Lollapoliteness!

Lollapalooza was a new experience for me. It was something that I had never been to before. I didn't quite know what to expect, so thusly, I got out of it way more than I had expected. Lollapalooza is a three-day music festival, primarily rock music, that takes place in Chicago's Grant Park. Grant Park is a beautiful space, right on Lake Michigan, in the heart of downtown Chicago. It is a great place to take in a concert, if one happens to be so lucky, but more so, it is a perfect vantage point to take in the heart-warming skyline of Chicago. It really is terrific. Of course, a concert event like Lollapalooza, which draws hundreds of thousands of people, needs a large enough space to be able to contain them all, which Grant Park does very nicely.

When I first arrived, which was on Saturday afternoon (Day 2, I skipped Day 1), the first thing I marveled at was how many porto-potties there were scattered around the park, and secondly how clean they were. I was told later that the Lollapalooza cleaning crew stays up all night cleaning every area of the park (collecting trash/recyclables, wiping up vomit, and, yes, cleaning the porto-potties each night) in preparation for the next day's events, which I found remarkable. Not as remarkable, though, as the four-tiered poles of waterless hand-sanitizer dispensers that were found outside the porto-potty stations. They really thought of everything.

The weekend's events started on a pretty remarkable note, besides that of even the cleanliness of the porto-potties. And that is, that I met Thom Yorke. If you know who Thom Yorke is, then you know how important he has been to music in the past 10 or 15 years, or however long Radiohead, his brainchild, has been on the scene. It was truly unbelievable, and I'm not quite sure I believe it myself, since the whole event occurred rather randomly, as one might expect. Thom Yorke is a known recluse and a pretty peculiar guy, so to say that he was just walking around a highly populated music festival in Chicago in the middle of the summer would be more than slightly out of character for a person of his reputation. Having not seen many pictures of him, especially recently, or not knowing that much about him except for the fact that I love his music, I went along for the ride. The excitement of the nearby crowd at the sight of seeing Thom Yorke got us excited, and so my cousins Jordan, Tyler, and I walked up to him and asked to get our pictures taken. We did. Twice. We shook hands. We exchanged a few words to the extent of, "Thom, thank you for making music." To which Thom replied, "Thank you for supporting. Have you heard my new album yet?" Since I indeed had and it was one of the things I listened to most last summer, I said, "yes". "Good," he said, "listen to it. Especially track 3." And then he casually walked away with his security and video crew by his side.

Jordan, Tyler, and I were a little understandably starstruck from this encounter, all three of us being big Radiohead fans, and we continued on our way contemplating if, in fact, that was the real Thom Yorke. As it does seem unlikely that Thom Yorke would be walking around Lollapalooza, a major event where thousands, or at least hundreds of people would surely recognize him, it seems more unlikely that a stooge would dress as Thom Yorke, imitating his weird behavior, English accent, and characteristic lazy eye with a camera crew, merely for a laugh. But then again, this is 2007, and a lot of people have gained a lot of attention pulling those kinds of high-dollar pranks of people involving celebrity talent (Thanks Ashton!). It was said that Thom was there to perform with Muse later that night, which he did not, making the situation all the more skeptical. Nevertheless, I have no definitive evidence disproving that it was not Thom Yorke, so I'm going to go along saying that I met him, because lets face it, that's pretty cool. Even after paying $80 for a one-day ticket.
(Note: The aforementioned picture of us and Thom Yorke was taken on a disposable black and white camera that has yet to be developed. As soon as a digital copy of said photo is issued to me, I will be sure to put it up in addition to the others.)

Later on that day, I was able to see a few very good performances by some noteworthy bands and artists. One could argue that the clientèle of Lollapalooza is getting very indie or very mainstream. I'm really not one to ask because, while there were quite a few bands that I had not heard of, there were several that I had heard of, but few would I call mainstream. Nevertheless, the point of the Lollapalooza festival is to rock, be it with bands who are well-known or not. I saw a very lively performance in a band called Aqueduct, which was at a smaller side stage, then later, I traversed the park to see the Roots at one of the two main stages, then went back to the other side to catch a glimpse of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs, and then set up camp for Muse, which was one of the headliners for Saturday night.
The way Lollapalooza is set up is there are a total of nine stages set up at different ends of the park, varying in size and placement. The two main stages are set up at far opposite ends of the park, with the smaller ones in between. They are staggered so that people can gather and collect in front of them, while other people pass by behind them. The performances are staggered as well, so that no band interferes with another. As a fan, one really has to pick and choose where to go because you're not going to be able to get up close for every band, especially if it is one of the more important crowd-drawing bands. The cool thing, though, is that bands are playing all day, so that if you choose to camp out in front of a stage all day, for instance to get a front and center view of Pearl Jam, you're not going to be left out in the cold, because there are a lot of good bands that play before the headliners, warming up the crowd and opening up the stage for them. Also, it was very hot and sunny when we did that. No cold in sight.

The Roots were spectacular. It is not very often one gets to see a performance live of a band where every member has such exceeding virtuosic talent to display. The Roots are the kind of a band where nothing is important to them except the music and giving the crowd what it wants. It will not be easy to forget how good they were. Though they are a hip hop act, they drew a large crowd at Lollapalooza, one I was at the back of, and they were in no shortage of rocking out.
The Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs were nothing to write home about. I had to watch them if I was going to get close at all for Muse, which was probably what I was looking forward to the most the whole weekend, save for spending time with my cousins. Muse's performance definitely fulfilled my expectations for how awesome they could be. Another example of virtuosic talent and musicianship, especially by the lead singer/songwriter/guitarist/pianist Matthew Bellamy, Muse was by far the loudest and hardest rocking of the performances I saw that weekend. The only drawbacks to their amazing performance were the frequent mosh pitters and crowd surfers that come out only when a certain frequency is hit. Either that or people were just more tired on Sunday than on Saturday, which could be the case, since Saturday was overcast and rainy, while Sunday was sunny, hot, and humid.
As hot and humid as it may have been, Sunday was the day for Pearl Jam, and having already spent my $80 on another one-day ticket, there was no turning back, tired and sore as I was. The die-hard Pearl Jam fans, my cousins included, woke up early, on a mission to get to the gates a full three hours before they opened, in order to sprint to the stage and stake a claim to a front and center spot to see the legendary band perform. They had to fight through a crowd of people and a wet and rainy morning, which left puddles in their running path too vast to leap, but once they reached the rail, they knew they had made it. Meanwhile, I was back at the hotel, sleeping until 11:00. I didn't get to the gate until noon, and not to the stage until 12:30. I still managed to work my way up to the front, only a few bodies behind my cousins and their friends. I could see them and kind of talk to them.
There I waited. All day in the hot blistering sun with only one bottle of water I stood getting my arms sunburned. I sweat the water out faster than I could drink it. I knew I couldn't drink very quickly because if I left to go to the bathroom, I would never get back to my spot. I was by myself, even though, I could see my cousins. I did not know any of the people around me, though over the course of the day, a kind of bond was formed among me and the rest of this crowd, gathered all day long to see Pearl Jam up close. I casually got to know the people around me, as I observed and listened to their conversations while I stood there and had nobody to talk to. There was the obnoxious shirtless Asian guy next to me, who kept shouting things that didn't really make a whole lot of sense. I guess he was the entertainment for his group. There was the girl in front of me who I kind of admired as she read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There were the four gentlemen in front of me who brought a flask concealed with alcohol for each of them, and an assortment of mixing ingredients. The guy next to me, who I found out was from the same town in New Jersey that I had just moved from, seemed to carry a satchel with an infinite amount of Vitamin Waters that made me so thirsty. I tried to get him to sell me one, but to no avail. He did offer to share a bit of his drinks with me, though, which was very kind of him. I tried every so often to get water from the security guys on the side who patrolled all along the side of the gates pouring water into people's mouths and then dumping the rest of the bottles on other people. At one point in the day, I passed a bottle of urine over the side in a relay of other trash so as to not step on it later when we would all be jumping around to the music of the rock band we had so religiously flocked to see.

Whether one likes Pearl Jam or not, one cannot argue with the effect they have had on the rock 'n roll culture over the past seventeen years. Eddie Vedder and his band are a force to be reckoned with. With a cult of followers, a massive fan club, and hoards of casual observers, they command the respect of millions of people, from the top record industry executives, to members of the press, to the smallest of children just beginning to learn about music and rock and roll. The way they gather disciples under their wing, if for nothing else than to listen to music, is uncanny, and they promote a message and a way of living that is unlike that of any other band out there.

After Pearl Jam vacated the stage, leaving the crowd to sing a capella any number of memorable Pearl Jam songs, I learned something. Perhaps there was something more powerful in place to bring all these people together in kindness. Maybe there is something special about Pearl Jam that has allowed them to continue gathering followers over the years, rather than die out like so many other bands of their generation. Perhaps it is something more than just the music alone. It is something that is cemented in seeing a band of such magnitude live in performance in front of me. I certainly learned a lot at my first time at Lollapalooza, and I wait on my anxious toes to learn even more.