What I learned at Lollapalooza 2014:
We old. The end.
But seriously, now that I'm no longer racing to write 30,000 words for Camp NaNoWriMo, I can come back to this blog (and more importantly, go back to editing Beyond Belief so I can publish by xmas).
Honestly, Lolla is for the young at heart who really don't give two shits about the music and just wanna hangout, get high, and dance like a drone. I mean, I'm there for those exact same reasons (lol) but I need my space. And you really gotta not mind your personal space being infringed upon if you're going to succeed at these fests.
We saw quite a few new bands we liked on the north end of the fest and toward the end of the day, we had to walk to the south end of the fest for the Broken Bells. I love these guys. James Mercer from the Shins and Danger Mouse are great together. When their first self-titled album came out in 2010, I remember my first listen. It was April 4 and it was my 40th birthday, I had just gotten the biggest tattoo of my life (see pic at right) and we were heading to the Metro to see another great band Miike Snow. We had just had dinner at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse (it was a day of awesomeness I tell ya) and this was before I quit drinking. I had tee many martoonies...too many martinis...and needed a time out before the show at the Metro. We parked and turned on the Broken Bells and must've have listened to it in it's entirety on repeat three times before I was able to gather myself together and go into the concert. It was an amazing album. Their second album came out in February of this year and is just as great. We just saw them at the Vic earlier this year and it was one of those shows where from start to finish I was mesmerized. It made it into my top ten concerts of all times.
Now, I knew going into Lolla that Lolla is not the place to "see a show." You go, you hang out, you listen, but you're not gonna be close to your favorite band, the people around you are not necessarily all that interested in the band as you may be, so you can't be all pissy about it whereas if you go to the Metro and see your favorite band and some ass next to you won't shut up, you have permission to kick him in the shin.
So for the first time all day at Lolla, we gathered our backpacks and head to the south stage passing by Perry's Stage - home of EDM, kids passing out and where the EMT's seemed to have extra stations knowing how crazy it gets. Iggy Azalea must've just let out as we passed Perry's Stage because we got caught up in this sea of people that eventually had us heading in the wrong direction. It's not like you can push your way through the crowd, either. There are 15 girls in bra tops and glitter that are hand in hand walking in front of you, so you just have to wait for them to pass then squeeze through the cattle.
That may have been the only complaint I had about the day. Had we not tried to see the Bells, we wouldn't have had that experience and it would've been a pretty perfect day--even with the rain. We saw a little bit of every band on our list and were thankful we only did one day of the three-day fest cuz again, we old.
But that was probably the last fest we'll do--ever. Frankly, with online streaming and a comfy couch at home, there's no reason to ever leave the house again.
And plus, I should be editing.