Lollapalooza 2007: Day One

By: June Garry & Brett Hickman

Monday August 20, 2007

Day 1
Lollapalooza 2007 took place the weekend of August 3rd - 5th in Chicago's Grant Park. Static Multimedia writers June Garry and Brett Hickman were on hand to witness the greatest gift to Chicago music the summer has to offer.

Lollapalooza Day One Coverage by June Garry

The third of August started at the top of a mildly damaging mudslide, tripped off at the kick of a sandal-roughed heel by yours truly. I couldn't believe my luck at being invited once again to the festivities hosted by ck N2U at the Hard Rock Hotel; a half a block from my day job and a magnificent mile north of the aural happiness already underway in Grant Park. Last year had been ugly with that quick stinky ferret nibbling various pants legs in the massage chair, an incident I'd somehow been blamed for.

Well, they invited me back, anyhow, and I couldn't have been happier about it. I know what's important at these events: make friends with the bartenders and those noble, outsourced caterer types handling the distribution and tending of food and things to accompany eating food. Rubbing elbows to me means only in the most literal sense, again, at the bar. So much for scooping a good story. The drink special was vodka Red Bulls and the beasts did a number on me quick. After establishing with the bartender I was more into the vodka side of things, he sent me away to Lollapalooza with both hands curled around the biggest to go cup I'd ever seen. Once downtown, I somehow found the Captain who led me to the press area with a skeptical squint at my slightly weaving gate, then the vat of vodka I was clinging on to. He dispatched me post haste to Viva Voce, the husband and wife rockers from Portland soon taking the Citi stage.

"Don't fuck it up, Garry." He cautioned me. "I'd only one extra press pass and you got it just because my wife feels sorry for you. Your writing makes me nauseated, so you better get a lot of solid coverage tonight." Those words served as nothing but assurance that I would completely shit myself.

Despite being in the throes of some undisclosed family strife, Kevin and Anita Robinson sounded exuberant, sticking to material from their latest release Get Yr Blood Sucked Out. Their only trouble was a bit of unintentional feedback as they stayed pretty true to the record until the already trippy "Helicopter" became more so as they relied on extended curls of guitar traveling in concentric circles along gently sloping crescendos. A perfect way to set the tone for the weekend on such a bright, perfect summer day.

Most regrettably, this is where I leave off. The drink caught me by the tail and I lost the ability to do much more than sway back and forth and drool. I believed I was still working, as evidenced by ten pages of all but illegible notes I discovered in my pad the next morning. Apparently, I was witness to at least Sparklehorse, Electric 6, and G. Love and Special Sauce. The only full sentences I could make out of my writings from that night said, "It's not even 5:00 and I'm nut (sic) sure where I am right now. This little punk with the shoehorn is on the up and up." I still cringe and shake my head when I think about how not minding my limits prevented me from attending (or remembering?) LCD Soundsytem and Daft Punk, both of whom were raved about in Saturday morning's news. Not one of my more upstanding evenings.

Lollapalooza Day One Coverage by Brett Hickman

I strolled into the media tent around 12:30 to see much more activity there than in prior years. First off, there was this big tent for Spin magazine, who were giving away (!) free liquor (Southern Comfort and some new concoction called SoCo Lime), Spin t-shirts, copies of the magazine with Interpol on the cover (headliners of day two) and a nifty black hat that would come to save me from burning my brain inside of my skull the next three days.

There were so many musicians and media people milling about, I thought that perhaps a happening was going to break out. There was Tim DeLaughter and other members of Polyphonic Spree, all of Silversun Pickups, Perry Farrell and his wife, as well as the band Against Me! (doing an interview with Spin). The celebrity whore in me was aroused, but I didn't bother anyone...even SS PU, who I had interviewed the previous year. My practical side won out.

Ghostland Observatory were playing the AT&T stage near the media area and sounded a lot better than they had last year. Could it have been the visual of the guy in the cape that turned me off of them? I dunno.

I waited around for what seemed like forever for June Garry to show. When she finally did, she was already sloshed. I resisted the urge to smack her in the face for being unprofessional and instead gave her a stern warning. Like she ever fucken listens, though.

I was finally off to hear Son Volt tear into their set closer "Drown" to incredible enthusiasm from the crowd (and myself...admittedly not the biggest fan of singer-songwriter Jay Farrar). Across the way next were The Polyphonic Spree, who brought a mesmerizing amount of positivity to the day. That band is meant to see live, but their new album on TVT Records, The Fragile Army, is among the best releases of 2007 thus far. They worked in a surprisingly strong cover of Nirvana's "Lithium".

From there it was back to the other end of Grant Park to catch a few minutes of Against Me! tearing it up on the Citi stage and slog through Slightly Stoopid's (more like Extremely) set on the way to the panel discussion in the media area. Some writer from Esquire magazine asked Farrell, Ted Leo and DeLaughter a bunch of questions with Leo giving the guy a bit of stick for them. Nothing much to see here, so I moved on to find some space for Silversun Pickups' set. The Silver Lake, CA band had some issues with their sound at first but overcame them to deliver a blistering set with a particular highlight being "Well Thought Out Twinkles". I heard a little bit of moe. from the food tents and reflected on how great jam band music sounds in an outdoor setting. I couldn't imagine ever liking a whole CD of it, but at a festival it just fits.

Farrell's band Satellite Party may have lost founding member Nuno Bettencourt and drummer Kevin Figueiredo prior to playing this gig, but the band sounded a lot better than they had two years prior (when No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal was a part of the lineup) at the festival. Though it probably helped that some Jane's Addiction tunes were added to the mix.

It was sometime around this point (or perhaps just prior) that I received a text from Garry that she was feeling ill and leaving the grounds for home. Fantastic, I thought. Just what I needed.

Well, I planned on sticking around and seeing LCD Soundsystem and Daft Punk, so she was the one who was losing out.

LCD were exceptional live. James Murphy came off as a regular guy in an extraordinary situation as he introduced the song "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House". And Murphy delivered what I thought to be the best comment from the stage all weekend with: "Are you ready? Why do bands ask that? What do you have to be ready for? We're the ones who should be ready."

And then there was Daft Punk. Two people in robot suits atop a pyramid in front of a dizzying display of light technology playing the most enjoyable dance music you could ever hope to hear. It was a stellar cap to a decent day of music. But there was the nagging thought that it couldn't get any better than this on the bus back to my parked car. It would suck for the festival to peak so early.