It’s been a few years since I’ve stopped by Lollapalooza as distance and compounding prices have proved a more woeful deterrent than I’d expected, but this year, armed with my press pass, I’ve been mulling over all my fond memories of festivals past to get myself excited again. To get everyone else out there equally riled up, here’s a short list of the five primary reasons I’m getting antsy all over again for the Midwest’s biggest and showiest music festival.
1. The economics of it all
Maybe this isn’t the best point to start off on, considering Lollapalooza’s been sold out for months now and the only available tickets are going for grossly inflated rates online, but even with the markup it’s still hard to undersell how good of a deal a single day of Lollapalooza is. Sure, you’re going to see stunted festival length sets (the most egregious of which being New Order’s bizarre and frustrating 70 minute time slot) and you’re going to have to put up with increasingly expensive food and drink, but considering how much some of these “big tent” bands charge for their stadium shows it’s hard not salivate over the deal. The Killers’ shows cost $45 to $70, the Postal Service go for $50, Kendrick Lamar’s after show is $30—you sort of get the point. Lollapalooza might be pricey, but it’s hard to find a better bargain for seeing all your favorite bloated big time bands in one place.
2. People watching
Music festivals draw in a broad spectrum of people, and they’re generally people of passion. Coincidentally, people of passion often tend to have interesting fashion senses. I always like to dedicate a bit of time every day I’m at an event like Lollapalooza to sit down, maybe with a food or drink, and just soak up the ridiculousness of it all. Never in a mean sense (always do you, dude) but more in a wide-eyed, newborn baby soaking-up-the-world sort of way. My favorite has always been the girl with the dyed green hair with a cigarette and handcuffs for earrings and wearing a necklace of bottle caps. Keep on rockin’ in the free world.
3. The size
This is something your average “cooler-than-thou” purist might lambast—any show in anything bigger than the dingy back room of a bar or the attic of that weird dude you know who’s really into black metal is a breeding ground for contempt and cynicism. But you know what? The size of a festival like Lollapalooza is equal part blessing and curse. For every time you’re forced to elbow your way past a bunch of drunk weirdos and puking high school students, there’s a moment where all 50,000 plus people all around you are completely in synch, singing along to your favorite song by your favorite band. It’s happened to me on a few occasions (2007 with Muse, and again in 2008 when a slightly older and more grumpy me saw Radiohead) and there isn’t a better feeling in the world. This year in particular, The Postal Service and Mumford & Sons promise the most hair-raising, heart melting sing-alongs you’ll hear all summer.
4. The lesser known acts
I know I recently complained in my Pitchfork Music Festival pre-coverage of “Lollapalooza’s predictably burnt out alternative/’hippest of the mainstream’ platter of headliners,” so imagine my surprise when I started to plan out my itinerary and found that I was unfamiliar with at least half of the acts on any given day. It wasn’t even a “oh, I’ve never listened to these guys before;” I’d never even heard of most of the bands, despite most of them getting a fairly beefy block of time to convert all the unbelievers out there. I’m looking forward to spending the early hours of all three days cruising around the festival and scoping out all the small-timers—here’s to hoping I leave with a few new obsessions.
5. Queens of the Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails
I’m not going to beat around the bush here; I’m almost exclusively going to Lollapalooza to see the ferocious double whammy of Queens of the Stone Age and Nine Inch Nails. I shouldn’t have to justify seeing Queens (if you haven’t heard, they’re only the single best rock band of the last 15 years) but Trent Reznor and his ragtag cohorts get a undeservedly bad rep for being a “teenage” band. I can definitely follow the logic—Reznor’s lyrics almost always follow a “hate/late/fate/other dramatic word that ends in –ate” rhyme structure and rant and rave in base about how the world doesn’t understand him and other high school concerns—but with Reznor’s obsession with industrial, krautrock, ambient soundscapes and, yes, even punk, it’s hard to deny his songs their musical muscle.
Everyone’s going to cite The Downward Spiral as Nine Inch Nails’ apex, but if that doesn’t cut it for you there’s always The Fragile. Admittedly it’s a bit bloated (show me a double album that isn’t) but its two discs have enough snarling rock, whimpering ballads and bizarro sonic experiments to keep even the most cynical pop-haters satiated. Live, the band is even more ferocious and backed by one of the consistently most wow-inducing light shows around, and nowhere is that kind of showmanship more appreciated than at Lollapalooza.
