COMING HOME VIA CHICAGO & LOLLAPALOOZA

Supa-dupa Dee!!! - This is a great read! Thank-you for the lively coverage of what looks to be one heck of a weekend. Dave and Adam - the pics are supurb.

Note to self - see the SUBWAYS soon.

Let's hear it for the Mayor! JK and DB!

What a musical assualt. So jealous of not being in Chicago. Seemed like a weekend of weekends. Go Super Dee, GO!

Secret Machines rock your face.

No mention of the most amazing set of the weekend? The Dresden Dolls. A great cover of "War Pigs" and also, Amanda Palmer creates her own (intentional?) wardrobe malfunction.

Also the eels just blew us away on Friday. The last time I saw this band, though, they called themselves "The Ramones." (just kidding)

top 4

Ween - one of the most fun ween shows i have seen - great way to close out the 1st night... Deener was in full effect that night!

Braindamaged eggmen - definitely not a novelty - i can see why people thought this was the highlight of jamcruise. The "Hey Jude" Encore was the F*#ing highlight of the festival for me.

Gnarls Barkley - had not listened to them that much prior to lolla - but just like everyone else that saw them - I am hooked

Thievery Corporation - 1st time i had seen these guys live - if anyone has a chance to see them - do it!

If the lineup next year is as sick as it was this year - i'll definitely be making the trip back to chitown

ween was great. first ween show Ive been to and it wont be the last. Lips were good to. Red hot chili peppers were good didnt play all the song i want to hear but not to bad. Umphreys set was way to short 1 hour or less its not umphreys if it 3 hours or less. Particle and disco biscuits benivto russo duo were all good.
1.ween
2.flaming lips
3.matisyahu
I would go again but its way to expensive and no camping the weekend cost so much 175 just for ticket. other 3 day festivals had camping and they were 100 or so.

great amount of diversity...amazing location

1. ween
2. built to spill
3. manu chao
4. thievery co.
5. wilco
6. ..................

I'd like to see a story about the police brutality at the event. A video of the chicago cops beating the crap out of a man with a broken arm would be nice too. Sunday, 10pm, all hell broke loose.

did care to go to the festi but the LATE NIGHT thievery corp. was the shit it was my first time seein it,
also disco mcgee fans alike had to join for a fantastic journey to honor our fathers the beatles and floyd...

amazin couple of days lovin seein my skyline, SWEET HOME CHICAGO!!!!!!!!

Lips – What can you say? They stole the freaking show. Wayne’s voice was a bit shaky, but for a 4 piece, these guys can pull it off! Great sound and a great show.
The best part was when Wayne wanted everyone to sing the Yea Yea bit from the Yea Yea Song. He said something like “If we are going to get the Israelis to quit bombing Lebanon, you people need to sing” (all sort of tongue in cheek). Well, this jerk in front of me (he will be described in more detail later), flew off the handle! He started yelling “Fuck you” and looking around at everyone asking “What about this guy?”. I looked at the ass bag and held up the peace symbol. Well as the song progressed, Wayne asked if we would blow up the world and we all went “Yea, yea, yea” and it got to the hook, hopefully it sank into this guys head – “With all your power, what would you do?”

Ween - Very tight AND were accompanied by a kick ass fire work show. It had something to do with the Tall Ships festival going on, but behind the stage and to the left was this fantastic show that went on for about 15 minutes.

Wilco – Best band out there right now. Home town gig and the crowd loved it. Unfortunately with a festival time limit, they can’t stretch out, but it was a terrific performance.

The Go! Team – Fun, fun, fun!!! Too bad the entire front row of the show was taken up by doped up teens waiting for Wolfmother (someone needs to give these kids a few Zep and Sabbath albums – Wolfmother aren’t that good).

Broken Social Scene – OK, the white P-funk. Thinking Polyphonic Spree without the annoying front man? Well you are wrong. Sure they had all 18 members of the band there, but they can pull it off as a 5 piece too.

Sonic Youth – Very tight songs with the occasional explorative jam. When Kim ditched her bass, she was a ball of boogie fire!

Andrew Bird – Go catch this guy. Just him and a drummer and a loop pedal. The only problem was that the bitch doing the camera for the web feed stood in front of Andrew the whole time.

Shins – We were about 60 feet behind the board and the sound was very, very low. I had to cup my hands to my ears to hear anything. Too bad because they played a good set (I think).

The Secret Machines, Violent Fems, MMJ, Ryan Adams, Poi Dog – All awesome!

Low lights? Eels. The only band we went to see that we walked out on. These guys suck so bad that they had a “security guard” on stage with them occasionally acting out kung-fu moves and playing tambourine. When Hazel had Fred and the Mondays had Pez, it was cool – then again, Hazel and Mondays had interesting songs. Eels feature poorly written songs that were poorly preformed. Right now, all they got going for them is acting weird for the sake of acting wired.

Subways - Oh yea. We walked out on them too. They hit their guitars hard and play the same old hooks Brit-punk bands have been playing for 30 years. Yawn!

Size – Too great of a distance to cover between stages. Austin much easier to get around.

Diversity – You know, that sounds good, but the execution of the whole thing compromises diversity. First, the size of the venue. It is so big that it took about 30 to 40 minutes to walk from one stage to another. So, what they do is to group the bands together by genre. Kind of negates the whole musical diversity thing.

Sound – Every stage had BOOMING bass in front of the board. OK – I get it, they need to have a lot of bass for the folks at the back to hear. But not every band attracted 40,000. If 90% of the audience is between the board and the stage, why blast bass to hear 100feet behind the board???

Facilities – Plenty of toilets, but food and beer was limited. Bud products, pizza, burgers, a guy selling ribs and $7.00 veggie wraps – that was it! The best value was the $3.00 cheeze ‘zas. Oh yea, $3.00 ice teas with the BYO Jim Beam!

Finally, another problem was the people. I am from Chicago and know that it is a great music town with great fans. But, with an event this big, the riff-raff get in too. I have hit Austin a couple times and this was my first Lalla. While the two events are very similar, the one thing I noticed at Lalla is you have lots of teens and middle agers from the burbs who are there to be seen, not to listen to music. Overheard many cell phone calls in the middle of songs. Then there were the types that would try to get up front for a set then call all their friends to invite them over 15 minutes before the band goes on. Seriously people – pull your heads out. On the whole, Austin is a much better venue. Still 130’ish bands, smaller area, less sound spill over, better people and a HUGE variety of food.

It never took me more than 20 minutes to get from one side of the park to the other. Though I did feel the size was big, I would rather have the distance than the soundbleed. I thought lollapalooza was way better this year than last, and I can only hope and expect it to get better.

Lolla rocks the house and for a homeboy like me it's nice to go home again.

My top 4 never seen:
Flaming Lips
Ryan Adams
Andrew Bird
Thievery Corporation


My top 3 seen before:
My Morning Jacket (thanks for the autograph for my kid @ the Hard Rock Hotel Jim!)
Wilco
Ween

2 dissapointments:
Gnarls Barkley
Manu Chao


Me and the kid are making it an annual pilgramidge. I love living in Louisville, KY, easy drives to Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza!

Lolla rocks the house and for a homeboy like me it's nice to go home again.

My top 4 never seen:
Flaming Lips
Ryan Adams
Andrew Bird
Thievery Corporation
Eels

My top 3 seen before:
My Morning Jacket (thanks for the autograph for my kid @ the Hard Rock Hotel Jim!)
Wilco
Ween

2 dissapointments:
Gnarls Barkley
Manu Chao


Me and the kid are making it an annual pilgramidge. I love living in Louisville, KY, easy drives to Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza!

Lolla rocks the house and for a homeboy like me it's nice to go home again.

top 5 never seen:
Flaming Lips
Ryan Adams
Andrew Bird
Thievery Corporation
Eels

My top 3 seen before:
My Morning Jacket (thanks for the autograph for my kid @ the Hard Rock Hotel Jim!)
Wilco
Ween

2 dissapointments:
Gnarls Barkley
Manu Chao


Me and the kid are making it an annual pilgramidge. I love living in Louisville, KY, easy drives to Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza!

Very well done, Dee. I dug how the focus shifted from the very personal to something more meta. And the photo work was aces throughout. Nice sense of action, the moment unfolding, live-ness itself (this last applies to both the prose and pretty pictures).

No comment on the Chili Peppers set?!?! I know they aren't a "jamband" per say, but come on! 'Stadium Arcadium' is easily the most exciting album out this summer, they meld rock, punk, FUNK, and in the past few yrs even mellower vibes ala beach boys and mama & papas. They headline the festival, but they don't make the cut on your 7 page review? Pull your head out of your ass jambase!

The Chili Peppers set was nothing special. That is probably why it wasn't commented on. Did not play the whole time slot and left stage twice. Played for little over an hour(?) and they had an hour and 45 minutes. They were also the only band to leave stage and encore and they did it twice which wasted about 10-15 minutes of there set and they ended 10 minutes early. I have seen peppers before and this one was dissappointing to me. Frusciante still tore it up though!