I flew into Chicago from Nashville after an all-too brief four hours or so of sleep. I met my lady at the airport (flying in from the C-bus), and we proceeded to our swank accomodation at the Hotel Palomar. Very nice. After a quick bite to eat and some finagling to get some new contact lenses for my girl, we headed up to Wrigley to see the Cubs beat the Phillies in what was a pretty great game. Great seats, too, as you can see from the photo.
That was a great way to start the trip, though it meant that we missed the opening set from the Tallest Man on Earth, which we were both looking forward to. But we got in there, met up with our other friends and started the rocking Friday evening post-Cubs goodness with Broken Social Scene. As usual for me, they were very meh ... some great songs, some forgettable songs, a bit of a mess of a stage show, but mainly lacking a central nugget to which I can latch onto. Their sound just isn't quite unique enough for me, maybe.
That left Modest Mouse as the headliner, and boy were they terrible. It all started out promising enough with "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes," but whereas I thought they might bust out classic after classic, they instead stuck to the last couple of records for the most part. They rocked "Dramamine" in the middle, but it was jammy and just bad. It was bad - what can I say? They played "Gravity Rides Everything" in the encore, too, but it was too late by then. There were 6 or 7 people on stage, though it looked/sounded like there were 20 - all cacophony and too much going on for a band that once thrived on spare minimalism and space. A wasted opportunity ...
Saturday - 7/17/2010
After a lazy morning of eating and shopping and pooling at the hotel, we finally meandered into the festival around 4:15 for the end of Raekwon's set, which included some Wu Tang bangers. Fun, though as this festival proved over and over, great hip hop on record (see Wu Tang, Big Boi) does not translate to great hip hop live. It was all bass and shouting, no finesse or dynamics.
Wolf Parade hit the big stage ("big" being relative at a 15,000 person festival) and sounded awesome. They ripped some new(er) songs and then, midway through, rocked "This Heart's On Fire" followed by "I'll Believe In Anything." It truly doesn't get much better in rock than that last song. Biggest bummer was that they left off "Shine A Light," but I really can't complain - it killed.
A very middling, forgettable set by Panda Bear followed. Again - great, great records - terrible live show. Oh well ...
But it was all good, as LCD Soundsystem proceeded to play the best set I've seen this year. It was simply fantastic/transcendent/forward-thinking/dance-ready/awesome. What is there not to like about this band and what they are doing now or, for that matter, have been doing for the last 7 years or so? It was both the highlight of the festival and of 2010 musically for me:
Us vs Them / Drunk Girls / Pow Pow / Daft Punk Is Playing At My House / All My Friends / I Can Change / Tribulations / Movement / Yeah / Someone Great / Losing My Edge / NY I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down
We grabbed come down drinks at G-Cue Pool Hall afterward (random, I know) and then turned in, being the old people that we are.
Sunday - 8/18/2010
This was definitely the most festival-centric day of the weekend, as there were bands I wanted to see starting quite early. And though I didn't mention it yet, it was hot - as in very hot, all weekend long.
We started at the tiny, shaded stage for the last few songs from Best Coast, who were endearing enough, and followed that by kind of watching the set from Girls. Pretty meh.
But pretty epic was the set from Beach House. They sounded amazing - maybe even better than at Coachella a few months before. The crowd was pretty rapt, too, which helped. Fantastic, languid set.
We sort of caught a big of Local Natives and Surfer Blood on the tiny stage, but it was such a human traffic jam that my ever worsening claustrophobia couldn't handle it. (I can only imagine what a hellhole it must've been back there at that tiny stage for Sleigh Bells later in the evening.)
We rounded out the evening by kind of halfway watching Major Lazer (crazy) and Big Boi (all bass and yelling - and every song is soooooo good - why must this have sucked live?).
What should have been the coup de grace for me rounded out the festival that night as Pavement took the stage, but they didn't come out until after about 10 minutes of a horrible, probably-meant-to-be-comedic intro from some former Chicago DJ. It was bad, talking about how Pitchfork was the minor leagues while Lollapalooza was the major leagues. People were booing vociferously.
After he finally left, Pavement took the stage rather nonchalantly and ran through their set, which was much shaggier and looser than when I had seen them at Coachella. It was good and, again, offered some cool surprises ("Fin" and "Debris Slide"?!?!?) but just seemed slapdash compared to the total badassery of LCD the night before. But it was a sweet sendoff nonetheless:
Cut Your Hair / In the Mouth a Desert / Silence Kit / Kennel D / Shady Lane / Frontwards / Unfair / Grounded / Debris Slide / Spit on a Stranger / Range Life / Perfume-V / Trigger Cut / Fin / Stereo / 2 States / Gold Soundz / Conduit for Sale / Stop Breathing / Here / The Hexx
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