Lollapalooza 2009 Diary - Day Two

I paced myself a little more on the second day, figuring that I would go with quality over quantity. I started the day out with Delta Spirit, a group that played a pretty straightforward four-piece rock set. They were likable enough, and won some love from the fans when their lead singer called his brother during the set to congratulate him on the wedding he couldn’t attend because he was playing Lollapalooza. We all would have made the same choice buddy… well done.

Next up was Miike Snow at the Vitamin Water stage. They came out wearing weird expressionless masks (think Michael Meyers from Halloween) and played a kind of mellow electro pop. The masks came off to coincide with the show's highlight, the beautiful “Silvia,” a haunting track, that combined with the effects of the breeze off the lake, was just short of spine-tingling. Their most popular song “Animal” drew the biggest response from the crowd and sounded as good, if not better than the studio version.

Across the park back at the Bud stage, Los Campesinos!, a band I had never heard before the show, played a high energy set as the breeze died down and the sun baked the decent sized crowd. Fueled by their bizarre/charismatic front man who moved around the stage like a kid with ADD on a sugar high, they kept the audience moving through the whole set, and made their show one of the day's biggest surprises.

Unfortunately the letdown of the day and the festival came from the next band to take the Bud stage, Arctic Monkeys. While their set was not horrible, a guy behind me summed it up perfectly, “Alright we’ll buy your new cd. Now play some of your old stuff.” Rocking long hair and tighter jeans, AM played a set split equally between new songs and old ones, with one big problem… their new cd isn’t out yet, which means nobody in the audience was familiar with half of their set. The new stuff was not bad at all, especially the single "Crying Lightning" mostly because Alex Turner's wit is clearly seen in across AM's catalog, new and old, but the new songs lacked the driving guitar that made Favourite Worst Nightmare and Whatever People Say... so catchy upon first listen. Add to that that Turner lacks much of a stage presence, and instead puts forth more of a smartest-guy-in-the-room vibe that seemed to isolate the crowd. I wasn’t too disappointed to hear some of their new stuff, but a crowd that was baking and looking for a reason to move around to some of their old stuff didn’t seem too happy with the show, and I don't blame them.

I half walked, half dehydratedly stumbled across the field to the PlayStation stage to see Santigold at 5:30. It had been a while since I heard her album, and it was great to hear it again, and even more so hearing it live. On stage it seemed like she was trying a little hard to put forth a likable stage presence, almost to the point that it seemed like blatant posturing when I just wanted to hear her play some music, but her set (which featured a random “Turn My Swag On” interlude) was refreshing in the oppressive heat, especially after the flat Arctic Monkeys performance.

Afterward, I took a little water break and caught the first couple songs from TV on the Radio back across the field on the Bud stage. Admittedly, I'm not a fan, so I left after the first two songs failed to sway my opinion. I walked through Perry’s, the bumping and buzzing DJ area, for the only time of the weekend, on my way across Grant Park to get a spot for Animal Collective. I also stopped to hear Lykke Li play a strong-sounding “Tonight” and wished I had made time to see more from her – it was also then that I realized how fucking awesome it was to be able to see a huge band like TVOTR, a DJ show, and Lykke Li within 15 minutes of each other... man I love Lolla.

At 7, Animal Collective came on at the Vitamin Water stage, and about 10 minutes into the show I decided that I must be missing something. Granted, I haven’t given a thorough listen to Merriweather Post Pavillion, by many accounts the record of the year, but I guess I just don’t understand them. It seemed like most of the crowd didn’t either since most almost everybody around me either started chatting or headed towards Tool within the first 15 minutes of AC's show. I couldn’t last much longer, and I headed back to the Budweiser stage to get a decent spot for the YYYs.

After the news came out that the Beasties had to scratch and then the news that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs would replace them as headliners came out, I was pissed to say the least, and while from a popularity standpoint the Yeah Yeah Yeahs probably were a stretch as headliners, I don’t know if the Beasties – or anybody else -- could have put on the show that the YYYs did on Saturday night. Karen O mesmerized the crowd from the second Ben Harper finally shut up, through its 10:00 end. For the full hour and half she proved to be an absolute fucking rock star, taking the stage in some kind of technicolor dreamcoat/Indian chief thing. She sounded great and was easily the best frontman/woman I have ever seen live. It also helps that the YYYs newest album It’s Blitz! is one of the best of the year so far, and the set list featured all of the album’s strong points. The concert featured a bunch of memorable moments… The lead guitarist ending a song with a teaser from the Beastie’s “So What’cha Want,” Karen O declaring “Best. Crowd. Ever!” midway through the set and telling the crowd that “The Yeah Yeah Yeahs will never forget this night,” and most memorably Karen O forgetting the words to her band’s most popular song “Maps” – a song (performed acoustically) that still managed to be the set’s highlight, partially because she messed up, partially because the crowd loved it and sang through her mistake, and mostly because it sounded amazing. In all, this was a band that was genuinely grateful to be there and showed it, making this the highlight of Lollapalooza.