Day 1: Snoozapalooza
"Hustle, hustle, hustle, grind, grind, grind," chanted the London rapper M.I.A. in the late afternoon Friday. "Why does everyone got hustle on their mind?"
Her topic was Africa, but she may have well been describing the shaky start of Lollapalooza, the three-day music festival that opened its gates for the third year in Chicago's Grant Park. The music festival is best known for its heyday in the 1990's when it celebrated underground music, outsider artists and the general appeal of the counterculture.
Newly configured as a destination festival headquartered in Chicago, the festival banks its reputation on its freak show vibe but it appeared to be only on the surface. The reality is, Lollapalooza is linked to its past in name only. Despite ticket prices for daily admission reaching a hefty $80 per day, the best seats are reserved for VIPs, given special viewing platforms for the main stages, leaving everyone else to bake in the sun. Festivalgoers were bombarded with an endless amount of corporate advertising, from the stage to the walking paths. Stages were squeezed so close to each other, making sound bleed profusely.
Most symbolic was the hands-off presence of original festival co-founder Perry Farrell who performed Friday night with his new band Satellite Party and was as sequestered from the public as Vice President Cheney. Unlike previous years, Farrell was accessible only via a specially guarded event where questions were not allowed from the press and he was tossed softball questions from a selected New York journalist.
Fans deserve better.
Of the three days, Friday's music line-up suffered from lack of major headliners other than middle-of-the-road pop bands like Jack's Mannequin and jam bands like .moe that both played to indifferent audiences. The largest crowd turned up for the Polyphonic Spree, the indie pop band where less would definitely be more. Comprised of a small army of musicians clad in white robes, the band performed songs with no beginnings, middles or ends, but rather a rising and falling blur of dynamic bluster. Only this band had the bad taste to turn Nirvana's "Lithium" into an obnoxious high school pep rally cheer.
The day's satisfaction came with the lessor profile sets. Ted Leo and his band the Pharmacists performed a fiery set that sounded personally engaged, ending with Leo banging his guitar against the floor to summon a phalanx of unwieldy noise. Mark Linkous of the band Sparklehorse played one of the day's more unusual sets. Linkous and his band transcended the moody and esoteric backdrop of the music by making it spellbinding.
It says something that the most compelling set of Lollapalooza's inaugural day was M.I.A. as she mostly sang along to programmed beats and music provided by an on-site DJ. Clanging beats and schoolyard chants were inflicted with African polyrhythms and Indian accents. Although she complained of singing with a hoarse voice, it sounded resilient on a day that was not so much.