Lollapalooza thrives in the withering city
By Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — The revived Lollapalooza brought an estimated 65,000 fans and more than 60 bands, DJs and children's entertainers to six stages here, a 20-hour marathon spread over two days. As a test for future concerts in Grant Park, it made a case for the event not being the last.
By the time Widespread Panic closed the second night of the festival Sunday, audiences had endured a blistering heat. The extreme conditions slashed into Sunday's attendance and may have cut short at least one performance, when Sara Quin of Tegan and Sara fell ill in the middle of the folk-pop duo's set.
The festival primarily featured white, guitar-based rock bands playing 45- to 75-minute sets that varied from ferocious (the Walkmen's high-strung epiphanies) to flaccid (Liz Phair's increasingly generic adult-contemporary pop songs), and from the reliably arenaready (Pixies, Weezer) to the just plain silly (Billy "more, more, more" Idol). And that was just the first day.
On the second, there was the latest reunion of the once-revered indie-rock band Dinosaur Jr. The trio of J Mascis, Lou Barlow and Murph was grayer, balder and paunchier, but Mascis' guitar solos still slalomed and swooped over the pummeling rhythm section. Louis XIV fed blues and glam-rock into dirty-sweet pop songs that T. Rex would've loved. The Arcade Fire took the stage dressed like the cast from "Six Feet Under," and despite the late-afternoon heat frolicked like schoolchildren at recess.
Singer-guitarist Rivers Cuomo and Weezer, focusing on material from the band's first two albums, displayed the same nerdy charm that has won them a new audience with each release.
After a year of touring, the reunited Pixies have figured out how to project to audiences more than 10 times the size of those that saw the band in its first incarnation, 1986 to 1992. The paucity of hip-hop, given Lollapalooza's past as a crossroad for rock, hip-hop and more exotic strains of independent music, was troubling. The sole hip-hop group to perform was the reunited Digable Planets, in which rappers Butterfly, Ladybug and Doodlebug traded verses over a percolating jazz-funk band, led by keyboardist Brian Jackson, a former collaborator with rap pioneer Gil Scott-Heron.
Lollapalooza founder Perry Farrell performed with his latest band, Satellite Party, on Sunday. Along with the cartoonish Idol, Farrell was one of the few performers who brought true star power to the festival. His latest guise was as a suave mariachi, trailing ribbons and partnering with his female dancers.
Like Farrell's new band, Lollapalooza's identity is still very much a work in progress. Bands sometimes found themselves slugging it out at close range, as sounds from neighboring stages created an unintended cacophony.
Chicago and rock 'n' roll haven't been the best of friends since the 1968 Democratic Convention and the riots that broke out in Lincoln Park as a concert by MC5 was ending. While staging a big rock festival in the city's most prized park always will be a big challenge, it doesn't have to be an insurmountable one.
Lollapalooza offered ample evidence of why, with a little tweaking, it should be invited back next summer.
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