Lollapalooza Day 3

The marathon that is a music festival has many twists and turns, and the foremost lesson I’ve learned from attending music festivals like this weekend’s Lollapalooza, especially this Lollapalooza, is learning how to adjust on the fly. At large scale events like this, there are a multitude of elements that just aren’t within your control, and you just have to deal with them as they come. Namely, I’m referring to the weather. Oh, yeah, the weather.

The clouds just before the first big rainstorm. Photo by Joey Pangilinan.

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Lollapalooza Day 2

Day 2 is what I had been waiting for the most. Friendly Fires had an afternoon set on the Bud Light stage, one of the two main stages. As I had previously mentioned in an earlier post, I had been wanting to see them for the longest time, but there was a schedule conflict between them and Skylar Grey. But after catching Skylar at Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco a couple weeks back, I was able to eliminate that conflict.

View of the Chicago skyine during Friendly Fires. Photo by Joey Pangilinan

Lollapalooza Day 1

I didn’t know what to expect.

I have only gone to music festivals in California. At these events, I have my core crew of friends that I make these treks with. This time however, it is a smaller pack I am running with, and so it felt a little weird at first.

“They should be here,” or words to that effect had run through my mind the night before the festival actually began. By the time we entered the festival grounds, and the rush of music blaring every which way through Grant Park hit my body, a lot of that weird uneasiness went away. Not all of it, mind you. But a good portion of it at least. Of course, I’m still getting used to the humidity. Oh goodness gracious, the humidity.

Foster the People at Sony Stage. Photo by Joey Pangilinan.

Lollapalooza 2011 Preview

Music festivals like Lollapalooza are experienced a little differently by those of us who are shorter than 5’5”. We are easily lost in a swarming crowd, mistaken for empty spaces in the audience, and bound to end up standing behind a 7’ tall man who will inevitably throw his girlfriend on his shoulders at some point during the show. This generally leads to a night ending in the affirmation “well, at least I could hear the music…” However, thanks to the 20th Anniversary Time Capsule, I discovered that as of 1994, Lolla outlines a particular loophole for us shorties that raises us taller than the rest:  Crowd surfing is prohibited UNLESS you are a certified waif. Woe no more, fellow pint sized music festival lovers.

There's always a Green Man at every festival. Lollapalooza 2010. Photo by Jack Edinger.

Skylar Grey- Rickshaw Stop 7/28/2011 [Recap]

Back in March of this year, I bought a three-day pass to Lollapalooza, which is finally about to happen later this week. Upon seeing Lollapalooza’s lineup for the first time, my heart leapt a beat in excitement when I saw that Friendly Fires would be playing on the festival’s second day. I have been yearning to see this band perform live for quite some time.

Thankfully however, there didn’t appear to be any schedule conflicts. That is until I did my due diligence and listened to some of the bands that I’m not already familiar with. When I started listening to Skylar Grey’s music, I liked what I heard. Unfortunately, I did not like what I saw when I realized her set overlaps with Friendly Fires’ set for all but 15 minutes. When attending a music festival, schedule conflicts like that are the bane of my existence.

With a little fortunate coincidence on my side, a few weeks ago I found out that Grey was playing a show here in San Francisco at the Rickshaw Stop on July 28^th. As it turned out, this was Skylar Grey’s first performance as Skylar Grey. Grey is the stage name for Holly Brook Hafermann.

Photo by Misha Vladimirskiy