Lollapalooza 2011 opened with this ringing, backhanded endorsement from Jenn Wasner of the band Wye Oak: “I love Lollapalooza because it’s the one festival even my grandparents know what it is.”
Such cross-generational branding helped sell out a record capacity this year, the 20th anniversary of the annual live music smorgasbord. This weekend, 90,000 fans will attend each day of Lollapalooza. That makes this three-day concert in Grant Park one of the country’s biggest, with Coachella’s daily attendance around 75,000 and Bonnaroo’s more than 100,000.
At this massive music event, 140 artists and bands will perform on eight stages over three days, leading up to Sunday night headliners Deadmau5, Kid Cudi and the Foo Fighters. Here’s our report from Friday night’s first round:
Who was the main headliner Friday night? If you’re over 30, you probably thought it was Coldplay. But the biggest stage at Lollapalooza with room for the biggest crowd is on Hutchison Field in the south end of the park, and that’s not where Coldplay performed. The bigger stage and crowd went to Muse.
That older demographic has been asking me for weeks, “Who the hell is Muse?” But this wailing trio has been around for 17 years, longer than Coldplay — long enough that at festivals later this month in their native Britain they’ll be performing one of their “classic” albums in its entirety — and they sold out London’s Wembley Stadium before most Yanks had heard of them. Muse has developed a fiercely loyal following around the world of largely younger fans less familiar with the glam- and prog-rock they ape so ably. The band’s appearance last year on the latest “Twilight” movie soundtrack put them over the top in the United States.
One recurring theme at Friday's Lollapalooza was guy-girl tag teams, although the various pairings couldn't sound more different.
The Kills' guitarist Jamie Hince laid down dense, intense indie rock riffs as body-whipping Alison Mosshart sang sultry vocals through a weave of sticky, jet-black hair. When her eyes peered through on tracks like pulsating Heart is a Beating Drum, off its album Blood Pressures, Mosshart looked like a tiger poised to kill its prey.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, playing at the same time, retro pop revival act Cults, expanded from duo Madeline Follin and Brian Oblivion to five touring performers. Their gentle, xylophone-kissed, '60s pop-leaning instrumentation gracefully glided over the crowd like a fluffy cloud, masking many of the tracks' melancholy lyrics, and making up for the fact that standout Go Outside lost some context out in broad daylight.
Somewhere in between the intensity of The Kills and the lightness of Cults was Black Cards, a new duo (expanded to include a drummer for Lolla) created by Chicago-area native Pete Wentz while emo-pop juggernaut Fall Out Boy is on indefinite hiatus. Unlike Kills or Cults, Cards is electro pop through and through, led by newcomer Bebe Rexha on vocals. While the music was light in tone, the performance was as aggressive a spectacle as you could get from a band with its first album still in the wings and performing on one of Lolla's smallest stages. Rexha exuded confidence and chops singing wannabe club jams like Take Me Down (Higher), released on SoundCloud the day of the show. She was joined on stage by dirty dancing models in skimpy black outfits initially wearing werewolf masks, a freaky, arm-twisting, head-popping contortionist, and Wentz, who threw beach balls and toilet paper rolls into the crowd, and stagedived three times in less than 30 minutes. "I just wanted to have fun on stage," Wentz said. Based on the crowd's reaction, the fun was infectious.
The biggest addition to Lolla this year is the expansion of the Perry's DJ stage to a tented venue with a capacity of 20,000. But within a few hours, it looked like Lolla organizers would have to increase capacity already next year. People were packed in shoulder to shoulder, with thick clusters around the perimeter, waiting for Afrojack to take the stage. It was so crowded, the Chicago Fire Department briefly delayed the show until some space was cleared. And Afrojack wasn't even the stage's final headliner (that honor would fall to Girl Talk). "We are sliding on sweat," Nicole Mendoza, 18 of Chicago, said of the conditions inside.
The stars warmed up their crowd with an unexpected performance of Jay-Z's profane 99 Problems inspiring thousands in the crowd to sing along. But don't fret, Coldplay is still Coldplay, devoted to thematically safe, nevertheless ambitious anthems that stir the emotions. That applies to the five songs Chris Martin and company played that have already made the rounds at some summer shows in Europe. Standouts included Charlie Brown, with Jonny Buckland's sticky, uplifting guitar work, and the soft, romantic Us Against The World, which featured drummer Will Champion on piano and backing vocals. The masses seemed engaged with the new stuff, but it showed the most enthusiasm with familiar favorites, singing loudly to Yellow, In My Place and The Scientist. Before Martin had a chance to sing a single note during a long intro to Viva la Vida, fans were already singing the lyrics. The band also explored some creative liberty on God Put a Smile Upon Your Face, rearranging the intro and incorporating galloping drum work. "It took us 20 years to get to Lollapalooza and we've always wanted to do it," Martin said. "Thank you for making four young, well not that young anymore, but four men's dreams come true. We're going to give everything we have this evening." Coldplay lived up to his word.
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