Lollapalooza is
my favorite summer music festival. Not
only from a music standpoint, but the food is awesome every time I’ve been
there. You can attribute this to Master
Chef Judge and winner of two Michelin stars Graham Elliott being the culinary
director for the event. He is a really
nice guy as well and offered everybody free popcorn last year after the
festival got rained out for a little bit.
It was one of the few moments of my life of where I was truly star
struck.
 |
| The Neighbourhood |
Before the gates opened, I used Parkwhiz in order to get parking downtown
for the entire weekend for just $33.
When you consider that the hotel charges upwards of $70 per night, that
savings is tremendous. The parking was
a little bit of a walk though, just a quarter of a mile. After parking though I would have breakfast
at Harold’s Chicken. It had been a long time since I had Harold’s
and I had been longing for a quarter dark with mild sauce. This location took a while to get the food
ready, but it was worth the wait in order to get that crispy fried chicken with
that sweet tangy sauce on top.
This was the first year I’ve ever made it when the gates
were opening. The traffic on the way to
Chicago was much less than I expected, and the drive there which I expected to
take like an hour and a half only took like thirty minutes. This was fine though and it gave me a chance
to exchange my wristband since the one I had wouldn’t scan as well as do some
walking around.
 |
| Triple Truffle Fries |
The first band I saw was The
Neighbourhood. I honestly thought
this band was British for the longest time.
Yeah I know they don’t sound British at all, but they spell “Neighbourhood”
with a “u” so I thought has to be a British band. Not true though. This was also a very hard choice to end up
seeing them as I really wanted to see Robert
Delong, but I have tickets to the after show featuring Robert Delong on Saturday
night, so it was more prudent choice to see The Neighbourhood.
They definitely didn’t disappoint at all, getting the
festival off to a great start, as lead vocalist Jesse Rutherford swooned his
way through verse after verse. My
appreciation for the band only grew more after seeing them live. They are a pretty mellow alternative rock
band that often uses mellowed out beats the likes of which you could easily see
being used in a song like Ice
Cube's Today "Was a Good Day".
It is a welcomed backdrop to lyrics that range from the romantic and
mellow “Sweater Weather”
to the darker and more introspective tracks like “Afraid” and “W.D.Y.W.F.M.?”
 |
| Atlas Genius |
A note on drinking at Lollapalooza. The cheapest legitimate way to drink there is
to buy bottles of wine for $25. The next
stop was to pick up a bottle of a Chardonnay, which was just slightly oaky and
buttery, but not too much. Thorny Rose does all of the wine for
Lollapalooza. If you have a pocket flask
though and you were to fill that with spiced rum, it is the perfect combination
with Sweet Leaf's Citrus Tea. By perfection combination I do mean perfect
as you get the vanilla notes of the rum blending in and playing off of the
citrus notes of the tea.
Next up was San Cisco. They’re a cool Australian band and you’ve
gotta appreciate any band that has a female drummer. Female drummers are awesome. They were clearly in that band that has that
one song you know category when I saw them.
Their song “Awkward”
is so bright and cheeky and has this irresistibly light and bright pop
vibe. You can’t help but indulge
yourself in that a little bit. The band
in general is kind of dorky and super hipster, which is fine with me. The performance was pretty good and I will be
checking out more of their music later on though.
The best French Fries I’ve ever had in my entire life. Yes they were here at Lollapalooza. I get them multiple times every year at least
once or twice a day. The Triple Truffle
Fries from Franks ‘N’ Dawgs are absolutely
so good out of this world incredibly freaking awesome worth killing and dying
for. Undeniably the undisputed king of
Fries. They are light a crisp waffle
fries that are airy and perfectly salted and the truffle makes everything
slightly earthy and delicious.
Then we quickly headed over to see Icona Pop.
Of course I went to indulge in the amazing guilty pleasure of their
summer anthem “I Don’t
Care”. What I don’t understand about
this song is that I should hate it, but it just works. As soon as you hear that beat with that Swedish
duo aggressively singing those lyrics at you, you can’t help but get excited. The crowd went absolutely crazy as soon as
they started that song, ending their set more impressively than a well-executed
Ultra combo in Killer Instinct.
Atlas Genius is one of
those sneaky good bands. When looking through
the schedule I was like man that band sounds familiar. Then I went online to listen to some of their
songs and it was like man I know all of those songs. Their most popular song has to be "If So". I love the upbeat melodies of this band that
is in many of their songs like "Trojans". Keith Jeffery balances out those higher
pitched upbeat chords with his intriguing mellow and somewhat raspy voice. Really a great band with an album well worth
buying.
 |
| Crystal Castles |
Along the way, Samsung had this promotion to switch out your
battery on my phone for a fresh one. I
have a lot of spares off of Amazon for events as such, but it was still convenient
to use the one they were giving away. As
an extra bonus they gave meal coupons to Grahamwhich. I’ve got to say I was a little bit disappointed
with my lobster corn dog this year as it tasted as though it had been sitting
under a heat lamp for a while and the lobster was definitely overcooked. I would have asked for my money back on it if
I paid anything more than free.
Next up was one of my favorites of the day Imagine Dragons. I first started listening to Imagine Dragons
with the release of their upbeat and poppy ballad “It’s Time”. Though I first saw the song when it was performed
on Glee, I quickly
became a fan of the band more for their musical diversity more than
anything. The band goes from that folky
twang of the banjo on “It’s Time”, to a little bit of Dubstep on “Radioactive”.
 |
| Soooo Many people.... |
The day finished up with Nine Inch Nails. This is the band I had honestly been looking
the most forward too. It got off to a bad
start for me simply because the more drunk I get the more I tend to use my
watch over my phone for time. My watch was
set an hour slow. So I missed the first
15 minutes of NIN. There were two
problems I had with this show, one was that they performed too many songs of
their new material. It made their set
seem like more of a reflective art project than the hard rock they are known
for. The experienced was also worsened by
the fact that the screens weren’t working and you could barely see
anything. It was still a good performance
by them especially hearing songs like “Hurt” and “Head Like a Hole” but I
think I had unattainably high expectations for that performance.
No comments:
Post a Comment