Lollapalooza: Saturday Recap

NOTE: I lost my camera on Sunday... So if all of my pictures look like they are the drawings of a six year old kid then I will have you know that that six year old kid is me.   You know what they say when life gives you Lemons:

You throw those lemons at a douche.

I'm no artist and I definitely couldn't do something as cool as this:

I woke up early enough in the morning to brace the continental breakfast offered since my room was on the Executive level of the Palmer House Hilton.  It was pretty much a circus but I still escaped with a cup of coffee, some pancakes and a banana.  Shortly thereafter, I was headed down for day two.  I was there well before the first band even started playing.  For the second time I was way early.

Completely Accurate Interpretation of Bright Light Social Hour

I got there early because from listening online I kind of fell in love with The Bright Light Social Hour.  They sound a lot like The Black Keys.  To tell the truth It has been a long time since I've heard Guitar and especially bass playing that good.  They were really fun to listen to, but they could have easily called themselves, The Beards and Excessively Long Hair Band.  Pretty easy to remember when you consider their appearance.  Jokes aside I love the bluesy melodies on songs like "Detroit".   My favorite song on their debut album has absolutely no lyrics and is called "Rhubarb Jam".


After they went off I had plenty of time before the next band that I wanted to see.   All of the bands on Saturday's Groove Stage got pushed back because of Azelia Banks not preforming.  We decided it would be a good time to get some food.  Of course the Triple Truffle Fries from Frank's 'N' Dawgs were involved again.  This time I also had a sampling of cheeseburgers from both M Burger and Edzo's.  Putting the burgers head to head I would have to give the clear advantage to M Burger.  Their burgers were made a lot closer to when they were served and the burger's from Edzo's sat in a hot box for a bit.

The cheeseburger from the M Burger follows a simple recipe, cheese, lettuce, pickles and sauce.  The sauce is sort of one of those mayo based sauces that kind of a weird (in a good way) cross between McDonald's special sauce and Thousand Island.  The burger itself, is one that most closely resembles In N Out's burger, Damn tasty and without a trip southwest.  As for Edzo's burger, the cheese on that burger tasted better, but my burger was sligthly dry and the patty was coming apart a little.  There was also a little bit of overwhelming amount of pepperonchini on the burger.

The next band  we saw was Family of the Year.  I couldn't be more indifferent about this band at all.  They were just incredibly mediocre.  So much so that I still can't decide whether that experience of listening to them was good or bad.  It was simply forgettable.  The only reason why I even remember seeing them is because we really wanted to see St. Lucia.  Had I realized the timing, we probably would have gotten


St. Lucia has a really mellow electronic sound going on.  I love the strong bass line on "September", and I;m totally not being partial to that song because I was born in September.  There music really is interestingly stays very cool and mellow despite being uptempo on many tracks. It's like Coldplay and Afrojack got together and made this amazing sublime and sexy dubstep free baby. You can't help but sing along and get involved with the incredibly catchy chorus on "We Got It Wrong".


Next we had a pretty brisk walk to the other side of Grant Park to see Local Natives.  I like this band despite being wildly unfamiliar with their music.  Funny enough they played the only two songs I really know soon after they arrived to start watching them.  I think that their song "Airplanes" I think suffered from that classic problem of me hearing it on the radio and not being able to get my phone out to shazaam it fast enough.  That catchy chorus sounds so good against the folk melody.  The song that followed was "Heavy Feet", which probably has one of the weirdest and seemingly unrelated video I've seen in a long time.  They are a a great band that has mastered those three part harmonies.
 
Continuing with the trend of walking a ton, we headed over to catch a little bit of Unknown Mortal Orchestra while catching a bite to eat. Puffs of Doom, offered something interesting that I had to try by this point.  I was a little saddened by it overall because the basic premise of the place is to create a basic choux pastry and fill it with something.  I didn't know what to expect when I ordered the bacon macaroni and cheese puff, but I also don't know why you would take a something as starchy as macaroni and stuff it inside of a choux pastry.  Other than that Unknown Mortal Orchestra was a pretty mellow band and I can't really judge them since I only heard about 15 minutes of their set.  They did get added to a long list of bands that I want to explore later and I do actually like their song "So Good At Being In Trouble" quite a bit.



Next up was The National.  While I am only vaguely familar with the band, I think by this point I have had almost enough of the the very mellow somber bands.  The funny part is that every band worth seeing was pretty mellow and somber.  I mean it's still kind of shocking to me to look at their wikipedia page and see that they've been around for fourteen years.  Their sound is incredibly relaxing and borderline melancholy.


Next up I had to catch a little bit of Blondfire.  I love Erica's voice.  It's high pitched in a way that you think would be annoying but is totally not.  Those nasally tones brightened up my day quite a bit.  I only got to see half of their set because I wanted to catch the Lumineers, but hearing her play Waves was enough to satisfy my day.  Still I wish I would have gotten to hear them play Where The Kids Are which is probably my favorite song by them.


Once again we were rushing across the park to catch The Lumineers.  I have no idea why music is trending towards a folk sound and a dubstep sound.  When I first heard the song "Ho Hey", I was suckered in to listening to their music.  You can't help but like that song because the tune is incredibly catchy.  You know a song has a good chorus when you're ready to sing along with it along the first time you hear the song.  They have a good happy energy about them and even came out into the crowd to play a couple of songs.  I only heard the echoes of sad yet very encouraging breakup song "Stubborn Love" because I wanted to beat the crowd and grab food before running across the park for The Postal Service.


This was kind of historic.  The second to last performance ever by The Postal Service.  I had been looking forward to this for a while.  The Postal Service is kind of like the McRib of music.  It's awesome and made up of mostly artificial sounds but the overall popularity of it is based somewhat on the fact that it's so incredibly rare.  Like making an album and disappearing for a decade rare.  I was impressed.  Very impressed, as soon as you heard them start to play "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight" you are transported to a place of musical bliss.

Laura Burhenn of The Postal Service

In hindsight it does seem like a little dickish to start a show saying "It's been a long time Chicago" yeah a decade is pretty long time.  It seemed like he was kind of rubbing the crowd's nose in the fact that this was one of their last performances.  That doesn't matter because "Tattered Line of String" makes up for that.

Then came the after show.  I had to battle traffic relentlessly, via the backseat of a taxi cab.  I couldn't wait because I really wanted to see Robert Delong.  I've been addicted to his music since the first time I heard his first single "Global Concepts".   It's incredible to watch him preform, and you think there would be more than just him but no it's just one dude being awesome.  He played a couple of new songs in his set, but I was slightly disappointed that I didn't hear him do "Change" which is one of my favorite songs on the album.  It starts out with him just singing the word change and the beat and words get more complex as the song goes on.  Very clever.


I got to meet Robert Delong and take a picture with him and he was a cool dude which is one of the main reasons I'm mad I lost my camera.

Then there was the Matt and Kim performance   I've got to say I was completely caught off guard by how good they were.  Let me say, it would likely be impossible to recreate the absolute fun these guys have on stage.  From the moment they start you're like yeah I want to drink and party with these guys. They are the literal life of the party.  I must say that up until I saw them live, many of the songs that I've heard from them on the radio I would instantly switch the channel the moment I heard it.  I recognized a few of the songs like "Let's Go" and "Daylight".

Me and Robert Delong
I'm really good at drawing myself

What's crazy is it takes seeing them live to truly do their music justice.  I just don't think it translates well over the radio. Their overly happy music and simple choruses seems like it's a bit of a shtick, but once you see them you're like oh that's really them, and that's really cool.  They have an amazing energy and with one performance they transformed me into a pretty dedicated fan of their music.

I mean you have to appreciate a band so fun that they will do this:

But seriously.... Even that video doesn't do the band justice.  You just have to go out and see them.  They are pretty much a band for everybody (or at least everyone that enjoys some really popular music) as they integrate lots of popular hip hop songs throughout their performance.