Posted on February 21, 2010 by Greg

Extremely hot, very humid. We get there and there’s this tremendous line in each direction. Because nobody in the Lolla “Ask Me” crew was mentioning that wrist band folks get to breeze right through the VIP line, Margaret and I walk all the way to the back of the line and wait there for 15 minutes as I am cursing the festival out left and right. Then someone in line behind us gets a call saying wristband holders don’t have to wait. I run up ahead and find it is true. I call Margaret and we breeze right through. I guess I should have read the website more carefully, but this was pretty unclear. Later in the festival, I listen to some people mentioning that they waited in line for 2 hours! That is fucked up. For a place with that much surface area they should be able to set up a bunch more gates and move everyone through fast as hell. Major gripe.

On to the music:

2:30 Holy Fuck DJ set

We catch a little of their DJ set at “Perry’s Place” (snicker snicker), pretty cool, not too crowded. People bob their heads appreciatively, about sixteen bowls spark up around me. One of the DJs flings promo CDs into the crowd. The last one he throws frisbees all the way to the back of the crowd at about 50 mph and nails some hipster chick right on the bridge of her nose. The CD case shatters apart and the CD goes rolling right to my feet where I pick it up. She is looking dazed and checking her giant oversize ironic purple sunglasses to see if they are broken when I walk over and hand her the CD. “Here,” I say, “I think you earned this.”

3:15–4pm Louis XIV

A good set, weird to see them in daylight. We caught em at Metro a few months ago and it was a great sleazy energetic club-rock show. The sound isn’t as good here, but they’re a sharp act and they carry it off really well…lots of good cuts from Slick Dogs and Ponies which is still high among my favorite albums of this year.

4:15–5:15 Gogol Bordello

I pass up the Black Keys reluctantly. I love their new record but I have seen them 4 times vs. zero for Gogol, who I suspect will blow the roof off for the big crowd. I am not disappointed. The lead singer looks and acts like a Gypsy Freddie Mercury right down to the bushy moustache but sounds like a punkier version of the singer for Firewater. Couple that with a totally motley crew of freaks jumping around and playing every instrument imaginable (including an orange plastic bucket). Then add a kick-ass violin player who looks like Willie Nelson but with 10 times the energy; screaming his backing vocals and wearing a Slayer T-Shirt… you got a pretty awesome show. The singer just about kills himself every second of the show to earn our entertainment dollar. This is something I look for at a live set: for a big festival… DO SOMETHING! Don’t just play your Schubas set, like Malkmus, who I think is a lazy, boring performer. GB are rewarded for their efforts. Way more people than I expect turn out for them and there is tons of non-violent pogoing all over the place. Great vibes. Best show of the day.
Yes, Radiohead, best of the day.

5:15–6pm Mates of State

A nice mellow comedown from Gogol, these guys were in fine form. I don’t know what it is about this band… I was talking to Wilson about this. They have average instrumental skills, average vocals, pretty average lyrics, really basic harmonies (the guy basically repeats what the girl JUST said)… but it just works for me. They are very listenable. Search me for the reason, but I like ‘em a lot and they put on a good set to a blessedly small crowd. Got right up near the stage.

6:15–7:15 Raconteurs

Leave Mates early to see these guys. I have no delusions of getting up close for Radiohead anyway, so might as well make the trip. They do a black and white thing for their video projections. ..maybe going for a wild west feel or something? Who knows. Brendan Benson sounds really great as do Jack and the boys. Can’t go wrong here. Nothing really stood out, it was just a great set from a bunch of pros having fun.

8pm Radiohead

Leave Raconteurs reluctantly to try and get within 3 football fields from Radiohead. Margaret left Raconteurs early, managed to get a decent spot by second set of speakers. Unfortunately, we were behind the sound booth, though, so we did not see the light show that was supposed to be so cool. We were counting on seeing the stage show from the giant video monitors. But instead of showing the stage and panning around, the screens were permanently locked into 7-Eleven security cam-style shots of each individual band member in a Brady-Bunch like tile format across each screen. Which, when you are 200 feet away, looks like tiny little boxes with indistinguishable orange-red blobs in them.

This probably seemed like a neat idea when everyone talked about it in the idea tent sipping Perry Sangrias, “Whoa, it’s like we’re spying on the band, man. We’re voyeurs, like the government… we’re all around and we see your every move… a brilliant commentary on our post 9-11 fascist, reality TV disconnecty world!” All it meant to me was that I couldn’t see jack shit.

The music was OK. Good when they played stuff from The Bends, Kid A and (barely at all) OK Computer. Boring when they played some noodly later stuff. I’m sure the light show enhanced the noodly sections, but I saw none of it. Paranoid Android was so brilliant and beautiful it gave me chills and made me all the more depressed at the direction they have resolutely gone in. Bring back the guitars, motherlickers! Bring back the soaring vocals! Bring back your connection with the rest of the human race, even if that connection involves railing about how disconnected we all are.

We trudge out of the park, and I feel like part of a large collective missed opportunity. Still in all, despite some frustrations, a very good day.

–Greg

The UnEnclosed | Festival Review: Lollapalooza 2008, Day 110.0101