Lollapalooza……
6 August 2008Sweet Home Chicago — The Blues Brothers Band
Pictures Forthcoming.
Day 1:
My flight in was pretty uneventful but we will get to the flight home later. It was eventful.
Day one was reserved to fit in as much of the sites of Chicago as we could. We started off at Millennium Park. Where the shiny coffee looking bean thing was. Kinda cool we decided after walking around for a while that this would be better suited for a evening visit. I wanted to see the skyline reflected in it and the Chase Fountain would show up better at night. We cam back on night two to take pictures.
We walked down Michigan Avenue and decided to stop in at Caffe Baci and I ordered the JoJo sandwich which was Outstanding. After that we headed off and found the trolley which took us close to the Sears Tower.We wandered around the observatory for a while looking at the city and watching a rain shower come through. After that we hoped the trolley again and went to the Navy Pier looking for dinner and a boat tour of the city.
We walked around over there waiting for the evening to set in and got dinner at Billy Goat Tavern. I ordered the best damn double “cheeseborger” I have ever had. The beer kinda sucked there.
After that we rode the Farris Wheel, sponsored by Mcdonalds. Was a nice 7 minute ride a a fair view of the city. We walked over to Olive Park to wade in the water of Lake Michigan and wait for the darkness to set in.
The boat tour we took was the 9:00 night time Skyline Cruise on thet tall ship Windy. It was a 148 foot 4 mast schooner. The peacefulness of beaning on the water with no sound except the sails and tee squeakiness of the boat brought the Chicago Skyline in whole new light. It was an amazing ride. And watching the drunk guy try to impress the cute deckhand was funny.
We went bake to the hotel via a half bus ride half train ride. This was the first time I have ever rode an “L” train. it was neat seeing the city that way. Kinda felt sorry for the people that live right up against the tracks. The trains come buy every 7 to 10 minutes.
Day 2 — First Lollapalooza day
We didn’t get down to Grant Park early enough to beat the mass of people trying to enter so missed Holy Fuck and Rogue Wave. First band I saw was Yeasayer. I wasn’t a big fan of their music but after seeing them live the sounded a lot better.Next was Duffy. She was quite good but i felt the speaker system on the stage she was on didn’t make her voice sound as good as it could.
Next were I saw the first half of the Black Keys, which was quite unimpressive but not terrible, and ended up seeing the tail end of Gogol Bordello. This band was outrageously crazy. Any band that has a guy beating the crap out of a bucket and a hot russian girl beating the hell out of a large marching band type bass drum is cool in my book. I supposed to see them on my Oregon Trip.
Next were Mates of State. I first heard them on the now defunct NPR show, Bryant Park Project. This band is very quickly becoming one of my favorites recently. I recommend seeing them.
The Raconteurs where absolutely terrible. I think part of it was the sound system. There was a awful echo between the stage and the second set of speakers. I left after hearing Level and caught CSS. This show was super fun. They were all dressed up outrageously and looked as if they were having alot of fun. The lead singer fell a few times and got caught up in the mic cord a few times. We walked over to catch as much of Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks as we could before Radiohead went on.
There were a Shit load or people for Radiohead’s set. The stage show was phenomenal. I was mesmerized by the the way they used 2 stage screens and the large video screen to project the mood of the music. It was incredible. Just after Thom started singing Fake Plastic Trees the Fireworks for Navy Pier were set off. Was a nice unexpected added touch to there set.
This was one amazing day of music.
Day 3 — Lollapalooza day 2
I’m my opinion this was the worst of the 3 days for lineups with a few exception
I first caught Margo and the Nuclear So and So’s. They had a good sound and apparently were named after Margo Tenenbaum for Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums. I like them ok.
Next were The Ting Tings. This bad was amazing. They sounded well and the lead sing was this super cute English woman that beat the hell out of a bass drum. There is something very attractive about that. It was definitely a highlight of the day.
I caught Dr. Dog then wandered over to see DeVotchKa but on the way we saw a local Breakdancing crew called the Brickheadz do a exhibition over at the kids stage. I have a video but I can not get it off my camera. These guys were amazingly talented. I love watching good break dancers. They did a workshop to teach the kids how to do some of the moves.
DeVotchKa was pretty good but they sounded like Sting doing Polka. Explosions in the Sky was terrible. They were too loud and noisy. I caught part of the Does it Offend you, Yeah’s DJ set while waiting for Okkervil River. They were pretty good but that guy has a weird way of singing. Some wouldn’t like it. I did though.
Next was Broken Social Scene minus Leslie Feist. They were really good but I would have loved to see her. This band is more like a collective of musicians, almost like Polyphonic Spree but sound way different. There were alot of people on stage.
Next was the legendary Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. Sharon Jones had a wonderful stage presence and was very animated. If you didnt dance to there funky bluesy beat, you had deficiency in your soul.
Wilco’s set was solid. Jeff Tweedy was wearing a male version of hello Kitty “county” suite. The rest of the band was coordinated with him. They included a new song, One Wing, which was decent.
Day 4 — Lollapalooza Day 3 — Final day
This day had the most fun bands. I spent most of the day myself and saw the Whigs whose CD Mission Control I run to every so often. Good performance. Next was the good vibes and great message of John Butler Trio. He has long finger nails to play his guitar. I went form there then to see G. Love and the Special Sauce who I have seen like 3 times before. It was an amazing afternoon of Feel Good Music. After that I caught Saul Williams’ outrageous performance. His message is very abrasive and in your face and his music is also. There was guy on stage that had a Dracula Cape on and a mohawk. It was alot of fun.
Next I caught the end of Blues Traveler and then Gnarls Barkley. Their set sucked really really badly. I think they need to just cut records and forget the live performances. On the way to see Nine Inch Nails, Girl Talk’s set was just getting started. He was having way too much fun. and pulled like 50 people up on stage with him from the crowd. He had 2 people on stage with toilet paper guns. It was like a huge, super fun, house party. I loved it.
Next I caught the end of The National prior to Nine Inch Nails Outstanding performance. Trent Reznor is one hell of an artist. Their stage show ws phenomenal and hearing 70 or 80,000 people scream every lyric to Head Like a Hole and Hurt was one of the most amazing experiences of the whole weekend.
This was one amazingly awesome weekend of music. The Chicago Tribune said that 225,000 tickets were sold. The streets were so crowded after the show that it took almost 2 hours to get a train that was empty enough to get on. The last night we stopped at The Gage Resturant and had dinner to let the crowds disperse. I ordered a incredible Cheeseburger with Camembert cheese and a Orange Onion Marmalade.
Day 5 — one fucking eventful day.
The next day we slept in and the decided to try to get some Chicago deep dish style pizza. The hotel shuttle driver recommended Giordano’s Pizza as the place to try. I had a pepperoni and sausage pizza that was incredible. I found out on the plane that they will overnight a cheese or veggie pizza to you . It was soo good that it would be worth it to do it a few times a year.
After that we got ourselves to Midway airport. Our flight was supposed to leave at 7:20pm and was a hour and a half flight. I saw onteh news tha some bad weather was coming but I figured we would get in the air before it got there. Well I was wrong. We taxied out on the runway and the pilot came over the PA and said that the tower was being evacuated due to the weather and that we would be sitting. About 10 or 15minutes later we were told we were going back to the terminal to evacuate the plane. We no more than got back to the gate when I guess the wind wall of the storm hit the plane and the starting rocking crazily and I honestly thought the plane was going to be flipped over. So we sat a the terminal for a few hours waiting to the storm to clear. On of the passengers said his friend at O’hare said that they were evacuating the whole airport to the baggage claim. I couldn’t even imagine how that went. O’hare is a monster airport. So we boarded the plane again and taxied out again. We stopped on the runway and were told that airport was closed due to the rain again. It wasn’t as bad as the first but we were unable to move. We sat for like a hour and the pilot said we needed to wait for a route to get around the storm. After he got it, he came over and said that the plane didn’t have enough gas in it to fly the route so we needed to go back to the terminal and get some. So we did. It tool about 45 minutes and we pulled back from the terminal and sat there for a bit. The pilot came oer and said there was an instrument panel light on and they needed to figure out what it was. We then proceded to go back to the terminal for the mechanoc to come take a look but as we did it starteed to storm again. So the mechanic could not look at the plane cause theramp was closed. So se sat as the storm went on by. The mechanc must have determined it wasen’t a light that could let the plane fly so they told us we were switching planes. Byt this time it was 12:00 and another storm came throught and the ramp wa cloased again so we hda to wait for our luggage to be transferred for like an hour. After we boarded the plane we took off and got back finally. I got home at 4:30 am and was exahusted.
The southwest flight crew was amazing though all this and did a wonderful job dealing with agitated and angy passengers. I felt soo sorry for them but they did the best they could with the given circumstances.
All in all it was an amazinly eventful experience that I will never forget.
I will have pictures posted here in the next few days .
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