By Friday evening the rain had passed paving the way for hot, muggy weather on Saturday. We made our way into the park a little after 1:00, just missing the Living Things set, and took our time exploring. We checked out Green Street – Lolla’s eco-conscience vendor fair – and the Honda tent with their prize wheel and an Insight cut down the middle. Then we checked out the action at Kidzapalooza including a couple songs by the impressive 10 year-old blues guitarist, Quinn Sullivan.
A little later Atmosphere took to the big stage that DM was on the previous night. Slug and his backup, Ant, drew a big crowd and had heads noddin’ from the start in the early heat. Their set really hit a high point with shout-along “GoldLovesUgly” and the thundering bassline in “Shoulda Known”.
Keeping with hip-hop we headed over to Perry’s to catch Prophit‘s short set. Perry’s was the dance zone in the park with a cool, round stage and suspended sun screens extending in all directions. We didn’t hang out there too much through the weekend, but they did host some great DJ sets (MSTRKRFT, Diplo, Bassnectar, KiD CuDi, and so on). Prophit and his crew were pretty disjointed and sloppy, but they did please the crowd by spinning some Beastie’s “Intergalactic Planetary” and Rage Against the Machine.
After Prophit, Perry Farrel came out with his wife and a small band for a dance set. That went about as well as it sounds. It was weird, not terribly danceable, but like everything Perry does, it was a spectacle.
From Perry’s, we moved on to the other end of Grant Park (the side we’ve barely spent any time at thus far) and found it to be even more packed than the South end. We were trying to find a decent spot for Santigold, but so were about 40,000 other people. She was positioned on a side stage and with the giant crowd, should easily have been on one of the main stages. We finally caught a spot to stand with a decent line of sight, but it was probably 400 feet from the stage. Santi’s set was solid and watching people continually try to sneak in VIP and a fence jumper get chased down and cuffed wasn’t a bad side show.
From there, it was a long trek across the park to catch Lykke Li. By now the sun was really beating down (well, actually it had been for hours!). We found a nice spot of lawn to take a seat under the shade of a few trees, and even hints of a cool breeze off the lake. Paired with the Lykke’s soft rhythms, it was a great break.
With a break before the night’s headliner we grabbed a bite to eat, braved the restrooms, and headed back down to the other end to snag a good spot for the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs. This was the replacement for the Beastie Boys, who tragically had to cancel less than a couple weeks before. At the other end of the park, Tool was headlining, but I’m not that into them, and D really isn’t, so we stuck with YYYs to see if they could remotely fill the huge shoes left for them.
For the most part I like YYYs. Karen O can be a little grating at times, but usually the synths and beats make up for it. We actually had a nice spot for the show, right on rail though pretty far to the side. We learned during the Atmosphere set that although the crowd is insanely packed at center stage, thirty feet to the side it isn’t to hard to get up front and the view is still pretty awesome.
YYYs started out strong. Karen was in a ridiculous costume, complete with neon headdress, but hey, at least they were trying to make a memorable scene. Their second song was “Phenomena” and ended with their guitarist doing the Beastie Boys riff from “So Watchu Want”. Then they launched into “Heads Will Roll”, which got everyone dancing. A couple songs later came “Gold Lion”, another highlight. There were some down moments, but deeper into the set they played “Honeybear” and then a real frenzy started with “Zero” complete with two giant(!), inflated eyeballs, for the crowd to toss around.
Earlier YYYs had to flat out restart one song, because something was amiss. Then, in the tail end of their set, with probably their most famous song, “Maps”, Karen O completely forgets the second verse, and instead of letting the fans carry her through, she stops, collects herself, and they restart. Somehow a lot of people found this endearing, but I just found it amateurish. They played a couple songs after that, finishing ten minutes early, and didn’t come back for an encore. Tens of thousands stood staring at the stage expecting more. So, day two ended on a rather down note, but it was still a great day in the park with a lot of music.
Tags: concerts
