I am so old and tired, I left each of the 3 nights of Lollapalooza early. And I totally enjoyed myself each night. Which means I must be too old to rock.
Split work at 3:10 pm. Got water bottles and picked up the Green Line at Clinton. Grossed out by idiot frat boy spitting chew into a cup. Exit Adams and Wabash. Follow other lemmings to Congress Parkway, across from the big gate. Impossible to cross there. Proceed south to Balbo. No lines, make it quickly through gate. Proceed, slightly late, to Black Joe and the Honeybears at the BMI stage.
Split work at 3:10 pm. Got water bottles and picked up the Green Line at Clinton. Grossed out by idiot frat boy spitting chew into a cup. Exit Adams and Wabash. Follow other lemmings to Congress Parkway, across from the big gate. Impossible to cross there. Proceed south to Balbo. No lines, make it quickly through gate. Proceed, slightly late, to Black Joe and the Honeybears at the BMI stage.
Find Ian playing keyboard on stage. What short hair! Where is the pony tail?! Get closer and try to wave. Band rocks. Persona includes jail time and lovin' the ladies. Horn section. Stay for the whole set and really enjoy it. No sign of Jill. Hang out after the set and text them each. Eventually run into Jill and Ian. They have matching iPhones, aw. Agree to meet tomorrow somehow with Cpu, split to catch other bands.
Cat Power at the PlayStation stage. I park in front of the sound booth. Text friends in hopes they can find me there. Messages sent, but no reinforcements arrive. It's a good set, but starts to get a little long for me. Drummer is a heavy dude with a sort of lace up renaissance shirt, reminds me of Luciano Neighbors keep splitting for different shows. I advance. Eventually am maybe 10 rows from stage. Ends on high note, and Cat hands out crumpled paper, water bottles, and assorted objects from stage to her fans. Amused, I split for some dinner.
Without drink and food, I will soon perish. All this standing up in the sun is starting to take its toll. BMI stage is shady in retrospect. After waiting in line 15 minutes, discover the beer line is out of wrist bands. I buy a lame local beer since the Belgian is gone, and a 7-dollar polish sausage. Tasty.
I wait another 15 minutes in line to refill my water bottles at an 8-person drinking fountain, and move on out to get a good spot for The Jicks. Whose set I totally enjoy, but about 14 years too late. Like the polish sausage, it is also tasty: like rolling Kurt Cobain, The Breeders, and that guitar player from Dinosaur Jr. along with some tempura tidbits into a spicy sushi hand roll just for me. Duly noted that I need to spend some quality time with Pavement.
After getting my rock handed to me by The Jicks, Radiohead was a pretty big let down. The set started out and mostly remained very down tempo. Props to the designers of the light show a; I love the grid, and each video screen was divided into about 8 cells of video feed, at different angles and of different band members. Feeds changed position and monochrome colors.
At this point, I'd like to point out that, like all the other bands today, I had never listened to Radiohead. Actually, I had listened once through OK Computer. But through the show, I was basically giving them a good shot at impressing me. And it didn't. Too much vocal crybaby audio. I did manage to get kind of submerged in a sort of underwater Smashing Pumpkins-style audio wall of sound. I enjoyed me some grumbly low bass. I really dug the two up tempo techno-spun tunes about 9 songs in. But if I could turn down the levels on just the vocals, I would have turned them off.
By 11 songs in, they had already killed my Jicks rock buzz. And right after that, it went back to more down tempo whiny vocals. There was no sign of letting up, either. I split the show, saw some fireworks while crossing over the Metra tracks, and picked up the El back at Library. 45 minutes later I was catching some well-earned Zzzs back at the ranch.
Cat Power at the PlayStation stage. I park in front of the sound booth. Text friends in hopes they can find me there. Messages sent, but no reinforcements arrive. It's a good set, but starts to get a little long for me. Drummer is a heavy dude with a sort of lace up renaissance shirt, reminds me of Luciano Neighbors keep splitting for different shows. I advance. Eventually am maybe 10 rows from stage. Ends on high note, and Cat hands out crumpled paper, water bottles, and assorted objects from stage to her fans. Amused, I split for some dinner.
Without drink and food, I will soon perish. All this standing up in the sun is starting to take its toll. BMI stage is shady in retrospect. After waiting in line 15 minutes, discover the beer line is out of wrist bands. I buy a lame local beer since the Belgian is gone, and a 7-dollar polish sausage. Tasty.
I wait another 15 minutes in line to refill my water bottles at an 8-person drinking fountain, and move on out to get a good spot for The Jicks. Whose set I totally enjoy, but about 14 years too late. Like the polish sausage, it is also tasty: like rolling Kurt Cobain, The Breeders, and that guitar player from Dinosaur Jr. along with some tempura tidbits into a spicy sushi hand roll just for me. Duly noted that I need to spend some quality time with Pavement.
After getting my rock handed to me by The Jicks, Radiohead was a pretty big let down. The set started out and mostly remained very down tempo. Props to the designers of the light show a; I love the grid, and each video screen was divided into about 8 cells of video feed, at different angles and of different band members. Feeds changed position and monochrome colors.
At this point, I'd like to point out that, like all the other bands today, I had never listened to Radiohead. Actually, I had listened once through OK Computer. But through the show, I was basically giving them a good shot at impressing me. And it didn't. Too much vocal crybaby audio. I did manage to get kind of submerged in a sort of underwater Smashing Pumpkins-style audio wall of sound. I enjoyed me some grumbly low bass. I really dug the two up tempo techno-spun tunes about 9 songs in. But if I could turn down the levels on just the vocals, I would have turned them off.
By 11 songs in, they had already killed my Jicks rock buzz. And right after that, it went back to more down tempo whiny vocals. There was no sign of letting up, either. I split the show, saw some fireworks while crossing over the Metra tracks, and picked up the El back at Library. 45 minutes later I was catching some well-earned Zzzs back at the ranch.
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