Coachella. Stagecoach. Sasquatch. Bonnaroo. Lollapalooza. Austin City Limits.
Those are the music festivals I attended this summer, PopWatchers, and believe me when I say, those were enough. Completists will notice that I missed Pemberton (during Comic-Con), All Points West (the weekend after Lollapalooza? I don't think so), Outside Lands (went to Vegas instead), and my first Bumbershoot in three years (couldn't afford the plane ticket). Nevertheless, I feel like I became something of an expert in the art of festival-living during the summer of 2008, in which I pushed my limits -- and the limits of my editors -- by enthusiastically throwing myself into a self-issued challenge: Could one girl, armed only with a Nikon and a notebook, singlehandedly revolutionize the art of concert coverage?
Well, no. But I did take a boatload of sweet pictures, meet some lovely new friends (with whom I will never again drive in a golf cart), and experience the full range of human emotions while standing at the feet of musical giants. It was then suggested by a co-worker that I should create my own awards ceremony, honoring the best -- and worst -- of what I reported here on PopWatch this year. I happily took him up on his genius idea and have thus put together the first-annual Festie Awards, now broadcasting live in gallery form on the front page of EW.com. It's a good chance to click through some never-before-seen photos of Radiohead, My Morning Jacket, Foo Fighters, Jenny Lewis, and more; plus, I was miraculously able to find video for nearly every single specific moment I wrote about, from the sparkling blanket of lighters stretched across the field during Pearl Jam's set at Bonnaroo to Perry Farrell's totally cracked-out introduction to "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" in front of a pit full of small children at Kidzapalooza. (Tragically, I still can find no trace of Broken Social Scene's glorious "Ibi..." from B'roo; will pay, like, a whole dollar for video of that if you've got it.)
So go check out the 2008 Festies, watch some video, relive the memories, and then c'mon back here to share with the group: Did you hit any of these festivals? Agree with my conferring of honors? And if you were to hand out trophies from your own personal summer concert season -- doesn't have to be festivals; could just be your local bar band -- who would they go to and why?
UPDATE: Whoops. It's just been brought to my attention that a website called MelodyTrip handed out some "Festies" themselves last year. My bad. Let's call mine the "Festeez"!
There’s a thunderstorm dripping on downtown Chicago this Monday morning, PopWatchers... and just like that, Lollapalooza is over for another year. Hmm. I said that this scene was like old hat to me. It wasn’t. I haven’t been here before. And after one go at it, there’s no way I’ve got this festival anywhere near figured out, not in the same way the geography of Coachella is burned (literally) into my brain and the happy rhythms of Bonnaroo call to me from far away like the hills of Ireland. No, Lolla is a riddle, a big, hot concrete enigma wrapped in tall buildings that seems to stretch for miles, especially when you’re dashing between stages, and thus do the small essentials of life tend to pass you by. For example, it took me until 7pm Sunday night to figure out how, exactly, to procure food on the grounds. (The food stands are by no means located convenient to any stage at all, unlike the beer, which is located convenient to everything.)
But if I had to go away, at least I went away thrilled, courtesy of Trent Reznor and the big Nine Inch Nails sound and light extravaganza. (Come on. You didn’t honestly think I was going to Kanye, did you? Dude, fool me once, etc.) (Though to be fair I've been told he was quite good. Go look at Brooklyn Vegan’s pretty pictures.) NIN put on a polished, veteran, bang-for-your-buck headlining performance that kept me engaged all the way to the encore break, even though I haven’t bought a Reznor album since The Fragile; I’d have stayed longer, but there were photos to edit and a blog thingy here to write and I promised myself that “Head Like a Hole” was to be my exit music, no matter when it came. So after hollering “I’D RATHER DIE! THAN GIVE YOU CONTROL!” a couple dozen times — oh, the horrid things I’ve screamed this weekend, PopWatchers; don't tell my mom — I hitched a pedicab ride back to the hotel with a nice driver named Tyler. It seems I missed “Hurt.” It was apparently awesome. I believe it.
Things I did not miss today included The National, Nicole Atkins, The Whigs, What Made Milwaukee Famous, Love and Rockets, Flogging Molly, and a very special Kidzapalooza performance from Perry Farrell and his BFF Slash. That’s right, PopWatchers: I have now witnessed Perry Farrell and Slash playing “Jane Says” in front of a pit full of very small children. You’ll want to read on after the jump.
It’s another glorious, sun-dappled morning in Grant Park, PopWatchers: Lake Michigan is the color of the Caribbean Sea, and I’m sitting at the BMI stage writing to you from a laptop in the grass. Ha Ha Tonka-- a band about whom I get an unreasonable amount of press releases-- has just wrapped up their set by playing a chipper song about an oscillating fan, then throwing in a celebratory improvisational version of Sufjan Stevens’ “Chicago” with lyrics rearranged to reflect their excitement at getting to see Radiohead and Rage Against the Machine for free. Up next is the alt-country of Wild Sweet Orange, whose We Have Cause To Be Uneasy came in the mail recently and keeps ending up in the CD player at work.
But that’s today, and we’re here to talk about yesterday... but first, I want to talk about Friday again. I’m enjoying the comments on my post about Radiohead, and taking to heart what commenter Rose Tyler said: That those of us who loved their first three albums just need to let it go. I guess those of you who said they answered The U2 Question the minute they put out Kid A are right-- this is a band flourishing by doing exactly what they want to do, nothing else. So, like I said. Artistic integrity and all that crap. I applaud it, sleepily.
I also applaud last night’s headliners, Rage Against the Machine, and not just because they rocked my face off. There’s an example of a band doing exactly what they’ve always done-- playing the hits, and playing them loud, and expending enough energy in a single song to power Radiohead’s entire global-warming-conscious light show-- but I think the most important thing they showed last night was maturity, i.e. the sense to know that the situation at the front of the stage was completely out of hand, and they needed to stop playing or people were going to die. The admittedly weak picture above is my shot from a staircase far from the stage where I took refuge after not making it into the photo pit; all it took was 30 seconds of “Testify” for me to realize the photo pit was not a place I wanted to be, and thank my lucky stars for the distance.
Boy, that’s an ominous way to head into the jump, isn’t it? Ah well. Follow me anyway, for Margot and the Nuclear So & Sos, Dr. Dog, Dierks Bentley, Perry Farrell’s DJ set, MGMT, Explosions in the Sky, Okkervil River, and Broken Social Scene...
We were told Grizzly Bear singer/songwriter Edward Droste was a huge fan of EW, so we decided to let him blog his Friday at Lollapalooza-- during which he wore a stellar pair of shorts (pictured). Read on! Let the indie goodness wash over you!
Lollapalooza is a hot massive field with as many people as the eye can see. It's really fun to be at a festival with an urban backdrop, particularly one as spectacular as Chicago's. We'd been anticipating playing the festival for some time now and luckily got in just in time to catch our friend Yeasayer's amazing set. They've grown so much since I last fall them this past fall in Montreal and imparted some wisdom upon us about "making it big" in England. You need to have "chants" they told us, "the British love chants, it reminds them of football games." I think that makes perfect sense, really.
Unlike Bonnaroo's dust clouds and Roskilde's fields of mud, Lollapalooza was a very clean, manageable festival. We wandered around a bit confused, getting our bearings after Yeasayer, trying to shake off our bad night's sleep (was our first night ever sleeping in the coffin-like beds a sleeper bus has) and eventually we joined forces with our favorite festival friends CSS, who were playing immediately following us on the Citi stage. It's always funny to see them on tour because they are continually in the best mood and bring the cheer. Lovefoxxx's outfits continually impress me each time I see her. She must own at least 50 body suits of varying patterns and colors.
Good morning, PopWatchers, and greetings from Grant Park in beautiful, sunny, mothereffing HOT Chicago, where Perry Farrell's Lollapalooza is now in its fourth year as a stationary object. As those of you who follow this blog are well aware, I've visited the majority of America's large rock n' roll festivals this summer — Lolla makes 6, to be precise — and I can honestly say I've never lost as much water weight as I did yesterday. How a festival held in the middle of a major urban center directly adjacent to a breezy lake with sailboats floating upon it manages to be hotter than the deserts of Coachella is a scientific mystery we'll ponder later, but for now I'd like to just thank the nice people of the MySpace corporation for giving me a tent and a couch and a place to write up all of Friday's musical wonderment while listening to the best band you've never heard of, Margot and the Nuclear So & Sos, play my favorite song, "Skeleton Key." Life, she is good.
The big headliner for your first day of Paloozaing was Radiohead (led by Thom Yorke, pictured), and your Aunt Whittlz was thrilled. I'd never seen them live before, not in all my many years, and I'd get to start the show in the photo pit, all up and snuggly with the boys from Oxfordshire. They opened strong with "15 Step" and "Airbag," and I was totally digging it, if you'll excuse the lameness of that expression. But once I got spat out into the field, things turned a bit dodgy. After a long day of schvitzing in the humid Illinois air, the endless quiet arpeggios of their Kid A/Amnesiac/Hail to the Thief/In Rainbows period lulled me into a state of half-consciousness, interrupted only by the yakking of drunks wearing free MySpace bandanas. There's nothing wrong with half-consciousness, per se... but after the jump, we'll talk a bit about this band's future, i.e. The U2 Question, and dissect the set a little more closely.
Also in this post's great beyond: Rogue Wave, Black Keys, Duffy (no, for real), Go! Team, and the band I've seen more times this year than one would think possible, Jack White and his Raconteurs. Come along, won't you?
