Leading up to the festival, Lollapalooza 2009 didn't appear to have the headliners of past years. And while this proved to be true, the midlevel acts certainly held their weight, making for a great three days. Here are some of my thoughts:
Day 1:
The rain had already started by the time I walked through the gates around 12:15. I was pleased to see a much shorter line for three-day wristbands. Last year's wait pushed an hour, but I was able to walk right in this time. First up was Manchester Orchestra. At one point, lead singer Andy Hull remarked that it was the most people ever together in one place enjoying their music. I don't think the large crowd affected the group's performance negatively, though. It looked like they were having a great time on stage throughout their solid set.
Next, I caught Amazing Baby on the Citi stage. I was half-expecting this band to disappoint me. After really getting into their debut album,
Rewild, I was eager to see how it would transfer to the live setting. I'd have to say it sounded pretty damn good. The lead singer, however, needs to practice his microphone twirling -- or just stop doing it.
After a strong set by Heartless Bastards and an interesting performance by STS9, I navigated through some lake-size puddles to the Playstation stage to catch the last half of Fleet Foxes. As always, they were really good. Vocals were dead-on, just like the other times I've seen them. My only complaint was that I didn't hear them play anything new. I've basically heard identical setlists all three times I've seen them.
To finish off Friday, I saw Andrew Bird and Kings of Leon. Andrew Bird was a treat, and KOL was WHO I THOUGHT THEY WERE. They actually started off with 5 or 6 old songs, which was nice. But then once the newer stuff started trickling in, the show started to go downhill.
Day 2:
I was most looking forward to Saturday, but it ended up being kind of disappointing. Joe Pug took the BMI stage (which was awesomely in the shade) with a full band. This gave his music more of a country feel than I was expecting. It wasn't a bad set, but it just wasn't want I anticipated.
Gomez played to a sun-beaten crowd. I had never seen them before, and I enjoyed it -- especially their excellent version of Led Zeppelin's "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp." That's probably my favorite Zeppelin song, so it put a smile on my face.
Saturday night, I was pumped to see TV on the Radio. Unfortunately from where I was standing they did not sound good at all. When they went into "Golden Age" early in their set, I didn't recognize it for a good minute. I'm not sure if it's the wind or what, but it seems like the Budweiser stage has the most issues with sound.
A bit dejected, I told myself Animal Collective wouldn't let me down. For a year now, I've been talking up their outstanding performance at Pitchfork 2008. I figured Saturday night at Lolla would be a perfect opportunity to recapture that magic. However, Animal Collective decided to waste about 40 minutes of their 1-hour set. Instead of pumping people up with a song like "Peacebone," they meandered through an extended "Daily Routine." The set did eventually pick up, when they played "Fireworks" into "Brothersport." But with all the time they wasted in the middle, they were unable to bring "Brothersport" to a close before Tool took the stage at 8:00 sharp, drowning out Animal Collective.
I'm probably not the right person on Claptrapped to write a review of Tool. I will say that I enjoyed them, and that I think they were probably the best headliner of the festival. But I wish I could have seen the band better. The stage's screens played videos, rather than footage of the band. For such a "mysterious" band, I was hoping to get a better look at them.
Day 3:
Sunday was my favorite day by far -- and I had thought beforehand that it would be the worst day. Things started out with a rocking performance by Portugal. The Man. They effectively built up intensity to the point of all-out fist pumping. I was very impressed and look forward to seeing them again sometime.
The next highlight of the day -- and possibly the best performance of the festival -- was Dan Deacon. Accompanied onstage by the Dan Deacon "ensemble" (comprising four synthesizer players, three drummers, and a mallet section) and, later, a full marching band, Deacon (pictured right) got the crowd jumping, dancing, and smiling at will. His songs build and build, all over crazy, distorted vocals. Deacon orchestrated crowd participation unlike anything I had ever seen. He instructed the crowd to start a giant conga line -- something I would never think would work, as well as a large circle, where one of his crew members led the crowd in an interesting interpretive dance. The dance culminated with him launching empty water bottles into the air. Soon the entire crowd was doing the same -- all in time with the beat of the music. (Check out this
video to see what the hell I'm talking about.)
After solid performances from Passion Pit and Dan Auerbach, I was really looking forward to Band of Horses. Lou Reed, who was playing on the Budweiser stage -- across from where Band of Horses would be going on -- started 15 minutes late, so that pushed BOH's start time back 15 minutes. I was pretty annoyed, figuring Jane's Addiction would end BOH's set early since they were the "headliner." But when Jane's took the stage at 8:30, BOH lead singer Ben Bridwell shouted they would "blow that shit out!" The crowd went crazy, and BOH finished off an amazing performance. They played every song I wanted to hear, plus one new song. It was a perfect ending for Lollapalooza for me.
