Chaka, delivered by AT&T · Aug 8, 04:52 AM by Chaka
As I proofread my Lollapalooza wrap-up, I realized just how long and potentially uninteresting it would be to anybody who is just here for some mp3s. Therefore, in the public interest, I’m putting the mp3s here at the top of the page so you can just grab them and get out before I go all Valerie Solanas on your ass.
*mp3: Pizzicato Five – Twiggy Twiggy*
*mp3: NRBQ – Smackeroo*
*mp3: The Move – Feel Too Good*
*mp3: Neu! – Hallogallo*
*mp3: Creedence Clearwater Revival – “Ramble Tamble”
Lollapalooza 2006 was hot, sweaty, overcrowded, overpriced, corporate, magnificent, fantastic, wonderful, and a total blast.
Wayne Coyne, who won me over forever after his performance at the big stage on the north end (so much for marketing – I couldn’t tell you which corporation sponsored which stage despite spending all weekend at Lollapalooza. My buddies and I quickly and quite naturally developed our own names for each of the stages based on their characteristics – the Lips and Sonics played at the ‘North Stage’; Sleater-Kinney and Calexico at the ‘Slanted Stage’ due to the sloped concrete leading to the stage; then there was the ‘Ween Stage’ and ‘Lady Sovereign Stage’, named after day one performers) argued that all the corporate bummer bullshit is rendered completely irrelevant by the unbelievable lineup. Considering in the space of 10 hours on Saturday I saw The Go! Team, Calexico, Sonic Youth, Flaming Lips, New Pornographers, and Kanye West all in the same place, I have to agree.
Having attended this year’s Intonation and Pitchfork festivals, the differences between those two greatly successful fests and Lollapalooza were multifold, and the indie Union Park fests probably come out on the winning end of most any of them. Those of you who might have thought you waited a long time in line for chow at Pitchfork would have been astonished to see the preposterously long lines at the chow tents at Lollapalooza. Beers were $5 each for undrinkable Budweiser products at Lollapalooza vs. $4 for a similar helping of the only slightly more drinkable faux-indie Goose Island. Worst of all, bottled water, containing the same space-age polymers or whatever as the water sold at the Union Park fests, was $3 each instead of $1, and, incredibly, sold almost exclusively from the same tents at which beer was sold, which meant one had to stand in the beer line to get a bottle of water. Beer/water lines weren’t all that long for the most part, thankfully.
Enough logistics. Let’s get to the rock & roll.
Day one for me kicked off with Lady Sovereign. I had just seen her a few weeks ago at Intonation, where I thought she was a highlight. She was quite different Friday afternoon at the Lady Sovereign Stage – she had a live drummer and bass player, which completely changed her sound. The drummer added a lot to the sound, concentrating almost solely on his cymbals and kick drum. The S-O-V’s personality was markedly different from Intonation; while she was an ingratiating party hostess at Intonation, something on Friday had obviously pissed her off royal, and it was clear from the start of her set, which opened with her best number, “Ch-Ching”, that she had decided that she was going to take it out on her mic. She ferociously informed the crowd that her call to the dance floor was not a request but an order. She cracked me up with her between-song brattiness; sample: “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Lady Sovereign. Hello. For those of you who do know me, I’M FUCKING LADY SOVEREIGN! HELLO!”
Unfortunately, Iron & Wine were almost completely drowned out by The Most Deafening Midget In The Game. We started Iron & Wine’s set in about the middle of their fairly sparse crowd yet couldn’t hear a thing from the stage due to Sovereign’s overpowering boom-boom-boom. Sam Beam quickly came to the same realization and announced rather ruefully that he was going to have to pull his planned acoustic-based set for a more electric pinch-hitter that, while louder, still sounded like the stereo in an ’89 Volvo competing with the sound system in a tricked-out Escalade. Bummer.
I saw about half of the Raconteurs set, who quickly established themselves as Jack White And Three Other Guys. I realize Jack’s going for a democracy here, but there’s just no hiding the fact that Jack’s singing and guitar playing are undeniably special, and the Other Guys are undeniably not. This is far more of a tribute to Jack than an insult to the Other Guys. Their set featured several covers, most memorably for me Bowie’s “It Ain’t Easy”.
I guess I sort of posted about Sleater-Kinney’s set already, but I can say now with a little more hindsight that their set wouldn’t have cracked the top five I saw on Saturday alone. For a band that seemed on their way up for so long, their set on Friday night made me understand a little bit why they might be feeling like they’ve hit the wall. That said, I’d be thrilled to watch Carrie tune up all night, and it was fun to see Janet on the tin sandwich during “Modern Girl”. Never during Sleater’s set did they refer to the finality of their Lollapalooza performance. Fluxblog atones for their total boat-miss of Yo La Tengo’s Pitchfork set with a fabulous review of a NYC show that sounds a lot better than the Lollapalooza version was.
We chose Ween (or, as I nicknamed them, South Park: The Band) over Death Cab For Cutie (or, as I nicknamed them, I Hate Homework) but quickly regretted the decision. I never got or liked Ween, and back when I worked at Twin/Tone I named their debut record, GodWeenSatan: The Oneness, the worst album ever released by Twin/Tone. But I still figured I’d see something crazy during their show, like maybe a giant dancing doodie or something. Alas, all I got from their set Friday night was an answer to the riddle about why jam band fans like these guys (answer: because they’re fucking boring). Luckily, there were some fireworks from the Shedd going off visible behind Ween’s stage, so I could entertain myself a little while Ween plodded on.
I ended up closing the bars on Friday night, which is never a good idea. As is drinking with people who don’t take no for an answer.
Saturday’s opening performance for me was the incomparable Go! Team, quite possibly the happiest band on the road. They remind me a little of Pizzicato Five, and probably have a similar shelf life on wax. But live, they worked their asses off, and I was ready to rock anew after seeing their wild show.
If through genetic engineering one could create a rock & roll band with absolutely zero personality, they’d closely resemble what Built to Spill brought to the North Stage Saturday afternoon. They attracted a pretty young crowd, and I am an at an absolute loss as to explain one thing about these duds that could have appealed to those folks. Their pacing was brutal (though they’d look like the fucking Ramones compared to Kanye, as nightfall would come to prove), and their stage personas suggested the careful, mannered performance of a band being asked to play during communion. Sam fucking Coomes has toured with these guys? Say it ain’t so, Sam! These fucking clowns aren’t fit to back YOU! I had never heard these guys before and was under the sorely mistaken impression that they might rock. To describe their music (as if I could actually evaluate it objectively independent of their performance), I guess I’d start with the most boring of Elliott Smith’s full band stuff, then subtract everything original.
3:30 brought the first real scheduling dilemma: Calexico vs. Wolfmother, who played on stages on absolute opposite ends of the grounds. In the interest of time, I chose Calexico in order to minimize risk of my ability to get a good spot close to the stage and see all of Sonic Youth’s set. But talk about a blind pig finding an acorn – Calexico was fantastic, one of the absolute highlights of the whole weekend. I had heard a few of their tunes before seeing them Saturday but didn’t know much about them. I have never seen any live band anything like them before and I can’t even really accurately describe what they’re like – most of their songs had strong elements of latin or southwestern music, but seamlessly integrated into a rock & roll band context, completely without pretense. Their crowd was small compared to most of the day’s other acts, but they were winning people over left and right, including me. Saturday turned out to be the Day Of The Great Drummers, and a mostly definitely great one, John Convertino, worked the traps for Calexico. Singer Joey Burns threw a mini-tantrum when his rented amp blew up, which threatened to cut their set short (as did half of us in the crowd, as Calexico was on fire at the time), then later chewed out the multi-instrumentalist horn player as he took a guitar solo that displeased Burns. Calexico has shot to the top of my list of bands to see at the Hideout/Touch & Go Block Party, another killer festival here in town in a few weeks. Can’t wait to see them again.
Sonic Youth’s far, far too short set was as much mass-scale performance art as rock show for me. I’ve seen Sonic Youth many times over the years, maybe as much as I’ve seen any touring band over the past 17 years or so. Every time I’ve seen them has been in the same kind of joint, in front of the same kind of crowd. Saturday was very different. Saturday, I was able to see Sonic Youth in the company of all different kinds of people, from young kids, to college kids in t-shirts commemorating frat parties, to dressed-to-kill chicks in their young 20s pounding beers like it was some kind of goddamned contest (“Olson twins”, as supergenius Wayne Coyne described them from the stage during the Lips’ set). Watching that crowd react to the Sonics’ set, even one of the least far-out sets I’ve ever seen them do, was a total trip. Like Sleater-Kinney the previous night, the Sonics focused on their latest release. One major casualty of the iPod era is that whereas in the past I’d listen to a new record by an artist I loved over and over and over again until it stuck, now I just dump the tracks on the ‘pod and hear them only when the ‘pod decides I’m ready to. Ergo, I wasn’t nearly as up on the “Rather Ripped” tunes, most of which I had only heard two or three times before. Many of them clicked, however, especially the set opener, “Incinerate”, “Turquoise Boy”, and “Pink Steam”. “Eric’s Trip” was a highlight. Overall, I guess I was disappointed not because they didn’t play more old stuff but that they didn’t do anything off their last two records, both of which I’m crazy about. I made my way pretty close to the stage before long and they were fucking LOUD. Mark Ibold looked like he was having as much fun up on the stage as I was having down below – really into it. Steve Shelley, always one of my favorite drummers, took no prisoners behind the kit Saturday night. I kind of lost it on the setlist transcription towards the end of their set, so I may have forgotten a tune in there.
Sonic Youth @ Lollapalooza 8/5/06: Incinerate / Reena / Eric’s Trip / Do You Believe in Rapture? / What A Waste / Schizophrenia / Rats / Turquoise Boy / Pink Steam / Jams Run Free / (encore) Shaking Hell
What can I really say about the Flaming Lips live? As the cliche goes, writing about a Lips show is like dancing about architecture. Just as I was blinded to the quality of Built to Spill’s music by their live show, I was blinded to the quality of the Lips’ music by their live show, though for very different reasons. The Lips do everything short of blow pot smoke from giant Seussian tubes at the crowd to turn them on (maybe I shouldn’t give them any ideas), and it works. Just go see them live. No matter what kind of music you like, you should see them live at least once. The Lips were worth the $140 I paid for my Lolla pass all by themselves. I went from being somebody who didn’t get the Lips to someone who wants to hear everything they’ve ever done in the space of their set, which I left about 10 minutes early in order to make it to see all of the New Pornos. I was surprised at how matter-of-fact Wayne Coyne’s stage persona is – he seems like a guy who is just trying to keep a straight face while he pulls off a spectacle the size of which even he can’t believe – which is just what he is, I suppose. Wayne also repeatedly talked politics between songs, and didn’t fuck around a bit when doing so – he repeatedly mentioned the Israeli destruction of Lebanon, the crimes of the Bush administration, and the incomprehensibility of vote that got us in the situation we’re in. What a great, great performance by Wayne Coyne, who also managed to throw down a rambling, hilarious story about the Lips’ first Lollapalooza go-round twelve years prior (“even The Verve were good on that tour!”).
Asking me to give my impression of a New Pornos show is like asking the Cookie Monster to share his thoughts about a plate of Oreos. Objectively, I’d have to say people in the crowd for the New Pornos were going more nuts over them than the crowd at any other act I saw all weekend, with the possible exception of Kanye. I’ve seen them live several times and never heard Carl Newman quite so chatty in between songs, often expressing his disbelief at the size of the crowd and his band’s place therein. I decided during the New Pornos set that they’re probably the best band on the planet right now; though they have a large number of classic songs in their set already, and many of their tunes that aren’t necessarily classics are well-written and memorable, what puts them over the top for me is the fact that they have one of the all-time greats for a member, the rockingest Saskatchewanian ever, Kurt Dahle. Kurt is equal parts Keith Moon and Terry Adams on stage, and as if that weren’t enough, his drumming absolutely propels every song, consistently demonstrating the knack of goosing a song at just the right time with just the right fill, kind of like Terry Williams used to. If I had to find a flaw in the New Pornos’ tight performance, it would be that their setlist hasn’t varied much at all in the three times I’ve seen them since Twin Cinema was released, but since at least 75% of the Lollapalooza crowd had never heard of them, much less seen them live, that’s probably an unfair criticism on my part. I don’t mean to gush about these guys, but they really bring it.
The New Pornographers @ Lollapalooza 8/5/06: Twin Cinema / Use It / July Jones / Jackie Dressed in Cobras / Three or Four / Testament to Youth in Verse / Miss Teen Wordpower / Bones of an Idol / It’s Only Divine Right / The Bleeding Heart Show / Graceland / The Fake Headlines / The Slow Descent into Alcoholism / Sing Me Spanish Techno
Kanye’s day two closer was notable for many reasons. First, there were spectacularly drunk people everywhere, a population completely absent from Pitchfork and Intonation. Second, his show itself teetered on the edge of disaster on several occasions. This may have been by design, but after each number, particularly earlier in the set, the stage would just go black and several minutes would go by before the next number started. This was particularly jarring after a day’s worth of shows with more typically rock-band pacing. Soon enough, however, Kanye eliminated all doubt about the cause of the delays by brutally lashing out at unseen, unnamed crew members (“y’all done fucked up my sound!”), promising swift personnel changes immediately after the show. He was so pissed off that I was afraid it might ruin the rest of his performance. But then he launched into “The New Workout Plan”, a wild, funny song from his debut album, and all was right with the world again. Kanye brought several guests on stage to do numbers of their own, which killed the momentum he was building every time he did so. He later did a strange but fun run-through of snippets of tracks he produced before he went out on his own. He also reworked the already fabulous “Gold Digger” with great success. Kanye got off the best line of the weekend during “Gold Digger”, telling the crowd “white folks, this is your chance to say ‘nigger’ and get away with it – take advantage of it!” Partly the fault of the pacing of his show and partly the fault of the strict 60 minute sets of the rest of the day’s acts, Kanye’s set seemed long. I ended up splitting after about 80 minutes, and was surprised to discover that the sound from Kanye’s stage, which was far too quiet from my position just behind and to the right of the soundboard, was much louder a good four or five blocks away down Michigan Avenue.
I had a line on a pass to the Sonic Youth after-party at the Double Door (though I cast doubt on my source after realizing he told me the party was at the Abbey), but I was beyond thrashed out at that point and decided to pack it in instead.
I’ll try to be a little less long-winded about Sunday. The crowd was noticeably different on Sunday, with far more people with single day passes who had come to see the inexplicably-huge-in-Chicago Wilco or NBA-loving never-weres the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I laughed out loud when I closed in on the North Stage and saw debris from Wayne Coyne’s confetti cannons still hanging from the lights at the top of the stage, making the Lips the only band of the weekend who physically left their mark on the stage at which they played (and fittingly so). The first band on my agenda for Sunday was the Shins, who I’ve blown several opportunities to see in the past and was anxious to check out. I loved the Shins’ debut record, liked the followup about 50% less, and, if the new songs featured in their Lolla set are any indication, a similar diminishing return is in store for their yet-to-be-released third album. One of the new tunes in particular was embarassingly close to Gin Blossoms territory, yet still managed to land with a thud at the feet of the massed suburbanites waiting patiently to see the band the two Chicago newspapers are always creaming over. Even the Shins’ best material isn’t ideally suited for a festival setting, and though they played and sang well and delivered a beautiful version of “Saint Simon”, I made the executive decision to split early in order to see more of Of Montreal, well across town at one of the south stages.
Of Montreal was an absolute gas. I have one of their early records but never listen to it, but since they’re from Athens, GA, where I lived and played once upon a time, they’ve already got one foot in the door for me. They started out sounding kind of like Looking On-era Move, then morphed into a more electronic sound as their set progressed. In typical Athens style, they had costume changes (the two main Of Montrealers mainly wore drag; their bass player sported a fabulous David Crosbyesque fur hat), wore masks, and flat out rocked. The guitar interplay and harmony singing of the two Of Montreal principals was great throughout. Frontman David Barnes has the look of a guy that’ll be around for a while, with or without Of Montreal. His stage banter was also frequently hilarious, from a brilliantly subtle jab at the Chili Peppers fans hanging out near Of Montreal’s stage waiting for their heroes to begin their shuck-and-jive (“Lebron James! Yeah!”... maybe you had to have been there), to emerging from backstage after yet another costume change with a devastatingly campy “How ya like me now?” Quite glad I saw these guys.
Wilco was, well, Wilco. I’ve never seen them before and don’t really consider myself a fan, though I think Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is a classic and I loved their Neu!/Creedence Clearwater Revival mashup, “Spiders (Kidsmoke)”, from their last record. Live, Wilco was exactly as I expected – a tight, extremely well-played show incorporating the occasional risk but packed with songs that go nowhere. Jeff Tweedy’s voice was better than I expected live, and while I like him personally and was also impressed by their drummer, almost none of their songs paid off for me Sunday night, including the Yankee numbers, of which there were more than a few.
With that, I made a beeline for the Red Line lest anybody see me in the crowd at a Red Hot Chili Peppers gig. There was a rumor going around that the Chili Peppers were going to bring Dora the Explorer on stage with them during their set, but I just couldn’t bring myself to stick around to find out. I realized that Sunday marked the third time I had a paid ticket to see the Chili Peppers live yet had left before they went on; at first I thought this was kind of cool, but then I realized that each of those times they made money off me without giving me anything in return.
Any Calexico and/or Of Montreal fans out there that can hip me on where to begin? Drop me a comment if you can lend a hand.
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Concert review: Eels at the Pabst Concert review: Sonic Youth at the Pabst
Great review! Holy moses. Sounds like a blast!
On another note about the camera though… I’d recommend a Canon D20 if you want to have highly professional photos. Otherwise, high-end point and shoot cameras can be plenty suitable for what you need..
Read B&H Photo/Video reviews for more info, it helps!
— Mark Aug 9, 07:28 AM #