Wow-za-palooza
by hiLary RAWK!
www.myspace.com/rawkmagazine
rawkmagazine@gmail.com
Daft Punk
It’s nearly the end of summer in Chicago—another lovely, warm, music-festival summer. I managed to hit most of the festivals this year, but I have to say one of my favorites was definitely Lollapalooza. And it went a little something like this:
The Plan
I decided early on that I was going to take full advantage of every amenity offered by the Lolla festival organizers. Not in a bad way, I just heard about a ton of great events outside of the festival as well as inside, and I thought with careful planning I could hit them all this year.
That being said, I made sure to take the day off of work on Friday so I could go by the Hard Rock on Michigan Ave to check out the Blender/CKin2U Lounge. I attended this event last year, and it was a completely different animal. Mostly, it was a quiet place with A/C, couches, and free drinks where we went to get a break from the heat that is Chicago summer. This year, it is transformed into a swanky, VIP area with vendor booths and reps taking artists and members of the media on individual tours to pick up free stuff and enjoy a catered buffet.
So I show up at the Hard Rock right when it opens—it’s around noon, my friend Surachai (The Deep Element) has come along to check out the place, and we walk in, are handed huge bags of CK products, there’s a guy doing free tattoos (yes, real ones), free drinks, food, a few couches with people playing Guitar Hero. Down the hall, Sirius and IMF have rooms set up for artist interviews. There’s another room where Red 7 Salon is doing free haircuts and makeup, Bustelo is giving out HUGE canisters with shirts and coffee, Skull Candy is giving out headphones, KY offers boxes of, well, you know … and the BEST part is that PF Fliers are giving out FREE shoes!!!!! I love shoes. But we have to run to the festival, so Surachai and I just take our CK swag and head out …
The Festival
The highlights of Lolla for me were definitely: LCD Soundsystem, Daft Punk (!!!!!), Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, and Muse.
LCD put on a decent show. I’m not sure if they were hot and tired or if it was just me, but I feel like their live show did not live up to the album, which is disappointing since I pretty much had their CD stuck in my player for 3 or 4 months straight. They sounded great, their set was tight, and they were on point, and all of that, but I guess it just didn’t seem like they were having any fun, and for me that’s a really important element of a live show.
Daft Punk, however, was a completely different experience. The sun had set, there were thousands of super pumped, diverse fans all crowded together, waiting in anticipation, and when they came out in their robot suits on top of the lighted pyramid, the entire field vibrated with energy. It didn’t matter that I was tired, and hot, and dirty. It didn’t matter that the sweaty hippie next to me had removed his shirt and was dancing so crazily I kept having to wipe HIS sweat from MY arm. It didn’t matter, because it was Daft - freaking - Punk, and they brought it.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs were great. Karen-O’s spandex outfit was killer, her voice sounded perfect, and she and the rest of her band were rawkin’. My favorite part was when they sang “Gold Lion” – definitely my favorite song of theirs.
Muse’s show started with words lighting up quickly across the wall behind the stage on a contraption that looked a lot like a Lite-Brite. It was a quote by JFK about the state or our country in the 60s—a tribute to front man Matt Bellamy’s supposed interest in conspiracy theory.
The quote ended. There was a moment of silent anticipation. And the members of Muse bombed the stage and without a word or a look they started playing all at once in a synchronized panic. Matt swung and strangled his guitar like he was in the middle of a dramatic love fight as the epileptic light show, visuals, and smoke added to their intensity. The guy standing next to me in the photo pit told me they had their clear, plexi-glass piano custom made, as well as building in custom effects to their guitars.
I Googled it. It’s true. Matt had Manson (a guitar company) build him a custom guitar and agree not to remake it for anyone else. I am not a purist by any means, so I think that’s kinda’ neat and pretty creative to use technology to create sounds that are completely original.
When I ran into Cameron McGill later on that night, he said Muse was, “The best live show I’ve ever seen,” which is probably one of the biggest compliments a musician can bestow upon another musician. I have to agree, they made it to my top 5 favorite live shows, along with Radiohead at Bonnaroo and Wolf Parade at CMJ.
The Conclusion
So that was Lolla—a giant whirlwind of celebrity and dirt and heat. And I can’t wait for next year to come so we can do it all again.
LINKS
http://www.themusiclounge.net/
http://lollapalooza.com/
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