Well, my ears aren’t bleeding too bad…
Bizack from a short weekend in Chicago, where a Saturday fight between my friend Rick and his woman nearly tarnished the one-day Sunday Lollapalooza fun day that had not yet been had. Fortunately, I had a good time with my friend Rachael, with whom I attended Lollapalooza, and who let me find refuge at her crib a night earlier than planned when Rick’s woman transformed into an overreactionary brooding she-beast (and threatened that I’d have to sleep in my truck). That story later, but right now, onto the Part 1 of the fun (this will be a MASSIVE post, but I’m breaking it into two because it’d be even more ridiculous if I didn’t)…
Who I saw:
Kid Sister
The Whigs
Brazilian Girls
Chromeo
Frankie Chan (DJ Set)
Flogging Molly
Gnarls Barkley
Mark Ronson
Kanye West
To check out a musical sampler of the awesomeness I got out of my one day, Sunday, at Lollapalooza, click here (parental advisory!).
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My homegirl Rachael and I got there later than intended. We were trying to get there for a band she wanted to see at 11:30 a.m., but didn’t get there until somewhere around 12:15-ish or so.
Rachael and I, for the most part, have nearly opposite musical tastes. Walking up to Grant Park, all I could hear was loud dance music thumps, which was perfectly fine with me because — aside from rap and hip hop — I came up on dance music as a kid. She, on the other hand, leans more toward the rock side of things. I’ve come to like some rock over time, but I still prefer funk, electronic, and hip hop.
We agreed on some times we’d meet up, but aside from those, we pretty much stayed at opposite ends of the park so she could rock out and I could get my dance on at the rap, funk, and electronic stages.
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Kid Sister: Upon entry, I made my way over to the thumping. It turned out to be Kid Sister, who I’d never heard of before, let alone heard. Highly entertaining. And between songs she was funny, too.
At one point, she asked the crowd if they’d seen Rage Against The Machine the previous night (Rachael went to the whole weekend and said their set was crazy; she said it almost got shut down due to serious moshing; this explains it, too). Kid Sis amusingly recalled how ODB got arrested by the local police at the first concert she ever went to: a dual Rage and Wu Tang Clan concert at the New World Music Theater (now Tweeter Center) outside Chicago. (Rage and Wu Tang doing a show together? That’s something I wish I coulda seen).
The crowd was into it and dancing. Kid Sister’s actual dancers were entertaining but sucked at dancing; I’m not sure it was their fault, though. Kid Sister had the first group of them dressed up like some sort of TeIetubbies meets Mad Max characters. They were wearing these oversized shoulder pads that had spikes sticking out, but the dancers were painted bright colors. The next group of dancers wore very little and were painted completely bronze (Kid Sister: “We picked up these b****es down at Old Navy!”). The final dancers weren’t really dancers; they were just some girls sitting in chairs pretending to get their nails done while KS did “Pro Nails,” which is apparently a hit at some level and also apparently has Kanye West featured on it (he didn’t perform the song with her).
A song about getting your nails done? Umm… a’ight. Do your thing. I couldn’t hate on it, though; I may have stopped dancing, but it got me cracking up.
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The Whigs: This is one of the groups Rachael and I met up to check out. I caught a couple more songs of theirs than she did, since what she had previously seen was across the park from where The Whigs were playing, which was right near where Kid Sister had just played.
I haven’t listened to too much rock in a while, and I don’t know what these guys sound like on CD, but live they were really good. I was impressed, anyway… whatever that means. The thing that really struck me was how young they all looked. Rachael said they were all under 21-years-old. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I’d believe it.
It was still early afternoon when they played, so the sun was beating down. At one point, the singer asked how many people were drinking water. A bunch of people cheered. Then he asked how many people were drinking beer. A bunch more people cheered. Completely drenched in sweat, he said water was the way to go. I wonder how much that had to do with his (under)age and/or just the fact that he was playing full-throttle outside facing the sun at a hot and humid music fest?
Another interesting note about their weekend that I read later: they played a Lollapalooza afterparty show somewhere in Chicago on Friday night, flew to Philadelphia to do a show on Saturday, and came back to Chicago to do their Sunday Lolla set. I can’t do anything but respect that, especially based on how much energy they were putting into playing on Sunday.
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Brazilian Girls: This was probably my favorite performance of the day. It was the perfect storm of awesomeness: my energy level for the entire day was peaking when they were on, I’d taken in a couple peformances already so the day wasn’t too new but wasn’t too played out, they were the first group of the day I actually knew, I had just grabbed a small bite to eat after dipping out on The Whigs a song or two early, and I was really close to the stage for their set (within 40 or so feet of the stage… I could see the definition in the lead singer’s leg muscles, among other things…).
All I know is there were times it felt like my heart had shut down and the songs’ beats were now controlling my pulse while the basslines rattled throughout my body cavity. Especially on the song “Jique” (my favorite song of the day… check out the playlist sample I linked above).
And the lead singer? Frickin’ awesome. Totally sleazy. I’m not really into sleaze, but she pulled it off brilliantly. Not her dress, but her vibe. It was kinda like a cross between cougar woman in training and a school teacher mothers don’t like their sons to have for class and leave their husbands home for the parent-teacher conferences. I don’t know how awful that sounds, and it probably does, but like I said, it worked for her in the set. And I don’t even know if that makes sense, but it was great.
One of the more amusing parts of this performance was some girl who was dancing next to me with some of her friends. Every so often, she’d pull out this bowl she was trying to take hits from while continuing to dance vigorously. Most other people there smoking weed I saw seemed to have either laced their cigarettes or had rolled joints. So the bowl was different, but trying to keep up dancing like she was while hitting it was pretty entertaining to watch…
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Chromeo: One of the two groups I was there to see. Admittedly, I don’t know anything but two songs from their newer CD (“Tenderoni” and “Bonafied Lovin’”), but I loved their first disc, so after their intro when they kicked right into “Me and My Man,” I was back in dance party mode. I wasn’t as close as I was for Brazilian Girls, but after (probably) pissing people off to squeeze my way in (hey, I couldn’t leave Brazilian Girls early… sorry), I got myself centered right up and was in front of the handicapped section, which wasn’t too far away.
But then, they kept cranking out all my favorites. I swear they played all my favorite songs of theirs – namely Needy Girl and You’re So Gangsta, and even the two I knew from the new CD — within the first half hour of their hour-long set. It was great, but I wish the songs could’ve been spaced out. Just a personal preference; the rest of the set was still great.
Dave 1 (the guitarist/lead singer) was doing a whole bunch of crowd participation stuff. Definitely more interactive than everything else I saw (minus Kanye West cutting out his music and vocals so he could self-indulgently listen to everyone sing his songs… more on that later). Dave 1 also cracked on P-Thugg for going shirtless for the set. On the screen to the side of the stage, there was a shot or two of P-Thugg playing the keyboard — the leg stands for their keyboards are essentially mannequin legs — and for a split second almost looked as though he wasn’t wearing anything. Not a pretty sight. But it was entertaining nonetheless, and that’s really all that mattered. Oh, and I did enjoy P-Thugg’s Montreal Expos hat. Granted, the Expos have been the Washington Nationals for a couple years now, but the duo is from Montreal.
Chromeo did the fake ending thing, where they walked off, but came back right away. They wrapped up on “100 Percent,” which Dave 1 said was one of his favorite songs. He encouraged couples in the crowd to get their PDA on, but from where I was I didn’t see anything more than just continued dancing until they finished.
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Chromeo is rad. They have played in Victoria (where I’m from) a couple times and love it every time.
Brazilian Girls are another favourite.