Posted by Nick Meador on Aug 13, 2009 in Concerts, News
Somehow I mustered the energy to write a blog post on Friday night when I got home from Grant Park. I have no idea how. That was the rainiest day I’ve walked around in since I can remember. My clothes were soaked, my skin was wrinkled, and my spirits were dampened. I fell asleep immediately after posting here, only to wake up feeling groggy and unrested. But there’s no room for “unrested” in this marathon weekend. I had heard Lollapalooza called a marathon before, and I had experienced days over 90 degrees at both Lolla and Pitchfork Music Festival — but whoa, these two days were wickedly hot.
At this point I figure I’ll just continue with the rundown of ups and downs. Maybe I’ll have a more in-depth examination of the festival later on. I will also include the three videos I produced from 720p HD clips for your viewing pleasure.
HIGHLIGHTS
Day 2:
- It made me pretty happy to see Tool again. I left their set early to catch Bassnectar, but hearing them play songs like “Stinkfist” and “Forty-Six and Two” really made my night. They sounded crisp as hell. However, Tool also provided a disappointment (more on that below).
- I saw Bassnectar rip it at Movement Detroit 2009 (DEMF), but he really seemed to feed off the Lolla crowd. I know he’s got close ties to the jam community and the festival scene in general, but he’s also got an urban flavor to his mixes, and that fit really well in downtown Chicago. My favorite moment was when he played a swing tune (that one from The Mask) in honor of everyone’s grandparents. He said that it makes him think of when our grandparents (or great-grandparents) were all young and going crazy — just like all of us were at Lolla 2009!
Day 3:
- Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox apologized because he was tripping so hard on stage. He said he was glad that his mom wasn’t there to see it, but he was sorry that one of his bandmate’s mothers was there. They did a decent job. I would have enjoyed hearing more from the Weird Era Cont’d half of Microcastle, and I’d probably always enjoy an Atlas Sound show more.
Overall:
- Perry’s Stage was absolutely incredible. The way it was situated was such an improvement on the 2008 arch/tent thingy. This was more similar to the Mindfield Stage of yesteryear, but they made it look like the Gravitron! I swear it looked like a space ship with crazy lights and banners all over it. And the best part was the circular set-up, so people were wrapped around 80 percent of the stage. What an amazing outdoor club! I’m sorry Rothbury, but you need to up the ante at Tripolee in 2010!
- Despite all the rain, heat, humidity, exhaustion, overcrowding, trekking, missed sets, diverse artists, and all other characteristics that make Lollapalooza a test of individual tenacity, all people I encountered were extremely chill. I didn’t see any fights, nor did I even hear bad sentiments or four language directed between guests. Everyone was basically too giddy and excited to get down on each other.
- I don’t remember what day it was, but I saw a guy wearing a shirt that read, “Be the trouble you want to see in the world.” I thought it was hilarious, given that I spend so much time yapping about how the individual has to change in order for the world to change. Obviously most people misuse that individual power and leave the world worse off than they found it.
DISAPPOINTMENTS
Day 2:
- They stopped admitting people through the new northwest entrance at Columbus and Monroe. This sucked because, if your first show is on the north end, and you’re coming from the north, it can save you a cross-park walk. Given that each day included 3-5 of those walks, cutting off one (or even a half of one) would help. Walking in on Sunday, I asked one of the info people why they closed this new entrance. He said it was “for security reasons.” I don’t know what that means, considering that their worst security problem was just south of Jackson Ave on both sides of the park. I saw multiple people jump the fence in that area, especially on the east side.
Day 3:
- I missed Neko Case. I know that’s what happens at these kind of festivals, especially when you’re so worried about getting heat stroke that you have to hide under the trees by the porta-potties and drink water from your Camelbak until you stop feeling clammy and disgusting.
- Tool actually started playing before Animal Collective finished their set! I know they may have run over by 3 or 4 minutes, but come on! Are you that arrogant? I know you could hear them playing! Don’t try to be like, “Oh, they told us to go on, so we did.” That’s bullshit. So Tool came out neutral in my book that night.
Overall:
- They still print and distribute a 127-page booklet for the festival!!! What a waste of paper! Just give me the single sheet with the three-day schedule, and make sure it’s on recycled paper with soy-based inks!
- Lollapalooza’s waste management this year was the worst I’ve ever seen. Each day I saw trash and recycling bins overflowing on the ground. I hardly saw any employees handling this, except a few in the softball field area on the south end of the park. Considering that Rothbury has someone posted at every waste station in the music area, separating between landfill, compost, and recycling, Lolla’s effort was pathetic.
- Perry’s Stage left little to complain about. The one thing I’d change is to situate it in a way that wouldn’t require so many fences around the bushes. This caused a lot of strange traffic jams in an area that is otherwise off the busy path. Many people got stuck on the walkway pavement, while the grassy area north of the stage was always sparsely populated. Hence, this grassy patch was where I stood every single time.
Now here are my videos from each day at Lolla 2009, but I recommend clicking YouTube to watch them over there. These are 720p HD and they look better at max size. Enjoy!
Posted by Nick Meador on Aug 8, 2009 in Concerts, News
That was a weird day…probably the weirdest I’ve ever experienced at Lollapalooza. It rained pretty much straight from 2-8pm. It’s odd to think now that it was only about six hours. It felt like six days. I never knew rain could be so exhausting. Lollapalooza made some improvements this year, but certain aspects were made worse. Here’s a quick wrap-up of Friday at Lolla 2009.
Highlights:
- DJ Mel: I wouldn’t have guessed that DJ Mel is from Austin, Texas, by all the Chicago house and Detroit techno he was messin’ with.
- Dark Wave Disco: This Chicago clan included remixes of MGMT, Empire of the Sun, and Cut Copy. They also demonstrated that simple interactive things like throwing free t-shirts to the crowd gets them really pumped!
- Fleet Foxes: I saw them at Pitchfork Music Festival 2008 and was pretty impressed. But here at Lolla they really exploded. They’re really filling the gap left by My Morning Jacket (after they went loco), but Fleet Foxes take up even more space. It could have also been that they followed two lackluster sets (Bon Iver and Ben Folds)…
- Thievery Corporation: I know they get treated like generic chill out music and everyone knows them by their inclusion in the Garden State soundtrack, but I really can’t bash these guys. Their sound is solid and powerful, and their energy really boosted my water-logged spirits. Of course, I couldn’t watch the whole set cuz it got really cheesy after a while.
Disappointments:
- Crystal Castles: I got there halfway through the set and I probably heard them play 2 or 3 songs. It didn’t seem as though they felt like performing, so they just puffed out a bunch of stage smoke and walked around. I had been looking forward to this for 16 months
- A-Trak: Judging by his recent mix albums, I thought he might be the most memorable set of the whole weekend. None of what he did really grabbed me. I felt bored.
- Simian Mobile Disco (DJ set) – SMD were boring too. They were a lot more techno-y in their DJ selections than I thought they would be. They did play Tiga’s new “Mind Dimension” and Aphex Twin’s “Windowlicker,” but otherwise I felt like they were testing the patience of a very supportive audience. There was just no payoff. I wanted to hear their music, not them playing other people’s music.
- People – As usual, Lollapalooza is populated by one quarter people who care about music, and three quarters people who care about huge events in Chicago.
- Weather – The temp was okay but the rain was really, really overwhelming. I had a huge poncho and I still felt like every inch of my skin was wrinkled from water. Compared to Rothbury, which ranged from 55 to 80 degrees and not a drop of rain the whole weekend, this sucks. Even when it’s sunny, it’s over 90 degrees (that’s coming on Sunday).
- Not enough porta-potties – Around 7 pm every potty in the park had a line of at least 6 people. I feel like they had a lot more facilities in past years.
- Walkways were pinched at certain key areas – Moving things around is great fun, but not when you create terrible bottlenecks in the paths used by people to get from one area to the next. I thought the new single entryway would make things easier since people could walk on both sides of Buckingham Fountain. And they added a small festival entrance on the northwest corner! But it was still harder to get around than ever before.
- Biergarten only had light beers – I could have really gone for a brown ale, porter, or stout after all that stomping through water. That would have replenished my worn-out body. Instead I had to get a Stella, which tasted like a bad version of Heineken. The Biergarten, which should feature gourmet or micro-brews, just had light shade beers.
Undecided:
- Perry’s stage – The location and size are much better this time around. It’s closer to the Mindfield feel from ‘06 and ‘07. However, it’s weird how the stage is a circle and people surround most of it. They should have put up a huge tent or something. The fences blocking the hedges are dumb. It portions off the crowd.
More coming tomorrow!
UPDATE: Here is a Flickr slideshow containing photos with the tags “lollapalooza 2009″ and “day 1″ — you’ll see some of mine in here!
Posted by Nick Meador on Aug 7, 2009 in Concerts, News
I’m in Chicago for Lollapalooza 2009! And guess what? We have 60% chance of thunderstorms all day long! Woo hoo! I attended the past three years, 2006-2008, but never had more than a few scattered showers. On top of that, we have rain forecasted tomorrow and high temps in the 90s for Sat and Sun (today will only be around 75). But what do you care about weather if you’re not there, right? The reason I’m posting is because Loopt has an interesting service called Loopt Journal that lets me post public announcements with my location, a note, and a photo. I’m going to try posting mobile updates to the Journal during this Lolla weekend. And you can follow in this easy widget!
Additionally you can follow my updates @musicedge and @ndmeador on Twitter. I’ll also have photos and 720p HD video clips when I get back, so stay tuned.
UPDATE 8/19/09: Loopt apparently doesn’t understand the concept of privacy. Even though I turned off my journal feed, my entries are still showing in the widget. Therefore, I’m not going to use the widget anymore. If I attend public events like Lollapalooza in the future, you’ll still see my updates on Twitter with individual Loopt posts. It’ll be that way until they improve their operation.
I’m getting behind in my posts. On Tuesday, April 21, Lollapalooza finally released their initial line-up for the 2009 festival. This is going down August 7-9 in Chicago’s Grant Park, and it’s the fifth time the festival has taken place in that spot. In the last post, I shared some rumors I had seen on Lolla’s Facebook page. Many of those did turn out to be true. The headliners are Depeche Mode, Tool, and the Killers.
As for the potential highlights from the last post, all of them are on the list except for Metric and Tenacious D. However, since this is the initial line-up, and they usually end up with about 130 bands, many more names will still be added. But even if this was the whole of it, I wouldn’t complain a bit. There are some surprising artist names on this list that really have my head spinning. On the main list: Crystal Castles! Deerhunter! Dan Deacon! Neko Case! Bon Iver!
Other great additions include Lykke Li (even if you think her voice is squeaky), STS9 (the only “jam band” inclusion in the festival — they were great at Lolla ‘07…and every other time they play), Ben Folds (I hope he plays stuff from Whatever and Ever Amen), and of Montreal (always a good festival addition). It just keeps going on and on: Friendly Fires, Gang Gang Dance, Santigold, and Chairlift. In fact, I just heard Chairlift yesterday for the first time. Seems like marketers are trying to group them with MGMT…I don’t know why though — MGMT tanked at Lolla ‘08.
I’m not done yet! Did you look at the Perry’s stage line-up?! Bassnectar, MSTRKRFT, Simian Mobile Disco (I’VE BEEN WAITING TO SEE THEM FOR ABOUT TWO YEARS NOW!), Deadmau5, and DJ sets by Hercules and Love Affair and Animal Collective. Now they just need to tweak the shape and positioning of Perry’s stage so that people aren’t standing in the street, exposed to three huge stages at the north end of the park, and all the noise pollution involved therein.
After drooling over this line-up, the only question I have is…why can’t Lolla display their artist line-up in a way that isn’t confusing or hard to read? At least they abandoned the odd scrolling method from ‘07 and ‘08. One cool feature: you can already add bands to your personalized schedule. Of course, that will probably be hard to maintain once they release the official day-by-day schedule around June.
I can’t wait for summer! Rothbury and Lollapalooza (and perhaps PMF too) are gonna rock. Now for a quick celebration! Here’s “Tits & Acid” by Simian Mobile Disco.
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Posted by Nick Meador on Apr 15, 2009 in Concerts, News
Time to check back in with the 2009 festival set. Lollapalooza pulled their usual B.S. this spring, putting tickets on sale about a month before announcing the initial artist line-up. They were generous enough to start tickets at $175, but since that bracket is now sold out, you can currently get them for $190. Still, that’s what tickets started at in 2008, so it’s not bad. Rumors have spoken of a decent line-up, and Tool might be one of the headliners (which I would enjoy). But other headliners might be Beastie Boys, The Killers, and Jane’s Addiction, which would be kind of pathetic in my opinion. Perry Farrell (Jane’s Addiction frontman, who helped start Lolla in the early ’90s) always has to stick his stupid neck in odd places because he thinks he owns the festival. Your day is way over, old man. It’s time to pass the torch.
Fans at Rothbury 2008
If the rumors hold, highlights will include Animal Collective, Fleet Foxes, Vampire Weekend, the Decemberists, Metric, MSTRKRFT, and Tenacious D (fuck yeah!). But there’s something a bit odd about the rumored line-up that I found. I recognize way too many artist names. Lollapalooza’s line-up is usually at least half total mystery, those attempted tastemakers that they are.
Other news: Pitchfork Music Festival 2009 is slowly filling in its artist line-up. The bands I’d go to see at this point would be The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, M83, and Grizzly Bear. Oh, and the Flaming Lips also got added as headliners on Sunday night, which is awesome. It was a humble (and smart) move on Pitchfork’s part, given that the Lips aren’t exactly the hippest band anymore. Hell, they’ve played pretty much every festival in the country by this point.
Friday night will feature sets by Yo La Tengo and three other bands, and the songs played that night will be picked by fans on the web beforehand. Tickets are $35 per day, $60 for Sat/Sun, or $75 for the whole shebang.
Rothbury hasn’t added any names to their artist line-up, and I can’t wait to see the final list. Tickets remain $250 for the 4-day festival. They did just extend their layaway plan for another week, if you were thinking of doing that. And that was nice of them, given that the economy sucks and nobody has cash falling out their pants. Meanwhile, All Good Festival keeps adding bands to their list — Galactic and Robert Randolph & the Family Band are among the most recent additions. All Good advanced tickets are still a sexy, affordable $129.
That’s all for now…(can you tell I’m exhausted and/or lacking my regular constant input of new music?)
Posted by Nick Meador on Feb 3, 2009 in Concerts, News
Well it’s that time of year again, when music freaks check for major festival line-up announcements on a daily basis. Langerado’s initial artist list came late in 2008; headliners are Death Cab for Cutie, Snoop Dogg, and Modest Mouse. The bands I’d go to see include Broken Social Scene, Holy Fuck, Deerhunter, The Disco Biscuits, and Lotus. That festival takes place in Miami in early March.
Langerado is great (I went for a single day at the 2007 incarnation), but I wouldn’t consider it to be one of the most vital festivals. The Big Three — as I’m now referring to them for the first time ever — would be Coachella (in southern California in April), Bonnaroo (in Tennessee in June), and Lollapalooza (in Chicago in August). Each has something unique to offer, and each represents an important aspect of the new festival culture that has evolved over the past decade.
Click to enlarge
Naturally (due to its time of year) Coachella is the first of these three to release their artist line-up. That simple act of releasing the band list has been a phenomenal event in itself over the past few years, as it sets the expectations for other festivals. So you might imagine how I would be upset at seeing the following headliners for Coachella 2009: Paul McCartney, The Killers, and The Cure. Or maybe you can’t imagine. Maybe you’re screaming for joy. I just don’t think it’s that thrilling.
But I guess Roger Waters was the only one who seemed worthy last year (compared to Jack Johnson and Prince). When I say worthy, I don’t mean as an artist; I mean as a headliner of one of the Big Three. Look at 2007 and you’ll see Bjork and Rage Against the Machine, with Red Hot Chili Peppers as the only unenthralling inclusion. In 2006, two of the three were Daft Punk and Tool (the third was Depeche Mode); 2005 saw Coldplay (but with Nine Inch Nails); 2004 featured Radiohead (and 2009’s headliner The Cure).
So it’s possible that I’m just not a fan of Coachella’s all-around headliner choices. Or maybe the American music festival phenomenon is losing some of its appeal. Perhaps we’ve reached the limit of what these massive events can offer us. Most headliners I’ve ever seen at Lollapalooza have been let-downs. But I have to attend Lolla to see the vast array of bands that I yearn for. Unfortunately it’s with 200,000 other people in the middle of the Midwest’s largest urban metropolis (aka Chicago). I’d much rather be camping in the mountains, like at All Good Festival, a 20,000-person camp-out in July in West Virginia. I’ve gone there twice, and it’s incredible — except that it’s almost exclusively jam bands.
Last year Rothbury Music Festival presented a nice alternative. We got a good mix of jam bands, indie rock, and electronica in an incredible locale near Lake Michigan. I wrote an essay about its awesomeness back in August. But even there we had to deal with these watered-down headliners, put in place to ensure high enough ticket sales to make event production worthwhile for the investors. In 2008 it seemed like Jack Johnson and Modest Mouse had been elected as High Chancellors of the Universe. You would have thought so by the number of festivals they headlined or were featured at.
So what’s the point of this bitching? I’m not quite sure yet, but it has something to do with still feeling manipulated by some type of music corporation. Up until I got to college (i.e. – 2001) my only access to music was through FM radio. Things got a lot better as 89FM The Impact and the Internet opened up new channels of music discovery. And music festivals seemed like a great way to gather with other music fans and see a bunch of currently hot bands in one place, all while having a huge party. But another problem is that most people attending festivals are there more for the scene or the party than they are for the bands. Instead of die-hard music addicts, we see semi-interested dullards lining up by the thousands so they can brag to their friends back home that they went to Bonnaroo.
(Even Rothbury produced a bunch of Internet bragging, like these nerdy kids felt superior for having been at the festival’s first incarnation. They inflated the cool-factor just because non-attendees had no way to verify the reports. Is this just a new kind of hipster-dom, for those who don’t want to move to the city?)
Meanwhile the companies are reaping the benefits. AEG Live produces Coachella, All Point West, and Rothbury; C3 produces Lollapalooza; Superfly produces Bonnaroo. But these festivals started as places where hippies and open-minded music freaks could celebrate independent music away from the confines of commercial music land. Alas, the grasp of capitalism misses no chance for a cash-in. My brother pointed out the irony of the situation, and I stand by it.
But what is the alternative? Stop going to festivals? Perhaps the national recession will act as a culling device to weed out whichever festivals are unworthy to exist. Or maybe the Big Three will be left with an excess of power and a lack of concern about putting on a truly great event. I think that’s where Coachella stands. They’re not concerned about their well being, so they didn’t try as hard to create an artist line-up that is representative of the advancements in modern music.
[UPDATE: Pitchfork reported on 2/3/09 — after I wrote this article — that Langerado "has been cancelled due to poor ticket sales." I guess my prediction might be dead on. But this is one time that I would rather not be right...]
I could be wrong though. All I know is, if All Good Festival secures even a decent line up in 2009, I will be buying tickets in a heartbeat. I’ll relax with a handful of other like-minded people and escape the mainstream madness of the Big Three. I’d rather be in a place that you don’t have to brag about, because you know all that matters is the moment. It’s impossible to communicate it to those who weren’t there. But we keep on trying, don’t we?
(To see the complete list of Coachella artist line-ups from throughout the years, just visit the Wikipedia page.)
Posted by Nick Meador on Oct 28, 2008 in MP3s, News
Oh my beloved French Kicks. The past four years have been a rough ride, but this band was there for me through it all. The 2004 LP The Trial of The Century (their sophomore effort) was one of the best albums of the decade — or at least it was among the most important in the last 10 years of my life. It was also the first album I bought new on vinyl. No matter how often they got passed over for critic darlings like the Walkmen, they never let me down. Well, I guess you could call 2006’s Two Thousand a slight let down. But their new one Swimming picks up where Century left off, serving as a culmination of their transition from the heavily stereotyped (thanks to the Strokes and others) New York post-punk of the early 2000s, towards something a lot more unique.
I was fortunate enough to catch the Kicks at the Crofoot Ballroom’s Pike Room back in September. It made me happy to stand in a decent-sized crowd, and the band was playing tight as ever. They seemed to be having more fun than before, especially more than the summer of 2004, when I saw them at the Shelter in Detroit. Only about 10 people came that time — a sure sign that Detroit (and Michigan as a whole) was still lagging behind the musical awakening going on around the world. I’m not sure if Michigan has caught up yet, but we’re getting there. Between Rothbury and Lollapalooza (even though it’s in Chicago), new venues like Pontiac’s Crofoot, and new online organizations like Detour, I’d say we’re headed in the right direction.
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