Lollapalooza--Day 3

Oh man, I'm back at the office, and I strongly feel that I need a vacation from my vacation, especially because yesterday was a veritable MARATHON of rock. I'm 30 with a soul-sucking day job...it's almost more than I can take! But over here at Places Parallel, we give our readers nothing but 100% committment, so we were in it for the long haul, from around 11:30 a.m. til 10:10 or so that night.

On Day 3 of Lollapalooza, the normally charming Grant Park was turned into a giant, muddy cesspool that smelled like the large mammal house in the zoo. Did people even bother using the port-o-lets? Any of those drunken barefoot floozies in sundresses were likely to catch dysentery or cholera in the rain-beer-vomit-soaked field in front of the Bud Light stage on the north end of the park. I mean, it was fucking nasty. I don't remember things being so unsavory in 2006, but then, it didn't rain at all that weekend. Fortunately, the strong lineup that day more than made up for the hazardous waste conditions at the park.

Iris and I arrived just in time to see Juliette and the Licks, the band fronted by charmingly psycho actress, Juliette Lewis. I was originally hesitant to catch their set, especially because it was scheduled so early on what was going to be a very long day. But I'm very glad I did. Juliette Lewis, wearing an inexplicable Indian feather and war paint under her eyes, gave the audience a lot more energy than many of the more critically acclaimed super-serious artists there. She and her band specialize in a classic bar rock style--black leather pants and high kicks and extended drum solos. Juliette's performing style is somewhere between Joan Jett and David Lee Roth. She howls and writhes on the stage, and it's just really fucking fun. She kicks sand in the face of detached hipster irony. Then she kind of shouts spoken word at it. And maybe takes off her shoes and screams. They were a really energizing way to start the day. Afterwards, Juliette and the Licks signed some albums, and our own Iris got to meet Juliette Lewis up close and personal, in all her freakish glory. I'll let Iris fill you in on how that encounter went.

Waiting to get Iris' album signed and extracting our husbands from the Playstation tent took up some time, so the next show we saw was Amy Winehouse, of whom I'm a huge fan. Back to Black is a solid, rich-sounding album--at times heartbreaking, at times mischievously witty, but infused with a grown-up sexiness. Her voice is reminiscent of '60s girl groups and Shirley Bassey, and she can make a morning commute feel pretty swank. Her "I don't give a fuck" attitude with regard to her notorious boozing and brawling makes for interesting gossip reading, but I'm thinking it's bound to be affecting her performance. On Sunday, she appeared to be half asleep. There were a couple of standout songs, such as "Me and Mr. Jones" and maybe "Tears Dry On Their Own." But she just kind of mumbled the rest of the set and displayed no passion whatsoever. She had a haunted look during "Rehab," and I just wonder if it's getting to the point where it's not fun for her any more. We pondered whether she was just overheated in the August sun, hungover or whether she hadn't eaten in three days, or a combination of all of the above. I really do admire her as an artist and would rather see her enjoying herself onstage than wasting away. Her songs are great, but it was a disappointing set.

After an air conditioning break in the AT&T Digital Oasis (still waiting for my product placement check), we went to see Iggy and the Stooges, which was absolutely the highlight of the weekend, in my opinion. Iggy was long-haired and shirtless and still feral after all of these years. Jumping around, climbing up on the amps, getting on all fours and humping the air (he could dislocate a hip at his age), Iggy and the Stooges played a blazing set that included favorites such as "1969," "I Wanna Be Your Dog" (shouldn't that be my theme song?) and "TV Eye." I was hoping to hear some "Nightclubbing" or "Lust for Life" or "The Passenger," but Iggy wasn't giving it up for Trainspotting fans. That's okay, though, because midway through his set, Iggy invited just about everyone in the near vicinity up on stage, and many many drunk fans took him up on the offer. Delightful chaos ensued. Security was overwhelmed, concert organizers had to be hyperventilating, and Iggy tried to coax people off the stage after the song saying, "Okay, everyone calm down...calm down...be cool, everyone, or things might get weird." They had to shut things down for a few minutes until they fired up again. The spirit of punk rock was alive that hour--not the safe, corporate-sponsored, family-friendly version of punk rock, but rather "Is the stage going to collapse and are people going to riot over there?" punk rock. A must-see set.

During dinner, we got to listen to a bit of the Wailers and witnessed a hilariously thick cloud of smoke rising above the crowd. Pot was EVERYWHERE this weekend, and I'm not a big fan of the smell. I'm not a pot-smoker myself and have never even tried it, but normally I'm very "live and let live" where that's concerned. If college kids and adults want to smoke up, fine. I've spent enough time in smoke-filled dorm rooms with my friends. But I hope I don't sound like a prude when I say that things were a teensy bit out of hand. My friends said they saw people smoking pot near the kids' stage, where three-year-olds were running around. I personally witnessed some kid who absolutely could not have been older than 11 smoking up...I mean, that's just ridiculous. That kid was holding the bag for the slightly older group he was with (no older than 16). All I know is, he's got the worst older sibling on the planet. As they said on South Park, "There's a time and place for everything, and it's called college." Or at least high school? Jesus Christ, I don't think that's asking too much. Anyway, I kind of wished there was just a bit more of a police presence to discourage that kind of thing. Not to sound like some kind of fascist, but people obviously can't keep it cool on their own. I mean, the kids' stage???

Prudery over. On to Modest Mouse! Unfortunately, due to the outdoor venue, we didn't get the shipwreck stage production, but I've never heard them sound better. They played quite a bit from Good News for People Who Love Bad News and We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. "Float On," "Bury Me With It," "Bukowski," "Black Cadillacs," "Dashboard," "Fire It Up," "Missed the Boat" and "We Got Everything"--those were the ones I remember off the top of my head, and they all sounded great. Johnny Marr is obviously a great addition to the lineup. The only problem was that I was kind of distracted by the pot-smoking 10-year-old and his stupid drunk 15-year-old friends and some floozie in a yellow sundress who was barfing on the lawn. Ugh, I hate the youth.

I didn't get to see a lot of TV on the Radio because they were playing on the complete opposite side of the park, and they only played a 45-minute set, but I can see why Trent Reznor picked them as an opening band. I'm also not terribly familiar with them, so I can't give you song titles, but I really enjoyed their energy. I'll let Iris review them if she happened to see more of their set.

Finally...thank God, for I was so tired at this point, and now I'm tired out again just writing all this out...Pearl Jam! I really enjoyed this set a lot more than I thought I was going to. I wasn't a huge Pearl Jam fan back in the day because my feeling on Pearl Jam has always been this--I love their fast songs, but their slow songs are dirge-like and boring, and I hate them. Fortunately, this set was fast-paced and filled with everyone's greatest hits. My favorites from this set included "Worldwide Suicide," "Do the Evolution," "Alive," and "Evenflow." Eddie Vedder seemed to really enjoy himself on stage, praising other bands that played in the festival and remembering his days of riding the El in his Evanston childhood and listening to Patti Smith and Iggy Pop. There was a fun moment when he cited a group at Lollapalooza who were distributing information about BP Amoco's proposal to dispose of new waste in Lake Michigan. So Eddie wrote an amusing and catchy little ditty for us to remember not to frequent BP, entitled "Don't Go BP Amoco." Unfortunately, there was no "Jeremy" or "Black," which would be my favorite PJ songs. We were expecting those two as the final encore, but Eddie instead gave us a well-intentioned but excruciatingly boring and preachy antiwar folk song and a lively "Keep On Rocking in the Free World" to end the show. A small number of people were allowed up on stage, as a nod to Iggy Pop, but it wasn't nearly as much of a free-for-all. Oh, and bonus! We also got to watch a fireworks display! It looked like it was coming from Soldier Field, so I don't even think it was related to Lollapalooza. Anyway, it was a great way to end the fun, but exhausting, weekend.

I'm already looking forward to Lolla '08, and although it is an extremely well-run and organized festival, I do have some recommendations for the future.

1) Distribute the acts a little better. Sunday was jam-packed with excellent artists, whereas the only reason I even bothered showing up on Saturday was Interpol. There seems to be a *lot* of bland hipster filler; I could do without some of that, even if that means 90 bands performing instead of 130 or whatever.

2) I don't mean to hate on the kids, but I think more should be done to keep them from getting beer wristbands, and maybe if a kid who is obviously 12 years old does happen to get a beer wristband, maybe he/she shouldn't be served??? There's a reason why I don't want to be surrounded by drunk and high prepubescents...they are AMATEURS, and they wind up barfing on the lawn. Yuck.

3) Stock up on more nonalcoholic beverages. It's HOT and HUMID in Chicago in August, and we want to be hydrated. By the time Pearl Jam came on, the only type of beverage not sold out was beer, which sounds great, unless you're actually really thirsty and need *water*.

Any other suggestions, Ro and Iris???