2007 Festival Wrap-Up Part 3 (Lollapalooza)

January 1st, 2008 by Rachelandthecity

Unless you have been living on Mars, you are probably familiar with Lollapalooza. However, for those with tentacles, I will give you a super short explanation. Basically, Lollapalooza (which means “remarkable or wonderful person or thing” or is a giant Lollipop) was started Perry Farewell decided to bring Henry Rollins, Siouxie and the Banshees, Ice T, Nine Inch Nails and a bunch of other freaks (Jim Rose Circus Side Show) along for the Jane’s Addiction farewell tour. He made so much money that he decided to do it again the next year and then the next, and the festival kept growing and growing until one day Perry decided that he could make even more money by selling his ownership to corporate investors. Then in year five the idiots who were now in charge decided it would be a cool idea to have Metallica headline because they thought that alternative music and metal were interchangeable. These poor souls soon found out that this was a fallacy when no one came. Of course, that’s just my version. Other people say the festival died because it turned into a giant flea market.

Anyway, the festival was revamped a few years ago and was brought out of retirement in 2003. But this time it didn’t make much money and the 2004 festival ended up being canceled. The Cure was set to headline as I recall, but again, nobody bought tickets. Hey, I would have gone - but the headliner might have been a little retro for the kids. But then again, The Cure did the Curiosa Festival with Interpol, The Rapture and Mogwai and that seemed to work, but I digress. Anyway, someone came up with a new idea - instead of having the festival travel from city to city, Lollapalooza would set up a three day event in Chicago in 2005 and have the people come to it. And they did.

2007 was my second time to attend the show. While it was a great time as usual, I was more in awe in 2006. I thought they pulled off the whole thing without a hitch. It is a large festival with 6 stages set up in Grant Park located in the middle of downtown. And the treks between stages were long and tiring, but other than that it was really awesome. The toilets were clean, the food lines were short and efficient, there were plenty of places to sit in the shade and rest, there were lots of interesting things to do in addition to checking out the stellar line-up. There were places to check your email or charge your phone, there were autograph stations to meet the musicians, there was art by locals to check out, Second City did a few performances and lots more.

Anyway, I guess I should mention the music! Unfortunately, this year I had a lot of technical difficulties and was not able to get online much in the press area and missed a lot of stuff trying to solve those issues. I was asked to be one of the official bloggers again, but my coverage was much better the year before. The bands I did get to see were Ted Leo (always awesome), some of Spoon ( I don’t get it), Silversun Pickups (badass bass player), Illinois (fell in love), Dax Riggs (intense!), Colour Revolt ( surprisingly great!), Polyphonic Spree (and again at the Hard Rock aferparty!), and my faves of the fest Snow Patrol during the rain! The main bummer was last year they hooked up the bloggers with photo passes so we got to watch three songs in the pit. This year they did not allow us to have them, so unless you camped out in front of the stage, which I did not have the time to do, I watched most of the performances behind about 10,000 people. Which kind of blew…

Don’t get me wrong, I still had a great time and I it was well worth the 8 hour drive. Overall, I would recommend it as a cool vacation for anyone that digs music. I am definitely planning to go back in 2008. Actually, you don’t even have to be a die-hard music fan to have enjoy it, the people watching is grade A!

Check out my interviews with Ted Leo, Matt Jordan, Tim Delaughter, Sean Kirkpatrick, and Chris Archibald, live from Chicago!

The Bloggeratti - Lollapalooza Edition

Polyphonic Spree