suffers a little from a tight perimeter of trees and no screens—actually seeing the tiny singer was a feat, especially since she stood a few feet down from the rest of her crew. The crowd was hardly intent on standing and swaying, though, grabbing hold of Li’s hour-long run through Wounded Rhymes and Youth Novels and dancing in the sun. The group played with a cover, like many Lolla bands did this year—a graceful, airy rendition of The Drifers’ “Please Stay.” [EW]

• The things you hear about My Morning Jacket are true—the group puts on an excellent live show, and holy hell, recordings don’t do Jim James’ voice justice. In the battle between headliners Eminem and MMJ, the crowds sided heavily with the former. While that side of the park complained about insufficient space and speakers, those who’d staked out a spot for MMJ realized it wasn’t really necessary. No big crowd crush arrived, allowing the fans to swing around and dance freely to the commanding Kentucky rock. The group opened with “Victory Dance” and “Circuital” off this year’s Circuital, a somewhat symbolic opening for the night that jumped around their catalogue like a greatest hits show, culminating in the rollicking “One Big Holiday” from 2003’s It Still Moves. The crowd—bigger toward the end of the night due to Eminem’s castoffs—celebrated the first few chords like they were the second coming. And they were, in a way. James’ voice harkens back to the wails of the ’70s with a soft Southern bent that’s a rarity today, and the Lolla crowd knew it, wandering out of the park with ears happily ringing. [EW]

• Eminem didn’t bring much in the way of pyro to his headlining set on Saturday, but he didn’t need such accoutrements to create a spectacle, relying instead on surprise guests, a deep catalog of recognizable hits, and a high-energy, aggressive stage presence. After entering the stage to an intro mimicking the opening to Intervention, Em and hypeman Mr. Porter put his decade-plus discography on shuffle—with an understandable-if-somewhat-unfortunate emphasis on this year’s Recovery—their energy never flagging as they made their way through recent cuts like “Won’t Back Down” and “3 A.M.” before taking it back to The Eminem Show and beyond with “Square Dance,” “Cleaning Out My Closet,” and “I Am,” which were greeted with wild enthusiasm by the assembled crowd of 60,000. Em then yanked things back to the present, bringing out Bad Meets Evil cohort Royce Da 5’9” and Bruno Mars for their first-ever live performance of the current single “Lighters,” which prompted a sea of real, actual, non-cell-phone lighters to spark up throughout the field. Less exciting was fellow Lolla performer Skylar Grey’s non-surprise appearance later on to sing the hook on the laconic “I Need A Doctor,” and a somewhat sleepy, midtempo portion that covered backup-track-heavy songs like “Airplanes,” “Stan,” and “Sing For The Moment,” but things quickly picked back up with a Nate Dogg homage that culminated in “Till I Collapse.” After a silly back-and-forth with Mr. Porter that saw Em trying to “relapse” by having a drink onstage, only to have the booze trickle out his shirt, he took the crowd “back to when I used to get fucked up,” blazing through a too-short medley of “My Name Is,” “The Real Slim Shady,” and “Without Me” before ending on the somewhat bum note of “Not Afraid.” Luckily, he came back guns blazing for the encore with “Lose Yourself,” which proved a spectacular, cinematic note on which to end. [GK]

NO

• After previous appearances at Lollapalooza, including a great set as part of Gnarls Barkley in 2008, hopes were high for Cee Lo’s set. And Cee Lo kept the buzz growing, taking the stage with an S&M-clad, all-female band and his own costume looking like a mix between Darth Vader and a villain from Mad Max. And there were some good moments: a buoyant “Satisfied” and the Violent Femmes’ cover “Gone Daddy Gone.” But with shortened versions of songs, caustic stage banter, and too many gaps between songs filled with short DJ interludes—not to mention flubbing the beginnings of two consecutive songs, including "Crazy"—any momentum the set had was immediately killed. Maybe Cee Lo was hot in the spiked shoulder pads get-up or maybe this is just how you big-time a mega-fest. Either way, many were left disappointed by a lackluster performance from one of Saturday’s most anticipated acts. [MG]

• Chicago was ready to welcome Fall Out Boy’s Patrick Stump back home with open arms on Saturday, and rightfully so—he has one of the best sets of pipes in the biz. Unfortunately, his hammy set was heavy on jazz riffs, ill-advised Montell Jordan covers, and ridiculous R&B vocal runs. It’s not like Stump’s not insanely talented, because he is insanely talented, but it seems like he’s trying to jam every bit of music he couldn’t get out through Fall Out Boy into his current work, including his debut solo LP, Soul Punk, coming this October. Songs meandered through Morris Day And The Time territory, a reference not made any less obvious by the fact that Stump was clad in a comically modified tuxedo including a shoulder-pad enhanced cape, leather gloves, and a platinum blond Flock Of Seagulls hairdo in 90-degree weather. A lot of fans looked fairly bewildered and confused, though the band did earn a decent round of applause for a medley of early ’90s R&B tunes—albeit after an awkward and unnecessary drum solo by the vocalist. It was a sad set, not because the music wasn’t good, but more because Stump can be and has been so much better, and all this trying he’s doing lately is just making his inherent abilities that much more convoluted. [ME]

MAYBE

• The woozy, multi-layered harmonies of Local Natives are beautiful to behold, not unlike Grizzly Bear. Unfortunately, both bands can sometimes have the same effect at a festival like this, lulling a sun-soaked audience to sleep. The set started out fast enough with the rollicking “Camera Talk” and a few songs later, the band covered Talking Heads’ “Warning Sign.” But as the set wore on and the band shuffled its way through “Cubism Dream” and “Airplanes,” many in the crowd appeared drowsy, their energy drained by the sun and nothing from the band to help pick it up. [MG]

• There’s something a little fuzzy about an only slightly buzzworthy band breaking up and then re-forming five years later to insane acclaim. Death From Above 1979 rocked Vice magazine parties and MTV commercial jingles from 2001 to ’06, releasing just one record, You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine, in ’04. While the mid-’00s might not seem appropriately distant in terms of nostalgia-worthiness for 30somethings, it’s more than enough time for a 20-year-old to begin longing for something they never got a chance to experience in its heyday. In that case, Death From Above was a welcome addition to the lineup, drawing a fairly large crowd and even a mosh pit with its noisy art punk. As a duo, though, the band lacked the charisma and charm for such a massive stage. The duo would be far better owning a small stage, or even a small room. At one point, drummer and vocalist Sebastien Grainger asked the audience, “Was anyone at the Empty Bottle six years ago?” earning one or two raised hands and woos. “Do you guys know what the Empty Bottle is?” he continued before launching into another song. [ME]

• After opening with “Spinal Meningitis,” Ween probably didn’t earn many new fans from Lolla’s wandering hordes, but fake brothers Dean and Gene Ween probably don’t give a shit anyway. For years now, the band’s been making the music it wants to make the way it wants to make it, popular styles and conventions be damned. It’s earned the band a decent-sized cult following and a guest spot in the It’s Pat movie, but ultimately not much else. While tracks like “Bananas And Blow,” “Roses Are Free,” and “The Mollusk” went over well, the band ran through a seemingly endless, mostly instrumental jam right in the middle of its set, killing any sort of momentum for casual fans. A fun cover of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” immediately followed, perhaps seeking to remedy the downturn, but the damage was done—not that the band cared at all. It did what it wanted, got a paycheck, and will live to see another day and another festival. [ME]

BONUS!

• Foo Fighters announced a late show at Chicago club Metro just days before Lollapalooza began, and the $60 tickets immediately sold out. The Foos had a two-hour headlining slot Sunday night, but as frontman Dave Grohl told the packed house at the Metro, the band is out of practice from not playing together in five weeks. Beyond the Metro performance being a warm-up, it was a homecoming of sorts. Grohl has lost count of the number of times he’s played the club—stretching back more than two decades into his Nirvana days—and truth be told, he said to the crowd, he was looking forward more to the intimate gig than the big one following on Sunday. “See, tomorrow night we only got two fuckin’ hours,” he said. “Tonight we can play as long as we want!”

Foo Fighters would go on to play for 140 minutes straight with no real break—blowing through the entirety of this year’s excellent Wasting Light and 13 favorites—before taking a quick encore and returning for three more songs. Among the tracks was a cover of Mose Allison’s “Young Man Blues,” which featured Grohl disappearing from the stage and playing the final jammy minutes of the song from the middle of the balcony. When the song ended, he dropped his guitar from the balcony and ran downstairs to get it, minus a knob that popped off. (“Which motherfucker knocked my guitar out of tune?” he asked once he returned to stage.) All told, it would last two and a half hours and leave drummer Taylor Hawkins looking on the verge of complete physical collapse.

Although Grohl isn’t from the Chicago area, he spent a fair amount of time here in the summers visiting relatives. The first show he ever went to was just a couple blocks from Metro at the Cubby Bear, where he saw seminal Chicago punk band Naked Raygun perform in 1982. In a bit of “will the circle be unbroken” coincidence, Raygun was playing its own Lolla after-show a few miles away.

After such a marathon performance, it was easy to wonder if the band had anything left in the tank for the two-hour Sunday set. Somewhere, Hawkins was probably popping a few ibuprofens and hanging the “do not disturb” sign on his hotel-room door. [KR]

Foo Fighters set list:

Wasting Light: Bridge Burning / Rope / Dear Rosemary / White Limo / Arlandria / These Days / Back & Forth / A Matter Of Time / Miss The Misery / I Should Have Known / Walk

All My Life / My Hero / Learn To Fly / Generator / The Pretender / Cold Day In The Sun / Long Road To Ruin / Stacked Actors / Times Like These / Young Man Blues / Skin And Bones / Best Of You / This Is A Call / Monkey Wrench / Hey, Johnny Park! / Everlong

SEEN & HEARD

• “I can’t tell if we’re really good or if you’re on ecstasy.” —Cole Alexander of Black Lips, remarking on the facial expressions of the audience during the band’s set.

• “I’m very proud to be one of the few bands playing Lollapalooza without computers going on.” —Dave Grohl

• Tat watch: A Dude, Where’s My Car? homage on one guy, who has “Dude” tattooed in old English lettering just below his neck on his back. Maybe he has a friend with “Sweet” in the same place?

• Country music star Wynonna Judd and husband D.R. Roach watching Foo Fighters at Metro. They left after the first half—maybe they’re only into the new stuff?

SUNDAY

YES

• By Sunday, segments of the Perry’s tent had been peeled back to air out the fetid mudhole the dance pit had become over the course of the weekend, and it’s a good thing—without the added ventilation, the entire structure might have collapsed under the weight of The Cool Kids’ insane, teeth-rattling bass (not to mention the oppressive heat and humidity, which were at their apex during the Kids’ 3 p.m. set). Skipping back and forth between their breakout Bake Sale EP and the new When Fish Ride Bicycles album, The Cool Kids brought a basement-party vibe to the crowd at Perry’s, which mostly settled for head-bobbing and fist-pumping (plus a crowd-surf or two) over the sort of frenetic dancing the tent usually played host to. Chuck Inglish and Mikey Rocks did their part to mix things up amid the boom-bap and their cheeky, nostalgia-based flow, bringing out a live band that proved completely superfluous under all that bass, and later on, vocalist Tennille to sing the hook on “Boomin’”—though the set was unceremoniously, awkwardly cut short by a time-conscious sound guy before Asher Roth could make his surprise appearance for “Roll Call.” Darn? [GK]

• On stage, Kip Berman of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart looks like the kind of guy who some of the more bro-leaning dudes among Lollapalooza’s thousands of attendees beat up in high school. But like the weakling who bulked up over summer break, Pains’ fantastic 2011 sophomore album, Belong, has some muscular guitar rock that recalls Siamese Dream-era Smashing Pumpkins. Playing its set during the hottest part of the day, Pains opened with Belong’s title track and focused mostly on that album (including “Heart In Your Heartbreak,” “Heaven’s Gonna Happen Now,” and “My Terrible Friend”). Having grown up with Lollapalooza, Berman and keyboardist Peggy Wang both mentioned how much it meant to play the festival, with Berman reminiscing about wanting to go in 1995 to see Helium and meet Mary Timony. “But this is the next best thing,” he said. [KR]

• The Lollapalooza ’80s revival continued with The Cars on Sunday afternoon playing to a large and enthusiastic crowd. The recently reunited new-wave titans are notoriously taciturn and unexpressive on stage (particularly frontman Ric Ocasek), but the parade of hits that followed spoke plenty: set opener “Good Times Roll,” “My Best Friend’s Girl,” “You Might Think,” “Just What I Needed” (which drew fist-pumping from the audience), “Magic,” “Let’s Go,” and closer “You’re All I’ve Got Tonight.” Of the handful of new songs the band played, “Blue Tip” stood out most for fitting in so well—it sounded like vintage Cars. [KR]

• The rule of inclement weather at a festival is simple: If your set gets cut short because of a thunderstorm, then your set gets cut short. There’s no bumping start times back, because everything is on a schedule, and the festival abides by a strict curfew put in place by the city. Well, that’s the rule anyway—but getting bands who lost time through no fault of their own to follow that is another matter. On the receiving end of the day’s first torrential downpour was Arctic Monkeys, whose set on the Music Unlimited Stage was delayed more than 20 minutes. The British rock band dispensed with banter to focus on getting through songs quickly, though singer-guitarist Alex Turner dedicated “She’s Thunderstorms” (from this year’s Suck It And See) to Mother Nature. Although Explosions In The Sky were scheduled to start at 7 across the field on the Sony Stage, Arctic Monkeys went more than 15 minutes late as EITS stood on stage, being perhaps too polite. EITS may have been on the smaller stage, but The A.V. Club bets it could’ve won the volume war if it had just decided to start while Arctic Monkeys were still playing. But the Texas instrumental band is too nice, so it waited patiently for the Brits to stop. “We’re going to give you an hour’s worth of rock in 45 minutes,” said guitarist Munaf Rayani as the band launched into its set. EITS’ instrumentals are inherently cinematic—witness their use in the Friday Night Lights film and TV series—so it provided a nice accompaniment to the post-storm Chicago sky. Although it would’ve been cool for EITS to lean on heavier, punchier material considering the truncated start time and rowdy audience, the band took its time to build up and release, as it does so well. Perhaps it took too much time—the final moments of its set were drowned out by headliners Foo Fighters taking the Music Unlimited Stage. That’s a volume war even EITS can’t win. [KR]

• The storm that swept through Grant Park Sunday evening not only left people soaked and the fields completely muddy, but it also conferred a sense of reckless abandon on a crowd that was already feeling end-of-the-festival punchiness. Thousands simply resigned to the damp filthiness, ready to power through the final couple of hours with Deadmau5 and Foo Fighters. As the band took the stage and opened with “Bridge Burning” from Wasting Light, the sky to the north of Grant Park darkened. Just as the band finished “The Pretender,” the rain started to fall again, but it completely unleashed during the next song, “My Hero.” Instead of streaming for the exits, the thousands and thousands of people in the field made the collective decision to embrace the torrential downpour, cheering ecstatically and singing along with “There goes my hero, watch him as he goes. / There goes my hero, he’s ordinary,” in what was arguably the weekend’s most extraordinary moment. The rain still pouring after the song, Grohl said, “I don’t give a fuck if it’s raining!” and segued into “Learn To Fly.” To their credit (and festival organizers for not pulling the plug), Foo Fighters carried on as the storm continued for another 15 minutes or so. After “Breakout,” Grohl asked the audience how many of them had seen the band before, and roughly less than half had. When he asked how many were seeing Foo Fighters for the first time, a huge cheer erupted. If those newbies weren’t fans before, the band converted them Sunday night with a bold, career-spanning performance that will go down in the Lollapalooza history books. [KR]

MAYBE

• Just one song into Best Coast’s set, the skies over Grant Park opened up and a deluge of rain began that wouldn’t relent until Bethany Cosentino and crew wrapped up. As the band ripped through “Wish He Was You” and “Boyfriend,” Cosentino freely swearing all the while (“Fuck you, we’re Best Coast, let’s do this.”), the band sounded heftier than usual, with the guitars cranked up to buzzsaw-levels. To Best Coast’s credit, it gamely played on even as some fans sprinted for cover. But even with the louder guitars, Best Coast still sounds like a lot of other bands, and while the rain didn’t help, it’s the music that was ultimately underwhelming. [MG]

• The mid-afternoon torrential downpour and subsequent mud-ification of Grant Park severely cut into the crowd assembled for Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley and Nas, though their set provided a lively answer to the storm that preceded them. The duo’s reggae-hip-hop hybrid—complete with waving Jamaican flag—meant the bro factor was high on the North field, with lots of awkward dancing to Marley’s “Welcome To Jamrock,” Nas’ “Hate Me Now,” and, inevitably, a requisite cover of Bob Marley’s “Exodus.” Both Marley (and his ankle-length dreads) and Nas exuded a slight air of going-through-the-motions—they’ve been touring and festival-ing together behind last year’s Distant Relatives for some time now—but their practiced showmanship and the music’s inherently rousing nature made for a nice break in the storm. [GK]

SEEN & HEARD

• “How many of you have never seen the Foo Fighters before?” [Crowd cheers.] “You’re welcome. Thanks for coming… 16 years later.” —Dave Grohl, Foo Fighters [KR]

• Must-have accessories for the Perry’s tent: 5-Hour Energy and/or MDMA, a CamelBak, feathers, glitter, or a stupid hat of some sort. [GK]