Lollapalooza: Sunday Recap

Sunday got off to a late start as I needed the sleep after the aftershow.  There were some ironies to the day.  Despite wearing the pair of cargo shorts that had the most pockets of any day I was there I did still end up loosing my camera (more on that later).  Anyhow, we woke up in time to get there early but opted for sleeping in for a few more hours.  The first thing we wanted to see that day was Wild Nothing.  I kind of didn’t know what to expect, as I wasn’t truly a fan of Wild Nothing but they still played a good set.  Hey I’m down for listening to new music at anytime especially with a drink in hand.

Wild Nothing

That being said, we were able to make our way down towards the front of the stage to listen to some of these very mellow indie rock tunes.  I love the way a light electronic melody is integrated on to tracks like “A Dancing Shell”.  All in all the set was pretty fun but not very memorable at all to be honest.   Still they are a band that is now on my radar to listen to a bit more.

The next band that I wanted to see was The Mowgli’s.  Unfortunately, they were at the stage I hated the most, The BMI Stage.  This stage suffers from three problems.  First, the next closest main stage (Bud Light Stage… As if I needed another reason to hate Bud Light) was the loudest stage at the park, and you get terrible bleed over to the BMI stage.  Then, you also have to deal with the fact that it is poorly planned.   It faces Lake Michigan, and with no backdrop to the stage, you really just end up watching a bunch of shadowy figures preform more than anything.   Last, it is in a really small area.  I guess like me there were many fans of the song “San Francisco”, because the stage was completely overrun with people, as if they were zombies on a farm at the end of season two of Walking Dead.  The stage was pretty loud though, and we could still hear them preforming through the bushes on a bench next to the fountain.  Luckily Alex Clare’s set on the Bud Light stage was done ten minutes into the Mowgli’s set, because you could still hear Alex Clare clearly over the Mogwli’s.

Tegan and Sara

Then everything started to blur together as we got to the rushed part of the day.  We saw a bit of Tegan and Sara which is where I lost my camera.   I must have just been careless and completely droped it when trying to put it back into my pocket.    As we headed for lunch and I was about to take a picture of the grilled cheese I had from Brunkrow Cheese.    When I say grilled cheese, I know what you might be thinking, but this particular grilled cheese does not involve any bread at all.  It is actually a piece of cheese thrown directly on to a grill.  You get nice grill marks and a wonderful taste of crisp cheese.  I really liked the original version, because the salty cheese goes good with the sweet maple syrup.  I was not a big fan of the bacon version, as I felt like the bacon just made things a bit too salty.  It is one of those rare instances where bacon actually made something worse.

We trekked back across the park to see Alt-J.  They were one of the bands that I was most looking forward too and they also had a huge crowd.  It was almost as though they could have played a larger stage as well.  I have been a big fan of the band since I heard their single “Breezeblooks”.  They have a very interesting sound that is pretty mellow.  Their song “Fitzpleasure” is also featured in a Microsoft commercial.  After hearing most of their set and another one of my favorites “Tesselate”, we were on a mission across the park again to see DIIV.

DIIV

DIIV was playing on the smaller The Groove stage right before 2 Chainz.  They drew a pretty small crowd that got a lot bigger a lot of 2 Chainz fans when the set started to end.  Their music is pretty hypnotic.  My favorite song from them is the song How Long Have You Known which has a pretty trippy video.   You’ve got to appreciate any band that preforms while wearing alien masks.   I missed a bit of the performance because I had drunk so much by that point that I had to pee several times.  I also used the opportunity to grab a bit of food as well.

We then caught a little bit of Vampire Weekend.  I am a moderate fan of Vampire Weekend.  I loved the first two albums but the third one just fell a little short for me.  Still they are a great band, but they can’t really compete with Major Lazer.  Still I wanted to stay and see a bit of their set before running across Grant Park yet again.  We only caught a couple of their hit’s like “Holiday”, and fortunately they were at the Bud Light Stage so you could hear them most of the way across the park.  As we started to walk away they started to play the song “A-Punk” that I had to run back to hear before finally committing to leaving for real.  I really wish that they weren’t playing as the same time.

That being said nothing trumps LAZERPALOOZA.   It was a swift walk across Grant Park in order to make it over just in time to Major Lazer run the track “Original Don”.  It is a track that I can’t listen to without getting hype.    As soon as I heard it I was pushing my way through the crowd towards the front of the stage dancing.  You’ve got to really appreciate what Diplo does as a DJ  for Major Lazer, popularizing the obscure Dancehall genre and taking it main stream.  “Pon De Floor” was actually used as the beat for Beyonce’s “Run The World (Girls)”.

Knife Party

I had to cap things off with a bang, as this was decidedly a dance music night.  Knife Party was preforming and how could I turn that down.  I’m not big on Pheonix and The Cure so it was an easy choice for me.  Their most popular track “Internet Friends” boasts the iconic line “You blocked me on Facebook, and now you’re going to die.”  Those Dubstep heavy tracks was all that I wanted to finish off the weekend with a bang.

I was a little mad about loosing my camera but I overall had a good weekend.   I went to the lost and found and heard nothing from them.  Eventually I had given up hope.  That was until I found a post for my camera being found on Craigslist.  I knew that checking it was a longshot but I eventually got it in my head to check it again.

I had to drive up to Logan Square to meet the person who had my camera, so I had a quick dinner at Longman and Eagle while I waited on them to show.  Longman and Eagle is tucked away in a corner of Logan Square.  It is a nice little whiskey bar that serves phenominal drinks.  Not to mention the fact that when I was looking over the menu, I really wanted to order absolutely everything.

Bone Marrow

So many things jumped out at me on the menu but I decided to go for the marrow bones.  The idea of combining bone marrow which is one of my favorite appetizers to get especially  since it is rarely on menus stuck out at me so much that I had to try it.  It didn’t disappoint but it wasn’t exactly a perfect dish.  The presentation for all is beauty, made the dish so much more difficult to eat.  The  roasted bones were standing up like little towers with the bacon shallot jam on top.  The waiter told me that most people don’t get down into the bones and get the marrow and end up eating the bacon shallot jam and proclaiming it to be the best marrow ever.  This is kind of understandable with the whole setup they give you which leads you down the road and makes the actual marrow hard to get to.

For everything the dish gains in beauty it loses in practicality.  This dish would have been perfect had those bones been cut lengthwise, and the bacon shallot jam spread evenly throughout.  All that aside, I’m really stretching to find fault in the dish because it tasted amazing.  You have a lot of fat in the bacon shallot jam and some sweetness.  Then to cut through the sweetness you get a little bright burst from the lemon zest.  You might think the sea salt would make things too salty in addition to the jam but if you use a light hand with both the salt and bacon jam, you can achieve perfection.

New York Strip

I decided to try the margarita since it was the drink of the day and it definitely was a winner for me.  It had all you wanted in a drink.  The drink was about as good as a margarita as you could have.   For my second drink I would have the Longman and Eagle Manhattan.  The Manhattan is a drink I often use to measure the quality of cocktail that a place can produce.   This particular one was right on the money.

For dinner I had the New York Strip.  The only fault I can find with this dish was that I had to rush through eating it in order to meet and get my camera.  When it first arrived, It almost seems as though there wasn’t enough steak, but it was well more than enough.  The steak was a perfect medium rare.  I loved the crispy potatoes on top of the braised ox tail.  The sauce was very hearty and a little acidic.