While we don't claim to be music journalists, we will give you a couple quick things that stood out to us on Sunday (unfortunately the only day we could make it this year):
- Beats Reign Supreme - the Perry's stage at lollapalooza has grown and grown and grown some more over the past 5 years and again it seemed like this was consistently the most fun place to be. However, on Sunday night the crowds that enjoyed the beat popping house, trance, techno, hip-hop music made their way to Butler Field to enjoy Toronto based DJ Deadmau5 turn the North end of Grant Park into a flat out rave. Amazingly and to the delight of the crowd, Deadmau5 seemingly started his set early to coincide with the final rainfall of the festival. Once the first beat hit the speakers the sky's opened up as rain greeted the glow stick waving, gyrating, happy people bouncing around the park.
- Wow this Food is Good - Throughout the day we had a tough time making a decision on what food to try. Last year we went with the Lobster Corn dogs (which were back at the event this year as well and subsequently sold out), this year we had Tikka Chicken on Flatbread as well as a healthy helping of Garlic Fries. While this might not sound very exotic, remember that this is a festival with 90,000 people.
- Grant Park is Grant Park - After going to Union Park for Pitchfork,the Dave Mathews Caravan at Lakeside (down on the South Side), and countless other neighborhood festivals, it's clear that Grant Park is the best place for a festival in Chicago. Besides it being easy for everyone in the city to get to, the scenery is just beautiful. It's not everyday you get to stand in the middle of a park with a beautiful skyline and soak up amazingly diverse music. However, the one thought that crossed the mind on Sunday was with the massive rainfall and the massive amounts of people how will the park bounce back? By Sunday night it didn't look like it was in good shape. The mud ponds and the trounced grass didn't look good. Hopefully Lolla didn't destroy the grounds...we will have to go back today or sometime soon to see how it looks post-Lolla.
So there are our thoughts. Lolla is obviously about the music, but it's clearly also about many other things now.
Oh and if you didn't believe us about the Deadmau5 rave, check out these two quick videos we found on YouTube:
