After two days of sitting around in mind-stifling heat and humidity, I am pleased to say that I survived Lollapalooza 2005.
Day 1 (Saturday):
This is the day we got in for free because we volunteered to work in the box office. This day sucked for a number of reasons. We arrived a little later than we had planned but were there in plenty of time to see Brian Jonestown Massacre (one of the bands we wanted to see). Sadly, BTM sucked. The GF told me that all of their concerts either have onstage fights break out among band members or consist of fun and cool pop-style music. Neither of them happened, it was basically an hour of the lead singer trying to taunt Dashboard Confessional over on the other stage and extended rambling jam sessions of pseudo-phishlike jam-band stylings. Urgh. Once that was over we had to head over to check in and spent the next four hours being herded around the box office tent that was way overstaffed. Let’s consider this folks, people are paying $67 to see the shows that day, the gates open at noon-ish, and you still staff 20 people to work in the ticket office from 5:00 to 9:00? WTF? It was four hours of mind-numbing dullness, punctuated by the staff’s offering up of their table scraps off their kraft table. Once it was done, they didn’t even say thank you. It was a good thing that the GF was there for me to talk to, otherwise I would have gone insane. I could rant more about this (particularly the total inefficiency of their wristband distribution and inventory method) but it would probably bore anyone else to death.
Day 2 (Sunday):
Mercifully, day two of the concert was much better. We got there on time, and were able to see some really good shows. Perry Ferrell’s new band Satellite Party was very good. Then we went over to the side stage to see a sorta-funk band called Soulive (very fun) and watch a participatory drumming and “earthharp” group that the GF described as “totally someone who’d play at Burning Man”. After that we headed back over to the main field for Arcade Fire – who was the best show of the day. If you haven’t seen or head of them - check them out on iTunes immediately. Their music is great, but live they are even better. There are about 10 people in the group, and 4-5 of them play three different instruments at various points in the set (including french horn, which they called “freedom horn” all afternoon, making me giggle multiple times). By the time they were done and we headed over to see Spoon, it was about 835 degrees outside, so we hid out under some shade and rehydrated whil listening to them from the side of the stage. Then we split time between Dandy Warhols and The Killers before wrapping up with Death Cab for Cutie and heading back.
The good, the bad, the ugly:
Good – Arcade Fire, Satellite Party, fried Ravioli at the Riva food tent, smoothies from the Maui Wowie trailer, cooling buses, the GF’s uncanny ability to get us to within 30 feet of the stage regardless of what time we showed up, Neutrogena sunscreen, hats, the GF’s camel-bak backpack, bikini tops.
Bad – Brian Jonestown Massacre, $3.00 water, 105 degree heat, the sticky combo of sunscreen and sweat that covered my body with slime like a wacky wall-walker, anyone who yelled “Free Bird” at any act, the porta-potty in the box-office tent (stankariffic), the crew of Front Office Tickets who treated us like 8 year old indentured servants.
Ugly – The amount of back hair and belly hair visible, the hairy guy with his tighty-whitey’s hiked up higher than his shorts and no shirt, 35 year old frat boys wearing frat party t-shirts, men with both exposed hip-bones and large beer bellies.
Day 1 (Saturday):
This is the day we got in for free because we volunteered to work in the box office. This day sucked for a number of reasons. We arrived a little later than we had planned but were there in plenty of time to see Brian Jonestown Massacre (one of the bands we wanted to see). Sadly, BTM sucked. The GF told me that all of their concerts either have onstage fights break out among band members or consist of fun and cool pop-style music. Neither of them happened, it was basically an hour of the lead singer trying to taunt Dashboard Confessional over on the other stage and extended rambling jam sessions of pseudo-phishlike jam-band stylings. Urgh. Once that was over we had to head over to check in and spent the next four hours being herded around the box office tent that was way overstaffed. Let’s consider this folks, people are paying $67 to see the shows that day, the gates open at noon-ish, and you still staff 20 people to work in the ticket office from 5:00 to 9:00? WTF? It was four hours of mind-numbing dullness, punctuated by the staff’s offering up of their table scraps off their kraft table. Once it was done, they didn’t even say thank you. It was a good thing that the GF was there for me to talk to, otherwise I would have gone insane. I could rant more about this (particularly the total inefficiency of their wristband distribution and inventory method) but it would probably bore anyone else to death.
Day 2 (Sunday):
Mercifully, day two of the concert was much better. We got there on time, and were able to see some really good shows. Perry Ferrell’s new band Satellite Party was very good. Then we went over to the side stage to see a sorta-funk band called Soulive (very fun) and watch a participatory drumming and “earthharp” group that the GF described as “totally someone who’d play at Burning Man”. After that we headed back over to the main field for Arcade Fire – who was the best show of the day. If you haven’t seen or head of them - check them out on iTunes immediately. Their music is great, but live they are even better. There are about 10 people in the group, and 4-5 of them play three different instruments at various points in the set (including french horn, which they called “freedom horn” all afternoon, making me giggle multiple times). By the time they were done and we headed over to see Spoon, it was about 835 degrees outside, so we hid out under some shade and rehydrated whil listening to them from the side of the stage. Then we split time between Dandy Warhols and The Killers before wrapping up with Death Cab for Cutie and heading back.
The good, the bad, the ugly:
Good – Arcade Fire, Satellite Party, fried Ravioli at the Riva food tent, smoothies from the Maui Wowie trailer, cooling buses, the GF’s uncanny ability to get us to within 30 feet of the stage regardless of what time we showed up, Neutrogena sunscreen, hats, the GF’s camel-bak backpack, bikini tops.
Bad – Brian Jonestown Massacre, $3.00 water, 105 degree heat, the sticky combo of sunscreen and sweat that covered my body with slime like a wacky wall-walker, anyone who yelled “Free Bird” at any act, the porta-potty in the box-office tent (stankariffic), the crew of Front Office Tickets who treated us like 8 year old indentured servants.
Ugly – The amount of back hair and belly hair visible, the hairy guy with his tighty-whitey’s hiked up higher than his shorts and no shirt, 35 year old frat boys wearing frat party t-shirts, men with both exposed hip-bones and large beer bellies.
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