Rather belated tidbits from Lollapalooza ’08

It’s almost a week after the fact at this point, which is like a lifetime in Internet time, but I’m still keen to write a few words about where I was last weekend. I attended Lollapalooza, the utterly ginormous beast of a music festival that takes over Chicago once a year. You may have heard of it.

Up until this year I had never attended any sort of multi-day music festival. In less than a month’s time I’ve been to two of them. Back in July I went to the Pitchfork Music Festival for a day. Spoon was playing and I had missed them a few month’s back due to unprecedented demand and Ticketmaster fuckery. I had never particularly wanted to go to a music festival, but not for any specific reason. It just didn’t seem like a thing I needed to do.

Radiohead and the promise of other excellence was the clincher. Even before the lineup was officially announced it was pretty clear that Radiohead would be there. Thanks to my wife I’ve come around on them. I had joined the haters pretty adamantly after the release of Kid A. But, I can always change my mind.

Friday

My sister-in-law flew in to Chicago for the festival, but didn’t arrive until 2:00 AM the night before thanks to inclement weather somewhere. As such, the three of us — my wife, her sister, and myself — didn’t make it to Grant Park until around 1 o’clock. We caught the end of The Black Lips, a band I’d seen before in March, who were probably excellent. Then we wandered around a bit to get our bearings. Returning to the same stage we listened to The Go! Team. I probably would have been into their set had it been later in the day. As yet I wasn’t quite in the zone I needed to be for their set. I rather like what I’ve heard of their albums though.

After that, we made the long trek over to the opposite side of the park to get in place for Gogol Bordello. I heard a bit of The Kills, who seem to have some promise. Apparently the heat was too much for them and their set had to be cut short. It was brutally hot on Friday. The wife was pretty beat down at this point. I left her in the south field to replenish water and pick up much appreciated vegan cupcakes and cookies from Chicago’s Bleeding Heart Bakery.

Gogol Bordello rocked incredibly fucking hard. I’ve been a fan since discovering them through lead singer Eugene Hütz’s role in Everything is Illuminated but hadn’t really considered myself to be a true fan until this show. This was one of the best performances of the entire weekend. I’m going to do everything in my power to see them again should they come through town again.

It was a short jaunt over to see Mates of State, one of the wife’s favorite bands. She’s right, they really are the most adorable couple in indie rock. She gave them one of the vegan cookies I’d bought earlier during an autograph session. They’re vegan, or Kori is anyway. They even did one of the only PETA ads that make sense: the one in which people would rather go naked than wear fur as opposed to going naked rather than… wearing M&Ms?

After the Mates of State autograph we headed back to Radiohead’s stage where we plopped ourself in the dirt and waited rather than trying to catch CSS or Stephen Malkmus. Did I mention it was fucking hot? Because it really was. Radiohead, by the way, was pretty damned amazing. They had pretty lights too, which was great because we were parked about a half-mile away from the stage.

Saturday

Saturday didn’t have as much going on so we took the opportunity to stay at home, get some errands run, and buy a real meal. We didn’t make it to the park until Explosions in the Sky played. There was an inexplicably large crowd assembled for an instrumental band. Some kid behind me kept yelling “Whoo!” directly in my ear because he was a foot shorter than I am. Still an amazing show. One of the guys in the band is the spitting image of John Gruber.

Okkervil River came next. I last saw them open for The New Pornographers a few months back. Where I first saw them is much more interesting. I first saw Okkervil River back in 2001 or 2002 in a tiny restaurant-cum-bar in Huntington, WV that regularly featured open mic nights and bands in the larger dining area/smoking section. I made a poster for that show. Really nice guys.

Unlike everyone I know who attended Lollapalooza this year my wife and I chose Wilco over Rage Against the Machine. I don’t regret that decision in the slightest. Wilco played a great set including most of my favorites: “I am Trying to Break Your Heart,” “Monday,” and “Outtasite (Outta Mind)” among many others. They also had fabulous Grand Ole Opry style suits. With kittens and dolphins.

Sunday

Sunday was the longest day. Unlike the previous days we were there for the entire day. Which was great, because we got catch The Octopus Project bright and early. Fun fact: I also made a poster for the band while living in Huntington. I never saw them though. Some fuckwad in New York City stole their stuff and they had to cancel the tour. I had forgotten how they’re all just incredibly good looking people.

After that it was local favorite Kid Sister. I don’t have much to say, but I rather enjoyed her. The Weakerthans were a no-show, but nobody bother to tell anyone until they announced “Chicago’s own Office!” and great crowds of disappointed fans headed in the opposite direction. We slowly made our way back to the main stage for Brazilian Girls but the heat was taking its toll on me. I had to retreat to what shade I could find.

I really wanted to be excited for Iron & Wine, whom I love, but the relentless heat pushed me away. I managed to catch the entire set from the periphery. I decided it didn’t matter too much because I already know I’ll buy their albums. Besides I need my energy for Girl Talk.

Lord how I needed my energy. I hadn’t seen a show like this the entire festival, though Gogol Bordello came the closest. Girl Talk was the show I was most looking forward to all weekend. More than Radiohead, more than Wilco, more than Kanye West or Nine Inch Nails.

Girl Talk is one guy and a laptop computer. He’s one of those “mashup” artists you may have heard about. Unlike most of those other guys he doesn’t just put one song versus another one, but creates a seething, cacophonous quilt of sound that you can dance to. Just about anything could get thrown in there. If you haven’t heard it yet, do yourself a favor and check out Girl Talk’s most recent album Feed the Animals which is available as a “pay what you want” download. Maybe it’s not for you, but I can’t get enough. He’s coming back to Chicago on November 8th (pretty much as soon as he isn’t subject to C3’s exclusivity clause) and I cannot fucking wait.

After Girl Talk was over I was pretty much done. There were still two more headlining acts, plus a bunch of other good bands, but I hardly cared. We chose Mark Ronson and Kanye West as both were artists we liked, but would likely never pay to see separately. Mark Ronson was a lot of fun. The set wasn’t fantastic, but he had such energy and charm it was impossible not to love him. As for Kanye, I guess he did all right but I’m only really familiar with the big hits. About a half hour in the wife looked at me and said that her 16-year-old self wanted to see what Trent Reznor was up to on the other side of the park. That sounded just fine with me. We arrived in the middle of one of his new instrumental things, but the set picked up incredibly soon afterward. We heard “Head Like a Hole,” “Terrible Lie,” and “Hurt” and we let the old anger flare up again.

You know, I do try my best not to be guilty of excessive schadenfreude when discussing Microsoft and their Zune — Oops! I mean Zune. I really do. Microsoft, however, seems to be committed to making it as difficult as possible for me to resist.

Naturally, I’m biased. I’m not biased against Microsoft, mind you. I’m a big fan of their Xbox and their mice. I’ve got nothing against Office. I’m not particularly fond of running Windows, but I do find myself wishing I could run a Windows program or two every now and then. I don’t relish hating Microsoft like so many on the Internets seem. I’m just biased pro-Apple. . . which includes their iPod division. I’d really like to see some serious competition there — so long as it doesn’t fragment the market too painfully seeing as I’m pretty much stuck with the iPod now that the Rio is dead.

But Jesus! Microsoft! What do you think you’re doing?

• Exhibit A: The Zune commercials suck. I saw this one during Heroes last night. Here’s the problem with this ad: Nobody — aside from people glued to their RSS readers knows what the fuck their selling here. I asked my wife what she thought they were selling and she just shrugged tiredly. Okay, it’s something to do with music. . . probably. To be fair to Microsoft here, these sort of vague would-be viral ads are endemic. Call me old-fashioned, but when you’re launching an expensive new gadget it might help to let the non-obsessed public in on exactly what this gadget does aside from a few split-second clips of what I presume is the file sharing ability.
• Exhibit B: The installation bloat Windows users are all too familiar with did not go away with the introduction of classy minimalist packaging. When installing some new hardware I’m willing to give the installer an awful lot of leeway. After all, I just spent a good chunk of money to get this thing and I want to use it. I’d have a hard time justifying the painful Zune install. This screen in particular would have really tested my patience:
  
  (Props to Engadget for the screenshot. Hit them up for the full process.)
• Exhibit C: It doesn’t work with Windows Media Player. You need to install a totally new media management suite despite the fact that you probably already have one set up — one with the MS logo on it. So stupid. So annoying.
• Exhibit D: WiFi. How awesome would it be to buy songs at any hotspot in the country? If that’s too ambitious, why the hell no WiFi syncing? I know it’s not the speediest way to go, and it’d just run down the battery. . . but I’d still use it to put that hot new track I just bought on there.
• Exhibit E: The shady deal with Universal. I’m sure it was Universal’s doing, but it rubs me the wrong way just the same.
• Exhibit F: http://www.zune.com/

As I said before, don’t mistake this for a Mac zealot’s mindless bashing of all things Microsoft. Up until today, Microsoft and Apple were never in direct competition (Apple makes its money in the hardware market, not the software market). I don’t want to mock the Zune. It’s just too easy to not do it.

I’m still catching up. Not only did I find the human love of my life in the past few months, I found the technological one. After much time spent lusting after one, I finally broke down and bought myself an iPod. Well, charged myself an iPod to be fair, but that’ll all be taken care of once Uncle Sam (and whatever character might stand in for the state of South Carolina) send be back the money they took out of my paycheck.

New Year’s weekend was the breaking point. I spent it with Staci, up north of here. Every motherfucker I ran into seemed to have one. Even one guy who didn’t have the computer to handle iTunes managed to snag a mini for the xmas (he lent it to a friend who filled it with songs he might like and has loved it ever since). Sitting at a restaurant bar awaiting a table I saw two different ones and an empty case possibly hinting at a heretofore unseen third iPod in the same location. That was the last straw. I returned home Tuesday the 4th of January, headed to the Apple Store around midnight, and had it in my grubby mitts by Friday morning.

I love it, by the way.

Some time back a friend told me that it would “change my life,” and I chuckled slightly at the hyperbole. I’m not chuckling now. This damned thing really has changed my life. I’ve rediscovered all kinds of music I’d let sit fallow in my iTunes folder, buried in a long list of other songs competing for my time. For months now I’ve had We Shall All Be Healed by The Mountain Goats copied to my PowerBook Tinúviel while listening to not one single note. Now I’m completely hooked on it.

Oh, and the accessories I can buy for it. Sigh. It’s enough to make my little techno-nerd heart go pitter patter.