Lollapalooza Saturday Recap

After the miserable conditions of Friday, as soon as I saw the sun on saturday, I knew I was going to have a a much better time. It got hot and humid fast but being the Arizona boy that I am, I'll take sunshine and heat over rain any day of the week. Lets get to the good stuff!

SATURDAY (8.8.09)

My first stop on Saturday was the Kidaplooza stage. In my previous years of Lollapaloozaing, I'd never visited the Kidaplooza stage so I was presently surprised to catch the last few mintues of boy wonder Quinn Sullivan and blues guitar legend Buddy Guy. I only saw them play a few songs, and sadly didnt get any pictures, but it was enjoyable while it lasted.

KASKADE

The biggest lesson I learned this weekend is to always always always go to Perry's DJ stage when I have down time. I didn't have any firm destination once I got to the festival on Saturday, so I was just moseying around when I saw some crazy shit going down at Perry's. DJ Kaskade was spinning and scratching and mixing up a storm and it was a blast. There were two scantily clad identical twins dancing and throwing t-shirs into the crowd, and everyone was dancing up a storm, despite the intense mid day heat. I honestly have no idea who Kaskade is and I will probably never listen to him again, but he sure did put on a fun set.

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE (DJ SET)

I knew I wasn't going to be able to catch Animal Collectives performance later in the day, so I thought I would catch their DJ set at Perry's to make up for the loss. After hearing Kaskade provide the mastermix soundtrack to a party in the park, I was pretty excited to hear what AC had up their sleeve. I was expecting them to do the same kind of thing as Kaskade or maybe do dancey mixes of their own tunes, I would have been happy withe either. But boy oh boy was I disappointed. As far as I could tell, they just plugged in their iPod and played a bunch of bizarre, rhythmic world music. Whatever it was, it wasn't dancey, wasn't fun, and wasn't a party. I stayed for about a half hour, waiting for something interesting to happen. It never did, so I took off and headed for the Chicago 2016 main stage to catch the last half of Atmosphere's performance.

Although attendance on Friday was still in the tens of thousands, it seemed about 12 times more crowded on Saturday. Look at all those people!

ATMOSPHERE

I don't really know much about Atmosphere, beyond the fact that he is a white rapper and most of my hardcore hip-hop fan friends aren't particularly huge fans of his. Still, what I caught of his set was decent and I enjoyed what I heard in that 'its live music and the sun is shining so I can't complain' kinda way. Not a bad way to kill a half hour, but not particularly great either.

ARCTIC MONKEYS

I have long been of the opinion that the Arctic Monkey's are one of the most grossly overrated bands in the indie world. But that didn't stop me from checking out their set on Saturday afternoon. They rocked it pretty hard, and although I still don't really see what all the fuss is about, I definitely enjoyed their performance. Whatever, live music is live music and when the weather is nice, there ain't nothin' better. No complaints. Keep doing what you are doing Arctic Monkeys, it seems to be working for you.

SANTIGOLD

Santigold put one of the most fun sets of the weekend. She burned through most of the songs from her debut LP but not without taking some truly awesome detours. First, she played the Jay-Z track "Brooklyn We Go Hard", singing her part before then transitioning into "Shove It", the song Jay-Z sampled for his track. Later in the set, for reasons that escape me, she and her dancers/back up singer started dancing to Soulja Boy's "Turn My Swag On". It only lasted about a minute, and like I said, I have no idea why it happened, but it was pretty fun. Then, just before closing her set with "Creator" she cover the classic Cure track "Killing An Arab". Her show was the last one of a tour that has spanned the last 2 years and was her first show back in America in some time. Artists always love to end their tours with a bang and that's exactly what she did. Way to deliver, Santi.

Also, check out the GZA of Wu-Tang Clan fame chillin' on the side of the stage. WU-TANG-WU-TANG

TV ON THE RADIO

I saw TV On The Radio at Lollaplooza 2009 and they were great then, but they were much better this year. They were on a much bigger stage, and they played louder, and harder than I expected. Their music is so inherently energetic, but the often bizarre rhythms present on their latest albums suddenly made so much more sense when played at a deafening volume. Although bands like TVOTR depend a lot of the sonic composition of the studio environment, they take on an entirely different, but equally enjoyable feel live. Their set was mainly comprised of stuff from Dear Sceince, but they included some of their classics like "Wolf Like Me" and an epic, set finishing rendition of "Staring At The Sun". They were definitely one of my highlights from the whole weekend.

YEAH YEAH YEAHS

It hurt my heart, but I had a pretty decent spot for TVOTR and I knew if I skipped Animal Collective and moved up for the YYYs I could get a pretty decent spot. It was the classic conundrum of the festival. I could abandon my post to squeeze one more band in but then have a bad view for both, or skip the one and get a great spot for the headliner. These past few years have taught me that it's always worth it to get close to the headliner. So thats what I did, and boy was it worth it. Just like the Kings of Leon, I've been a fan of the YYYs for a long time and seeing them fill the shows of a festival headlining spot was awesome. They opened with the slow building "Runaway" and the high priestess of alt rock Karen O took the stage wearing a giant colorful head dress. They played a great mix of material from all three of their studio releases. From the scorching dance punk of "Heads Will Roll" and "Pin" to the slowjam ballads like "Skeleton", the band was clearly having a the time of their life, more than taking advantage of their last minute headliner status. However, they were at their most human when they played an acoustic version of their love ballad single "Maps", with Karen O forgetting the lyrics midway through. Luckily she had thousands and thousands of fans their to help get her on track. Overall, it was an outrageously high energy performance and one of my favorite shows of the weekend. It was an exhausting but perfect end to a long day of great music. For however miserable Friday was, Saturday more than made up for it. Once the YYYs played the final notes of "Date With The Night" and brought the day to a close, I knew the festival had been redeemed.

Check back tomorrow for my recap of Sunday!