Episode 1- They'll Call Me Freedom

And so it begins again. This summer has held festivals and concerts in almost all major areas of the United States (with San Francisco to follow in the next few weeks), and like Bonnaroo before it, Lollapalooza packs a major punch. With quite possibly the biggest line-up of any major festival (possibly excepting last years Coachella masterstroke), Lolla certainly had enough punch to pack a big raucous sound into coastal Grant Park in Chicago.

And, judging from the first day, the musical punches Lolla pack are hitting. On every cylinder possible.

Being a virgin to the Chi's biggest party, I figured I would wake up around 10:30 for a festivals who's first act started at 11:30. Wrong decision. By the time me and my crew (2 sisters, 2 cousins) had arrived at the gloriously eponymous main entrance to the festival, the line of hippies, hipsters, bros, and band geeks had stretched past the park itself. So after, begrudgingly, waiting for what could only feel like hours (prolly in the grand scheme of things about 30 minutes), we arrive inside Grant Park, now outfitted for maximum rockability (or, at least, 75% rockability).

Rushing over to the far bigger than I thought Playstation 3 Stage, I managed to catch all but the first half of the first song of Somalian-via-Montreal hip-hopper K'Naan. Having seen K'naan in an optimal venue (a small, nearly sit-down tent in the evening of the first night of Bonnaroo), I was slightly pessimistic about seeing the Afro-centric rapper on a bigger stage. After all, the crew he brought to the 'Roo consisted of a carry-drum, an acoustic guitar player, and a back-up man who periodically would make a few clicks on a seldom used Mac. I was dead wrong. K'Naan delivered an energetic and vivacious set worthy of his uplifting and moving message. Keying in on staples like "In the Beginning," "Smile," and "Until the Lion Learns to Speak," K'naan brought a tinge of sass and a ton of well-placed bravado to an audience comprised largely of first-time K'Naan listeners. But for the experienced crew (of which I am proud to be one) new songs "Waving Flag" and "Take a Minute" sparked powerful intrigue into his next release. The set was not without its stumbling blocks though; K'Naan apparently was working on a pretty rough night before, as he didn't hit his stride until around halfway through the set. And, to make matters worse, festival admins (the fucking MAN... ugh) shut K'Naan's cacophonous closer "Soobax" off around 2/3 of the way through. But, bumps aside, K'Naan woke up the willing crowd with a powerfully strong opening set to Lollapalooza. Grade: A-

Following K'Naan's wake-up call, I decided to take my crew (which had now bulged to include our own Charlie, Danny, and Jon) on an opening romp through the grounds. Beautiful in all aspects, and certainly more compact than Bonnaroo, Lolla packed itself up into Concision, and it never looked better (just ask the attendees of the beautifully secluded Kidz stage... or performers that day The Terrible Two's, Rogue Wave, or the legendary Jeff Tweedy).

Walking over the street-located Citi Stage, I was pleased to still get a fairly easily accessible spot to see one of my favorite bands, Manchester Orchestra. I hadn't seen the full bands line-up in almost 2 years, and letting go of my own self-centeredness for a moment, MO must have had some fairly emotional feelings about this performance (their first big show was Lolla two years ago). Coming on directly at 1pm, MO premiered what can only be described as their Nirvana-stage material for 4 of the first 5 tracks of their 10 song set. Heavy handed and riff-laden, the first two unnamed tracks recalled tour-mates Colour Revolt and Brand New, and their certainly big-style emo fire of "Shake it Out" will carry their new album, due in early '09, as far as the much lauded I'm Like a Virgin Losing a Child. The rest of the set included satisfying crowd pleasers such as "Golden Ticket" and "Now That You're Home," as well as the obligatory closer "Where Have You Been." However, ala friends Brand New, MO seemed slightly tired of their old material, rushing through songs as if they were a past lover dismissed with a flick of the wrist. Still convincing, and still pretty great, it will be nice to see Andy Hull and co. the next time around, premiering their full new album. Grade: B

From here the day gets slightly rusty. Wandering through the stages, me and my fluctuating crew (we have a lot of adjectives) saw the beginnings of Duffy (who is far more attractive than her fellow brit-diva, Amy Winehouse; but without the drugs, it's just not that interesting), the Enemy UK (who outshone a similar Brit band later in the day), Yeasayer (who take a lot of material from Top Gun soundtrack guitar solo's), and Louis XIV (who sound infinitely better than their middling album might suggest). All convincing acts, to be sure, but I had bigger fish to fry; namely, my long-awaited date with the Lolla main stage, and Thom Yorke.

But in my way stood 6 (6!) hours of standing and listening to bands that, while still pretty damn good, would almost certainly pale in comparison to Radiohead. But, onward and upward. First on the list was Gogol Bordello, the self-proclaimed gypsy-punk 'anthropologists,' responsible for the popularization of Turkey (ok, so I exaggerate...). In any case, their popularity isn't necessarily misplaced. With a live show as raucous, insane, and borderline religious as theirs, it's hard to not understand exactly why Gogol Bordello are so damn cool. Acoustic guitar, accordion, electric fiddle, bass, and two different drummers (not to mention two what can only be described as gypsy-punk... dancers... playing cymbals and a tympany drum) filled out the already insane line-up (peep videos of the fiddler's voice... wow). With a set that didn't linger and never slowed down, Gogol earned my live trust. Now those albums... well they're another story. Grade: B+

Next on the list was Bloc Party, a band known for their heavy-cut British guitars, odd blog cred, and the fact that their lead singer is black. The crowd, already satiated with the idea of seeing Thom Yorke and his not-so-merry band, grew closer (literally) at almost stressful levels (or, if you need specifics, Brand New levels). But in the interim, the British edge rockers came in to eager, if a bit weary, fans. Piling on a healthy dose of the hits like "Helicopter," "This Modern Love," and inexplicably hip-hoppy "Mercury." Strangely remiss from their setlist was "I Still Remember," one of the foursome's biggest hits. The group packed a bit of a punch, but nothing close to the frenetic energy of Gogol Bordello, or even the barre-chord heavy The Enemy UK. A decent set, to be sure, but one that was short on patience and even a little bit shorter on excellence. Grade: C.

But you all know the main act: Radiohead. Coming on at promptly 8:00 pm, Yorke, Johnny and Colin Greenwood, drummer Phil Selway, and guitarist Ed O'Brien opened cleverly and powerfully with "15 Step." The magical thing about Radiohead's performance was their setup. It is rare that a band and setup match in such perfect harmony that it seems the band is at one with the machines around them. Radiohead is the only example of this I have ever encountered; wandering blissfully and dangerously through a maze of colors displayed on gigantic video boards behind, and ultra-cool cones of light all-around, Radiohead seemed at home, finally, among the electronics they had gotten so accustomed to using in their paranoia phase. Strangely enough, however, songs from the excellent Amnesiac were completely absent; if there was one disheartening loss about the set, it was the absence of Radiohead staple "Pyramid Song."

But the rest of the songs, borrowing heavily from Kid A and OK Computer, as well as all tracks from the laudable In Rainbows, flowed smoothly and nearly effortlessly across a time-span of two hours, and two encores. There were slight pacing problems, as between each song the cones had to be turned off and turned on a different color scheme, which left a pretty choppy flow, in turns of the flowing beauty of Radiohead's normal performances. But this did not deter standouts like the consistently magical "Paranoid Android," or the surprisingly moving Hail to the Thief deep cut "The Gloaming." Wishfully missing out on what I was hoping would be a virtuoso performance of the acoustic ballad "True Love Waits," my heart was sufficiently filled by a grandiose and powerfully lit rendition of the tear-jerker "Fake Plastic Trees," accentuated by impromptu fireworks behind Soldier Field.

In a word, the two-hour set was... remarkable. Yorke's sense of humor showed its rare side ("fuck yea... I guess this isn't a dream"), and heightened the powerfully resonant thing about Radiohead. The idea of dreaming is that we can create for ourselves exactly whatever we want to happen with our individual lives. However, as anyone who has had dreams might know, we rarely feel in control of our own dreams (I'd be happy to tell you about my recent Emmanuel Kant experience). So, in essence, what we saw from Radiohead was a dream. Sure, it was wrought with some oversights (god I wanted "True Love Waits"), but that is the nature of dreaming; regardless of the fact that we don't always get what we want, dreams are usually a satisfying blend of reality and existential prophecy. And while Radiohead have (somewhat) abandoned their "get in the bunker the machines are coming" phase, they still smack of heavily-intelligent-indie-prophecy. And dammit, for being a Radiohead live virgin, I was happy to hear the prophecies from the Oracle's mouth. Grade: A

After trudging back the grueling 4 blocks (suck it Charlie!) to my Hotel with the rest of the some 50,000 concert goers, I find myself typing this. And I guess that's where Day 1 ends: at 2:15 am of Day 2. God it feels good to contradict myself.

That 50$ a night for the hotel room that you're putting down seems awful nice right about now.

I'll be doing that next year!

Too bad about no Pyramid Song. I thought that was a staple too. I don't remember any setlists without it recently. Those fireworks were probably beyond magical. Was there a Cubs game?

Louis is way better live than on the album, but we were really hungry then and I wanted to see a little bit of Duffy since I'm less likely to get a chance to see her again and for as low a ticket price as Louis still offers. She was delightful though. Not quite as excellent as Lily Allen's '07 set at Roo, but she had the pipes and was very peppy.

I had a little more fun at Bloc Party (maybe because Silent Alarm was tied as my #1 of '05 and A Weekend In The City was one of my top albums of '07) than you and Charlie did, but the main problem's were the sound and his vocals not catching well all the time. I think their drummer is excellent though and they did give it their best. They got better as their set went on with the early Silent Alarm likes of "Positive Tension", "Like Eating Glass", and "Helicopter" (plus my favorite by them, "This Modern Love"), but I wish they did "Flux" instead of "Mercury" and "Pioneers" is sooo good live. I love "Uniform" too and think it comes off really well live, but maybe not so much in the heat for the first part. I actually haven't seen Bloc Party have "I Still Remember" on a setlist in a long time. I'm not sure why they don't play it, but it has to be personal reasons or maybe it doesn't sound great live. I'd like to know though.

Well done Ty. Everyone had it awesome time it seems like.

Just browsing over at AP, the following quote is why I'd rather read anything from anyone here than over there...... but why I can't stop checking over there every once in awhile to read a trainwreck from a poster or reviewer............

The next act we saw was Duffy. She was pretty lame, and was basically a wanna-be Miley Cyrus. She was pretty shifty/stupid live. Speaking of which, after Duffy played, we saw Gogol Bordello. They basically reminded me of why their a ripoff of Flogging Molly. I wanted to beat the two Asians, the leadsinger looked like a kid toucher circus freak, the violinist looked like the retarded cousin of Steve Zissu, the guy playing the bongos was like a lion on speed, and to top it all off they had a black dude wearing a white hat that looked like a mop. P.T. Barnum would truly have been proud..

ROFL. Was that from one of their legit reviewers? or just some one retarded on the boards?

Haha, that person can't be serious. Maybe it was a spoof festival review or something.

wow, that's pretty ignorant. They basically contradicted themselves when they said Gogol was some rip-off of Flogging Molly (which is UTTERLY ridiculous), and then described all the ways in which Gogol Bordello was an individual and unique band.

god in heaven, people like that annoy me. I can respect whatever she said about duffy, even if it is just as ignorant. but goddamn, if you're going to diss, don't contradict yourself.

Originally Posted by Cynthesizer

Just browsing over at AP, the following quote is why I'd rather read anything from anyone here than over there...... but why I can't stop checking over there every once in awhile to read a trainwreck from a poster or reviewer............

can you give me a link to the report... I'd love to read the rest haha.