Lemme Lolla At Ya

Ahh, Lollapalooza. For those of you unfamiliar with this "rock and roll" music the kids are listening to these days, this is the second year in row that Lollapalooza has been one weekend only in one location only: Chicago's Grant Park. This year, there were over 130 bands, and I'd love to say that I saw them all, but I'd also like to tell you that I'm 12 inches (in diameter), and we all know that ain't true. Anywho, this year's festival was 3 days instead of just 2. And it was pret-ty good.

Friday
At approximately noon, two former co-workers of mine from Dayton, Nick "Not the Same Bird-Headed Freak that Used to Play Basketball at Illinois" Smith and his special lady friend Andrea "Killing Herself To" Livingston, showed up at my apartment. We hopped on the Brown Line, and headed downtown.

The temperature on Friday was in the high 80s, and the sun was not encumbered by any of those pesky clouds that you Londoners are so fond of.

We got to the grounds in time to catch the last few songs of The Subways, a delightful British trio that plays straight-up rock 'n' roll. And get this, they have a girl as their bassist. ERA or no ERA, that is some fucking progress. You may know The Subways from their appearance on the greatest show on television, The OC. God I miss The OC. I can't wait for the season premiere when Ryan finishes Volchok Blanka style. The sight of what used to be Volchok's body, but will soon be a soccer-ball-sized mass of flesh and bone crumbs, will certainly be a sight for sore eyes.

It was about this time that we got our second beer. It was also at this time that we realized having a bottle of water with every beer was essential to our survival. It was also around this time that we met up with Jeremy "The Floppy Burrito" Burrito, his girlfriend Shannon "Don't Call Me Midway" O'Hare, and their posse.

Anyway, from The Subways, we headed to see Cursive. Their sound can best be described as that of a cat being murdered slowly and deliberately with a serrated paring knife. After listening to them for three songs, I am proud to say that I still print.

Not wanting to waste any time, we headed to one of the side stages to see Chicago's own The M's (shown to the left -- I was using my telephoto lens). I liked The M's, in part because they had a dude that looked like post-breakdown Brian Wilson (sans the robe or the sandbox in his bedroom, or so I assume), and in part because I could watch them from the shade. Musically, I don't really remember much about them, except that their songs were catchy and generally agreeable. I wouldn't be opposed to having them as my neighbors.

It was around this time when I made my first fearful trip to the port-a-potties. You can imagine my surprise when I happened upon what I believe to be the cleanest port-a-potty of all-time. It turns out that they were all clean. I have never had a more pleasant port-a-potty experience. Not even that one time at IU when a girl had to pee so bad at a tailgate that she came into the shitter with me. Actually, that kind of sucked.

After The M's, we trudged across what Andrea deemed The Desert, which was the wasteland between both main sides of the concert grounds that seemed to take days to traverse. At least we got to look at Buckingham Fountain, which conjured up images of Al Bundy making some comment about how Marcy looked like a chicken. All I could do was laugh because otherwise I would have died, and the last thing I wanted to deal with at that point was a kettle of buzzards.

We got to the other side in time to see the last couple songs of eels, a band I had for some reason built up in my mind to be better than they are, perhaps because eels are badasses or perhaps because of the whole e. e. cummings, throwing punctuation norms out the door thing. At that point I was more concerned with staying drunk and well-hydrated at the same time than with enjoying myself.

After eels, it was Stars, who I would equate to a less rockin' (and therefore less fulfilling) version of Shout Out Louds. Angry that I should have instead seen Editors -- a band with the foresight to hand out hand fans with their band name on them in 90-degree weather -- but I once again made the mistake of trusting Jeremy. Nick, Andrea, and I decided to go our own way, straight-up Lindsey Buckingham style, and get some eats and some shade.

We traveled back across The Desert and parked ourselves back in the shade near the same stage where we had previously seen The M's. Some band called Mute Math was playing, and they were more than tolerable, although I probably could have tolerated Kathy Griffin at that point, so long as I was in the shade.

After that we went back across The Desert for Ryan Adams. It was about at this point when we hit a wall. Sitting in the shade over there and taking a beer off gave us our third winds. Meanwhile, Ryan Adams was pretty good, although he never played Summer of '69.

The aforementioned rest and beer off allowed us to have the strength to travel back across The Desert to see The Secret Machines. As I recall, they were pretty good. They played a nice little brand of rock 'n' roll that didn't sound like a cat getting executed.

After The Secret Machines, it was The Raconteurs, Jack White's side project featuring himself, two dudes from The Greenhornes, and some dude named Brendan Benson. In addition to kicking ass sonically, they also have the best website out of any of the bands in the history of the world. Their show was pretty solid. Jack was in good spirits, and that was none more apparent than when the group busted into a very solid cover of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy." It was around this time that Tron showed up, only to leave to go find his special lady friend Magdog at My Morning Jacket (yes, across The Desert).

We all met up a little while later at The Violent Femmes, a band whose most popular song is about -- cover your eyes Republicans -- masturbation. They put on a rousing set, much to the liking of Andrea. The Violent Femmes are always a band that I forget about, and I forget how many good songs they have. Maybe now I'll get around to doing what I should have done 12 years ago: steal my brother's Violent Femmes CD.

After The Violent Femmes, Nick, Andrea, and I decided to roll. Our options were Ween or Death Cab for Cutie. Since I only know one Ween song, and I assumed that they weren't going to play "Push th' Little Daisies" over and over again, they were out of the question. With many apologies to Seth Cohen, I personally think Death Cab comes across as a bit whiny and unnecessarily drowsy, but then again I think the same thing about Radiohead, and people seem to like them.

Anyway, we left at that point, and then went (with Jester) to the Burwood for a few beers. The ladies couldn't handle it, so they went home. Nick and I are both fond of alcohol and its intoxicating qualities, so we went back out. First, it was to Grand Central, where Christoff was hanging out with some of his peeps. I'm 108% sure that I was the most underdressed person there, as I was the only one wearing a Maine high school state bass fishing tournament t-shirt that was drenched in a day's worth of sweat. It's not one of those shirts that's supposed to be ironic. I actually bought it at a Goodwill in Maine. Anyway, while there some girl (completely unprovoked) expressed her opinion that she was smarter than me. I asked her to prove it, and she then asked me how I wanted her to prove it. I wanted desperately to explain to her that if she was smarter than me, then she should know how to prove it, but I figured she probably already knew that.

After Grand Central, Nick and I did not feel that we had yet reached a suitable level of inebriation, so we went to Deja Vu (for you non-Chicagoans, there is a 4am bar about a block from my apartment called Deja Vu, which I am certain is the only entity named Deja Vu in the world that is not a strip club). It's a dance club. I hate dancing. So does Nick. Hence, we sat on a pool table that they for some reason have in there, and we drank until it closed.

Saturday
When Jessie awoke me at 9:11 on Saturday morning, I assumed she was playing one of those horribly unfunny practical jokes that wives like to play on husbands -- you know, the ones where they wake their husbands up on a Saturday morning for the sole reason that they are awake and refuse to be awake when their husbands are not. It turns out I was right. And it also turns out I was still a little drunk, but at least I wasn't going to work.

Nick, Andrea, Jester and I went to Clarke's for breakfast, which is always a wise choice. After that, Nick and Andrea headed off to explore Chicago before the Jimmy Buffett concert they were to attend that evening, and Jester and I prepared for a long day in the sun by playing a one-sided game of Don't Drink Too Much Today Andrew. I tried to play We Need to Be There By Noon So I Can See Be Your Own Pet, but Jessie was not very receptive, such that we had to take a cab down there instead of the train.

We got there about 12:06, which upset me because Be Your Own Pet was only going to be on for 30 minutes, and they were one of the bands that I most wanted to see. I've been listening to BYOP for almost 2 years, after I read about them in Rolling Stone. You would be able to see them in the photo to the left, if it were at all a decent picture. They are four teenagers from Nashville, and they play good old punk, mixed in with some good old rock 'n' roll. Unfortunately their music doesn't translate as well as it could live. They are tighter and more understandable on CD. Their saucy blond lead singer Jemina Pearl Abegg has the potential to be a much hotter and more normal version of Courtney Love. The group is still as young and innocent as a group who tours the US and UK getting drunk can be, which lent itself to the rare moment when a rock 'n' roller talks to the crowd and seems genuine and normal. Upon seeing the sign for the King Tut exhibit draped from the Field Museum off in the distance, Abegg mentioned that if she lived in Chicago she would probably go see that exhibit because it would probably be pretty cool. Then she puked on stage before the last song.

After BYOP, Jessie insisted that we visit the AT&T Digital Oasis tent, which turned out to be a mildly decent idea, since they were handing out free handheld battery-powered fans. Once we got our fans, we listened to Living Things, who I thought sounded a bit like Louis XIV (who played Lollapalooza last year and rocked the hizzie).

After Living Things, we met up once again with The Floppy Burrito and his posse for what turned out to be what I think was the best show of the weekend: The Go! Team. I knew absolutely nothing about The Go! Team before their show, other than the 30-second sample I heard on the Lollapalooza website. I can't really describe what they sounded like because they were different than anything I've heard before, and many of their songs were different than each other. If you put Rage Against the Machine, ABBA, Beastie Boys, Faith No More, Sly & The Family Stone, and the Spice Girls into a blender, The Go! Team would be the resulting smoothie. They are incapable of being classified into any one genre. As you can probably tell from the picture, the band members were a mélange of characters, from the energetic black female lead singer named Ninja who was in kind of a cheerleading outfit, to the various dudes who would switch off between playing the drums, guitars, and piano, to the girl who is possibly an Inuit who played drums and sang one song. I was impressed, not only by their energy, but because they didn't really sound like anything I'd every heard before.

The dizzying high I was on after The Go! Team soon turned to hunger. While Jester and I walked to get something to eat, we heard the musical stylings of Oh No! Oh My!, who we both agreed was good, but not worth passing up Connie's Pizza to hear. While eating, I explained to Jester that I really wanted to get back to one particular stage so that we could get a good spot for Wolfmother, which was the band at Lollapalooza that I most wanted to see. Jessie wanted to get ice cream. After she explained to me that I am self-centered (which I was unable to deny -- what can I say, I love to do things that make me happy, even when they make other people cry), we went to the ice cream stand that was on the outskirts of The Desert and had a line that ensured I would not be able to get a close spot to see the band that I most wanted to see out of the 130 bands at this festival that happens once a year. A half hour later, we finally got our ice cream.

The only bright side to what has now been dubbed Operation Kill Andrew's Spirits is that I saw an awesome t-shirt on the walk to get ice cream. It read: "Shakespeare hates your shitty emo poems." Amen to that.

Plus, it allowed us to easily meet up with fellow Pi Kapp and former IU student body president, La'Maze "Space Jam" Johnson. Maze, as the ladies call him, is perhaps the only student body president who was also a member of CALM. He is one of the most laid back guys I know, although one time in college he tried to argue with me that Michael Jordan dunked from the half-court line. Here's approximately how the conversation went:
Maze: "[blah blah blah], like that one time Michael Jordan dunked from the half-court line in the middle of a game."
Me: "You mean the free throw line?"
Maze: "No man, he dunked from the half-court line."
Me: "No one has ever dunked from the half-court line. Jordan dunked from the free throw line in the Slam Dunk Contest in 1988."
Maze. "No man, I saw him dunk from the half-court line."
Me: "The world record in the long jump is like 29 feet. The half-court line is about 47 feet from the basket. It's not possible."
Maze: "I'm telling you I saw him do it. Maybe it was the three-point line, but I saw him and I swear it was the half-court line."
Me: "He has never dunked from the half-court line, nor has he ever dunked from the three-point line."
Maze (having an epiphany and smiling): "Yeah he -- awww, you know what? I'm thinking of Space Jam."

Anyway, Maze, Jessie, and I headed over to see Wolfmother from an ungodly far distance. Nonetheless, Wolfmother rocked. For those who don't know them, they are an Australian trio that plays an unabashed form of rock 'n' roll akin to Black Sabbath and early Led Zeppelin. I wish I would have been able to see them without the aid of a Jumbotron.

After Wolfmother, the three of us met up with yet another IU Pi Kapp, none other than Bryon "Pin Brother" Reina. I had seen him about a month ago from across an L platform, although I entered his phone number wrong, so attempts to contact him telephonically had proved fruitless. He looks the exact same as he did in college, which is a good thing, since it means he hasn't gotten a gut like I have.

The four of us trudged across the field to see Gnarls Barkley, who I think you should check out if you like Outkast or funky ass shit. While watching Gnarls Barkley, we ran into fellow IU law grads Jacob "I Totally Wish I Worked in the Same Building As Him" Sheehan, Mike "Claims to Work in the Same Building as Me But I've Never Seen Him" Ray, and Dave "Has Never Worked in the Same Building As Me" Moore. Pleasantries were exchanged.

After Gnarls Barkley, we crossed The Desert once again, to go see the Dresden Dolls. On the way there, we stopped for a few minutes to see Blackalicious. Had their been a house there, they would have done a formidable job of bringing it down.

We then made our way to The Dresden Dolls, who I didn't know much about, except that they seemed very interesting. Their music is described (by them) as Brechtian punk cabaret, which makes very little sense until you see them or listen to their music. The group is only two people, some chick who plays the piano and sings and some dude who plays the drums. They both dress up and paint their faces. However, I thought they were particularly cool because their whole schtick is kind of a burlesque, cabaret type thing, but the girl was not afraid to break character and take her heavy outer dress off. As she said, "It's way too fucking hot for this dress." They had an awesome cover of Black Sabbath's "War Pigs," which is my favorite Black Sabbath song. In high school I once wrote out the lyrics to the song and showed them too my mom as if I had written them myself. She was concerned and I think a bit disturbed by the images of the apocalypse it conjured up. Nonetheless, being supportive of my creative side, she said, somewhat hesitantly, "Huh. It's pretty dark. Good, but dark." Then I had to go to a special camp for a couple months.

While the Dresden Dolls were wrapping up, Reina and I went to go get some food. This proved to be a much bigger task than anticipated. We ended up going to the stand with the shortest line, which still took us at least 32 minutes to get through. It was a pan-Italian restaurant, which was selling pot stickers and BBQ ribs. I'm not sure where the ribs fit into the pan-Italian theme, but they were serviceable.

We got back to the other two after The Flaming Lips were already a couple songs into their set. I know very little of the Flaming Lips' catalog, but they seemed enjoyable, and they always have a sweet stage show and sweet props. The lead singer was convinced that if the audience sang loud enough, it would stop Israel from bombing Lebanon. He was wrong. Jessie was not impressed.

After they ended, we crossed The Desert one last time to check out The New Pornographers, a band that Maze was particularly excited about seeing. They were pretty good, although the lead singer's lisp was a little annoying. He seemed to be pumped that he was playing in between Common and Kanye West, perhaps because more people were there than would normally be.

With a few songs to go, we headed across the field to set up camp for Kanye West, who you made have heard of. We ended up randomly seeing the aforementioned IU law guys, so we hung out with them. Before the show started, I looked behind us and no less than 15 feet away are fellow IU Pi Kapps Phil "Basada Sebahida La Smatala Sima" Wierzbinski and Dave "Don't Call Me Eddie" Vedder, along with IU Pi Kapp little sister Anjana "I Still Can't Believe She's a Dentist" Gupta. While talking to them, we randomly saw two other IU Pi Kapps, Nick "Don't Confuse Me with Wire or Pryor" Meyer and Vince "Just Drove from Philly to Seattle for a Chick" Gravina. Who needs Homecoming when you have Lollapalooza?

Here are some okay shots of the Chicago skyline from the field before Kanye started. As you can probably tell, the anticipation was palpable.

Unfortunately, the audio was screwed up for the first few songs. The Jessie and I decided to beat the rush and leave early. Weak, I know. On my way out, I did get my second Lollapalooza poster in as many years. Strong, I know.

Saturday night we pretty much went straight to bed, on account of the exhaustion.

Sunday
Sunday morning I helped Greg "Suburban" Bohmann load up his Budget truck for his big move out to a house in Downers Grove. It was one of the smoothest moves I've ever been a part of, and I have come to the conclusion that it was so smooth because there were six males and zero females involved.

After the move, I headed back home, and then Jester and I headed down to Grant Park. The first band I wanted to see Sunday was The Hold Steady (you can actually make out human beings in this picture). Blender Magazine called them the best bar band in the world, and Esquire named their first album (Almost Killed Me) one of the top 25 albums of the new millennium, noting that people who would like the album would be people who used to listen to AC/DC, but now read a lot. Since I hate to read, I bought their second album, Separation Sunday. The Hold Steady plays pretty much straight-forward rock, but lead singer Craig Finn half sings and half talks. His lyrics are extremely interesting, and are very smart.

Anyway, we were able to get there early enough so that we were only about 15 feet from the stage. They put on a hell of a show. Everyone in the band was drinking cans of Budweiser products. Finn was animated and sometimes spasmodic. The keyboardest looked kind of like Andy Kaufman with a Rollie Fingers mustache, and he was wearing a black three-piece suit with a black shirt and a red tie, in stark contrast to the other four guys, who were wearing jeans and either t-shirts or short-sleeve button-up shirts. Finn thanked the crowd several times for coming out to watch them, and he seemed very genuine in doing so. All in all, I was impressed by them. Not Go! Team impressed, but still pretty damn impressed. I would definitely see them again in concert.

After they finished up, we sat through about half of Leif Garrett's -- I mean Ben Kweller's -- set. It was pretty good, but I had to leave an hour later anyway, so we just left.

Sunday evening, while most people who spent $130-$170 on Lollapalooza were enjoying the likes of Matisyahu, The Shins, Wilco, Queens of the Stone Age, Blues Traveler, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, I had my first comedy writing class at Second City. It seems like it will be a great time, and who knows, maybe after the 5 or 6 more classes I have to take, I will be inviting you all to attend Give Me Your Handrew, the stage version.

After my class got done, Jester, Tron, Magdog, and I headed over to the Burwood for Hillbilly Sunday, since Tron doesn't get to experience anything redneckish in southwestern Ohio. The plan was to stay for an hour. Of course as soon as I got there (before I even ordered my first beer), I was given a free shot of Beam. We strolled out of there around 1:15, which was fine for Tron and Magdog, since they didn't have to work on Monday. Not good for me, since my week is essentially ruined as far as sleeping goes.

So there you have it. Next year you should go to Lollapalooza. It it definitely worth the money, assuming of course that you like good music from a variety of genres.