Lollapalooza 2007
This year’s most nostalgic alt-rock parade, held at Grant Park in Chicago, took a more subtle note from years’ past with a lineup that spoke more to fan loyalty and longevity than emerging buzz and bombast. Iggy and The Stooges, Pearl Jam and Modest Mouse all spoke to their respective die-hard collectives, but as far as sporting the best rookies, the lineup fell a bit short. Last year’s festival capitalized on the most electric acts of 2006 with Gnarls Barkley, Editors, Mates of State, The Raconteurs and Panic! at the Disco. While Kings of Leon, The Black Keys, The Hold Steady and Polyphonic Spree helped to continue that trend, artists such as Explosions in the Sky, Brazilian Girls, Shiny Toy Guns, Rufus Wainwright, Junior Boys, Lily Allen and Patrick Wolf were sorely missed, not to mention Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails and the reassembled Rage Against the Machine, who all broke their teeth touring with the festival in the early 90s.
Whereas the warm-up acts may have been underwhelming, the headliners more than lived up to their veteran status as the sun-burnt masses flooded the Bud Light and AT&T stages at the end of each day. On Friday, I had the pleasure of being in the photo pit of Daft Punk’s set. As I stood two feet away from a massive bass speaker, the curtains parted to reveal a black, steal pyramid where the Parisian DJ duo remained for their entire set. I maybe squeezed off three shots on my camera before a flood of deafening binary noise literally made my brain vibrate and my ears turn Christmas-red. I booked as quickly as possible (I’ll never refer to plugs as “ear condoms” again) to check the rest of the set from a safer distance. Along with their absurd ampage, Daft Punk mixed and spun a booming set that actually made a group of awkward alt-rock Caucasians dance. That’s a feat within itself.
Interpol cast its sleek, metropolitan guitars over Saturday night while British trio Muse let loose with its amps-to-11 prog-rock epics on the opposite stage. Catching the former’s set, it was a nice reprieve to slink back into the sensual new-wave drawl of tracks like “NYC” and “Narc” set against vocalist Paul Banks’ sterile drone. The hipster icons put on a tight, minimalist performance bathed in spirals of neon light set against the surreal backdrop of the Chicago skyline. Interpol provided a needed calm before the storm of Sunday night, when Pearl Jam and its army of aging devotees would, for lack of pretense, rock it. Hard.
Eddie Vedder and crew understood how a near-classic group from the golden age of grunge should headline a festival that originated from the same style and aesthetic of early nineties grungery. PJ’s set list tore through the band’s eclectic history, avoiding the cliché radio burn-outs (“Jeremy”) to jam out stadium-jolting renditions of “Alive,” “Corduroy,” (with Vedder on guitar) and “World Wide Suicide,” before bringing out Ben Harper and Dennis Rodman (no joke) to bring the weekend to a roaring climax with a cover of “Rockin’ in the Free World.”
With another satisfying year of $7 Bud Lights and tinnitus under our belts, let speculation on 2008’s lineup begin.
To check out photography from my tour of Lollapalooza, check out the 1,000 Words Feature from my friends at Paste.com.
August 11th, 2007 at 5:06 am
The internet has ruined me, because despite the fact that I know WELL better, I expect any picture coming from an event called “lollapalooza” to have funny captions. And maybe cats.
August 12th, 2007 at 10:22 am
This show just isn’t what it used to be–I attended the first 4 shows. At the second show I saw the only performance of Temple of the Dog on the entire tour. At the third, I saw Tool and Rage Against the Machine before they were even known popular artists…
It’s just a bland tour now.
August 13th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
I understand that its likely most folks who went to Lollapalooza this year are much more into alt-rock then myself. Hell, I don’t even know the difference between Interpol and Snow Patrol. To me, they are all variations on a theme.
But Daft Punk stood alone. When they hit the scene over 10 years ago, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter managed to bridge the gap from house to mainstream and they did it without compromising their style. Few electronic artists can actually perform a live set that is worth seeing. Who wants to watch Moby twiddle a bunch of knobs? Its like electronic masturbation. Leave it to the world’s most rockin’ robots to prove that it is possible to buck the trend. Daft Punk trumpeted their set from an ominous black pyramid, set on a stage that looked straight out of Kubrick’s 2001. The mesmerizing audio combined with imagery, lights and two rocking robots was one of, if not the most amazing show I’ve ever seen. Of course, I’m a bit biased. But my friend who had come along with me and was a big Ben Harper fan, actually left halfway through the Daft Punk set to go catch Ben Harper. He later told me how much he regretted that decision. Even with Eddie Vedder joining him on stage, Ben still couldn’t didn’t have the crowd rockin’ nearly as hard as those two Parisian robots did. Not even close.