The countdown is down to about 36 hours at press time, and I haven't written in a bit, so I'm going to breakdown the upcoming music festival for all you loyal readers who will be in attendance.
Thoughts on the Headliners:
As I think I wrote earlier, I was really happy about the lineup when it first came out. Each day has a pretty solid selection of groups, and the mid tiers are stellar -- probably as good of a mid tier the festival has had during its time in Chicago. The headliners, however, are mediocre at best with only Depeche Mode and originally the Beastie Boys (more on this in a minute) being true top notch acts in my opinion. The Killers, KOL, and Tool are all legitimate choices, but following a year that had Radiohead, NIN, Kanye, and fucking Rage, the six original acts this year are extraordinarily weak. In 2009, having Jane's Addiction as a headliner for a major indie rock festival is pretty sad. With that all said, I was ok with the original six given the solid middle tier acts, but when the Beastie Boys had to drop because of MCA's cancer diagnosis I feared the worse, and got almost that. To the organizers' credit, they replaced the Beastie Boys with another act instead of having Tool play uncontested or bumping up a middle tier, but their choice of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs was pretty pathetic especially because they refused to offer refunds. There are two major problems with this decision. First, the YYYs are not a headliner. They are a very good indie group with a couple solid albums under their belt, but they do not have the musical library or the widespread acceptance to replace one of the most popular hip hop/rock acts of the past two decades (the YYY's couldn't even sell out the Aragon earlier this year). The second issue is Lollapalooza's response to the cancellation when compared to New Jersey's All Points West festival who replaced a hip hop act, with an equally (arguably more) popular and acclaimed act and even more importantly of the same musical genre in Jay Z. With out the Beastie Boys, Lolla, a festival that has traditionally had a number of a strong hip hop acts, now has one legitimate hip hop act in Snoop Dogg, and I would argue that Snoop is more celebrity at this point than legitimate hip hop artist (I couldn't name a Snoop Dogg song that has come out in the past 3 or 4 years). With that said, the positives of this year outweigh the issues with the headliners.
My Schedule:
This is (tentatively) what I'm gonna be watching:
Lollapalooza 2009 Schedule
Friday Preview:
I've done some pretty heavy research on the groups on this day, and I'm pretty set in what bands I'll be checking out. The bands that open the day all seem pretty weak, and who wants to listen to some no name bands at 11:15am anyway. I have Gringo Star down as the first band I'll be checking out, mostly because of their awesome name and comparisons to a young Kinks-sounding group that is still finding its sound. After that, I might stop by to check out the Knux, the only other true hip hop group (to my knowledge) aside from Snoop. A really intriguing group called The Builders and the Butchers plays at 1:45. From the brief listening I've done they have one of the more unique sounds of any group playing and they began as a funeral band or something like that, so my interest is piqued and I will definitely be checking them out. At 2 three decent groups play, The White Lies sound like a mediocre Interpol with more synth, Amazing Baby sounds like another hooky retro-influenced rock outfit, and I don't know really how to classify Gaslight Anthem, but their lead singer has a cool sounding voice and all three seem like decent choices. At 4, the first act I am truly looking forward to, Ben Folds, goes on. I have heard really good things about his live shows and nobody else at Lolla this year has his sound. I'm actually surprised that he is a) playing Lolla and b) in what seems like a kind of shitty time slot, but I'm not complaining. At 5 is the first true conflict of the fest for me. I made up my mind a long time ago I'm going to see Crystal Castles over Fleet Foxes even though the latter won Pitchfork's album of the year and I've heard CC's sound isn't really conducive to an outdoor atmosphere like Grant Park, but I tend to favor electronic over whatever Fleet Foxes play. At 6, The Decemberists go on, a band that I haven't listened to that much -- although I have listened to their new cd, and it's pretty good and it features one of my favorite songs of the year so far. I'll probably duck out from their show a little early to see Of Montreal, a band I like more and more literally every time I listen to them, at 7. If and when I stay to watch the end of their show, I'll most likely get a shitty spot to see Kings of Leon, the headliner I'm most anxious to see. Which brings me to...
Top 5 things I'm most looking forward to about Lollapalooza...
5. Seeing Ra Ra Riot from really close
I don't know how or why, but one of the acts I was most glad to see play at Lolla is in the 12:30 time slot on Sunday, a time when most of the 3-day pass holder will be too tired/hung over to be there for... so I really have only two excuses for not getting there early enough to see these guys from up close, but I'll make it happen.
4. Snoop D-O-Double-G
Like I said before, I'm more excited just to see what this guy does than to hear his actual songs. He does have a decent catalog of songs (namely Murder was the Case), but he just seems like he'll be hilarious and awesome to see live.
3. Hearing Caleb Folowill sing live
The lead singer of Kings of Leon has one of the better rock voices I've heard and hearing it live should be awesome.
2. New Bands
The first year I went to Lolla, my friend told me he wanted to see Arcade Fire, at the time a group I had heard a few times and had seen a video or two, but didn't think much of. It ended up being the best live performance I've ever seen to this day, and I ended up buying their cd the next day. With the huge number of groups I'm going to be seeing for the first time, the prospect of having that experience of watching a show in awe and hearing a great performance first hand is one of Lollapalooza's biggest draw.
1. Seeing/Hearing the Arctic Monkeys
Just a few weeks before their new cd comes out, seeing one of my favorite bands on the heels of what is supposedly a sound and image makeover on Saturday at 4 is the weekend's biggest draw. I've never been disappointed by anything I've heard from them, and based on the new single from their cd, Alex Turner's musical genius appears to be alive and well.
Part Two Coming Tomorrow...
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