Lollapalooza is Sweet, but Star of the Show is Grant Park

Lollapalooza is something to witness and depending on who you talk to it's either the best of Chicago or the worst. It still baffles the mind that thousands of people can cram into beautiful Grant Park for three long and tumultuous days of music, partying, good times and more partying. We've been monitoring some of the recaps from the festival and particularly like this one by Jim DeRogatas at the Chicago Sun-Times. He essentially says that the festival has morphed into more of a party instead of solely being about the music:

During the long days, hanging out, drinking and seeing and being seen all seemed to take priority over the music, though certainly the sounds remained the nominal reason for the giant party. But the order of priorities, which seem skewed to the hardcore music lover, explained why the casual Lollapalooza-goer was so willing to embrace even mediocre acts and this year’s generally lackluster roster of headlining stars.

To be honest, that's fine by us. Don't get us wrong, it's an amazing thing to see so many great bands so close to our neighborhood but the star of Lollapalooza really is Grant Park. It's an amazing space that provides a truly unique experience. Although bands are known to disingenuously flatter the city they're performing in it seemed like most of them were sincerely in awe of the beautiful park and skyline that makes Downtown Chicago so special (at least half of the shows we saw referenced this).

We realize that many people hate the festival (as shown by our informal poll), but to us that's the beauty of a dynamic city. The greater Grant Park area really does cater to everybody. Whether it's Lollapalooza, Blues Fest, Obama's Election Night Speech, The Chicago Marathon, Taste of Chicago, Movies in the Park, the numerous charity walks throughout the park, Dancing in the Park it's an amazing and versatile place (and that's probably just the tip of the iceberg).

Anyway, enough of us gushing over the park...simply put it's a great place. With that said, if Chicago ends up getting the Olympics, we can only imagine how Grant Park will serve this historic event. It truly could be an amazing and epic event for the city of Chicago.