Lolla Day Three: "Now that was a fucking concert"

Photo by Matthew Taplinger

Overheard by a festival goer after the explosion of energy that was Dan Deacon's set, the above quotation sums up Lollapalooza 2009 for me perfectly. The final day was a little slower for me, but it ended things on a high note and left me smiling and satisfied, as Jim Halpert would say.

The big headliner of Sunday was the weather, as temperatures soared into the upper 90s around midday. I arrived around 2, intending on catching the second half of Bat For Lashes, but quickly retreated into the shade of the Citi Stage to watch Cage the Elephant, who I had never really heard of before. The Kentucky group put on a raucous rock show, but didn't leave too much of an impression on me. The crowd surrounding the stage was packed, but I suspect this had a lot to do with the previously mentioned shade that the set offered. Also, jean shorts sighting #2 as the lead singer sported the jorts with pride. I'm picking up on a trend at this point.

After CtE I braved the sunlight to catch an old favorite, Dan Deacon. Deacon is renowned for his frenetic live shows that include many crowd participation stunts. I wasn't sure if he would attempt these activities with the huge festival crowd, but as Deacon himself said "This is gonna be fucking impossible, but we're going to try it." And it paid off.

But first there were numerous sound issues with the monitor mix, as Deacon ran back and forth across the stage, having intense conversations with crew members and performers, trying to fix whatever ailments the mix was suffering from. After taking a 5-minute 'break' to fix the sound levels, Deacon said "I know I seem like a total dickhead right now, but that's OK." The crowd seemed to be alright with this, as Deacon may have earned their respect by displaying the kind of perseverance and attention to detail that makes his music so enjoyable. After struggling even further, Deacon appeared more and more agitated, at one point saying "Jesus fucking Christ" into the mic before yelling "I can't hear shit" to one of his drummers.

But the show went on, and eventually the sound seemed to meet Deacon's satisfaction, as it picked up from there. The set involved Deacon's 15-piece ensemble, and towards the end he brought on even more people, adding a marching band that brought the stage numbers closer to 30 people playing instruments at once. And he pulled off his famous crowd stunts, including forming a huge human tunnel around his end of the park, and an interpretive dance involving the band's bus driver. Through all of these stunts, the music didn't suffer as the band pulled off a brilliant rendering of Deacon's songs.

Next I made my way over to Passion Pit, who were slotted on the smaller Citi stage, which proved to be a mistake as the crowd was crushingly huge for this much-hyped group, and the show would have been much more comfortable at one of the bigger stages. I've always had my qualms about the live performances of this group, and I wasn't proved wrong again as the lead singer's vocals strained to reach the high notes that he so deftly supplied on the album, and the band just seemed a little thin in general. But for Lollapalooza, this didn't matter too much as the majority of the crowd loved every second of it. When the opening riff to "Little Secrets" hit, the crowd exploded with pure glee, and the dance party ensued.

Photo by phototypical

My last band of the day was Deerhunter, my first time seeing them. Bradford Cox is even stranger-looking in person, and as he was under the influence of a B-12 shot because of, according to him, the H1N1 virus, his between-song ramblings ranged from dreamy philosophy to quickly aborted covers of the Velvet Underground and Neil Young. It was a strange show, as the band brought power and drive to quite fascinating songs, and then between songs they seemed a completely different group, as Cox joked and jeered with the crowd. But it was very enjoyable, I would definitely recommend checking these guys out.

That's all I got for Lolla '09. More posts will be coming soon, I've been slacking on this blog lately, but hopefully I'll remember to keep posting things.