August 03, 2007 - Chicago, IL - Lollapalooza (Day 1)

Venue:  Grant Park

Lineup:  Daft Punk, LCD Soundsystem, The Black Keys, G.Love & Special Sauce, moe., Jack's Mannequin

This was my first multi-day music festival.  It was amazing.

I won't go into too much detail about my thoughts on festivals here, because I will have dozens of chances to write about them in future posts, but I will share some basic thoughts about what they mean to me and what they do for me. 

Music festivals are an all encompassing experience.  You're surrounded.  Not just by a big fence, but by thousands of fans, food, sound, trees, a city.  They take up your life and your day.  They exist as a pure, beautiful mess of stimulation.

Personally, they allow me to escape into a world of music, fandom, and emotional expression.  They leave me physically exhausted and they clear my mind and center me more than a whole day of anything else I have experienced.

I attended this Lollapalooza with just my girlfriend-at-the-time Megan.  We decided to go because Pearl Jam, Daft Punk, and Interpol were playing and we had talked about going for awhile.  The lineup might have been the best of the five Lolla's that I have attended.  Day one was a great warm-up and was mostly spent exploring the grounds and seeing some amazing sets.

The first three acts that I saw were just alright, though.  Jack's Mannequin had a particular song on piano that I really liked, and G. Love was fun.  'Moe.', a jam band with a small but rabid fan base,  is an example of a kind of music and/or band that Lolla doesn't host much anymore.  You'd be hard pressed to find any jam band stuff on a lineup in the years that followed, which is perfectly fine with me.

The Black Keys were my personal favorite act of the day.  They still toured as a two piece at the time and tore down the place.  It was so heavy and bluesy and was a delight to watch, even on a hot 80+ degree Chicago afternoon.  They even blew out an amp and had to replace it mid-set.  They were playing that loudly and that hard.  It was really cool.

Seeing the final combo of LCD Soundsystem and Daft Punk still gets me some grief from fans of either band when I mention it to them.  I simply didn't appreciate what I was seeing and how rare and special it was.  I've always thought it was especially cool that LCD Soundsystem played 'Daft Punk is Playing At My House', and then Daft Punk played at their house, literally across the field from them.

Daft Punk brought their light-up pyramid and "played" the same amazing set from their live album that came out that year.  The field was at least half empty, which looking back, is kind of sad.  Pearl Jam fans dominated Lollapalooza 2007 and were across the festival seeing Ben Harper play that night.  Harper would get an appearance from Eddie and they would do a song together that I obviously missed, but I didn't care.  I am not, nor have I ever been a fan of Ben Harper.  He seems like a great guy, but his music has never grabbed me.  It's that soft folk rock kind of stuff that I find repelling and un-engaging.  The kind of music that boring people get high to...

Anyways, Daft Punk was great and I wasted it.  I don't really dance, especially around other people, because I don't want to look like an idiot or something.  I realize that I am idiot for not letting go and dancing, or moving more or doing something more than tapping my foot and occasionally bobbing my head.  Daft Punk never tours and I actually saw them live and I stood there!

I use the memory of my shame as motivation to not be afraid to really get into stuff.  You only live each day once.  There will only be one Day 1 of Lollapalooa 2007.  You don't get a second one.  Let go!  Move!  Live!