Lollapalooza 2005: Day Two

Day One | Day Two Day Two of Lollapalooza was held on what will surely have been the hottest day of the year. The prospect of mass-dehydration brought Lollapalooza to do the unthinkable (for a corporate festival at least): they set up free water stations! I can’t help but think that Lollapalooza’s lineup, coupled with its ticket prices, were set in a conscious attempt to excise the cool-kid 20-somethings that normally plague rock shows. Yep, it was 15-year-olds (starting to grow their hair out) and 35-year-olds (wishing they hadn’t had to cut their hair for that first office job) as far as the eye could see. Lollapalooza Day Two was a healthy mix of beer, sunscreen, and chaperones. The day’s opener, Saul Williams, draws comparisons to Rage Against the Machine, partially because he sometimes raps over guitar samples, and partially because Zack De La Rocha guested on his album. This assessment is rather unfair, as Saul Williams ain’t no rap-rocker; he’s hip-hop all the way. Yes, his lyrics are hardcore soapboxing, but who cares? When did being political become a problem? We have enough love songs; Let Saul Williams spit a little bit of righteous fury.

Quickly, though, it was back to the oldies vs. newbies feel that pervaded the earlier part of the weekend. It did my black heart good, though, to see a group of 15-year-old longhairs play-moshing to Dinosaur Jr. when they could have been across the way taking part in Louis XIV’s cartoonish presentation of masculinity. J Mascis has grayed, but of all the weekend’s nostalgia acts, his fuzzed-out guitars remained the most dangerous. Dinosaur Jr. are famous as early progenitors of slack-rock, and let’s face it: today’s designer-wearing, Ritalin-popping kids could use a little slacker in ’em. And maybe, really, that’s why a reunited Dinosaur Jr. works while other old acts fail. Mascis’ bored detachment never goes out of style. In ’87 there was plenty in the world to draw annoyed indifference from, and there’s even more in ’05.

A local alt-arts weekly that shall remain nameless said flat-out that anyone who headed over to the historic SBC West stage to watch the Drive-By Truckers rather than catching power-chord wunderkind Ben Kweller across the park has a “problem.” Well, I got 99 problems, but liking a little bit of Southern Rock ain’t one. Drive-By Truckers occupy a strange in-between space (sandwiched between North and South, country and rock, the story-song and the tall-tale). On songs like the damn-Yankee-murder-fantasy “Sinkhole” and the definition-of-reactionary “Never Gunna Change”, Drive-By Truckers manage to espouse the most extreme, scorched-earth brand of Southernism possible, while still appealing to big-city types. This is what’s made them alt-country’s new standard bearers. Drive-by Truckers injected a much needed dose of red-state charm into a festival whose dominant image is Perry Farrell’s silk scarves. Now, when I mentioned the oppressive heat earlier, I’m not sure I gave you the full effect. It might have been alright for bands from Texas or Alabama, but we Northerners (as is well known) are sissies. The 115-degree temperature led this intrepid reporter to the media tent, where I considered it my duty to the scene to consume as much corporate-bought water and beer and possible. Backstage we feasted on tall cans, while the plebs outside had to pay $5 for a little plastic cup. The (International) Noise Conspiracy must have been appalled, and not just by the state of American beer. I poured the extra six fluid ounces of my tall can on the ground for you, the reader, who couldn’t scrounge up the $135 to attend this festival. I hadn’t forgotten you. Then, refreshed, I returned to the fray.

The Arcade Fire may be the weekend’s only act to fit Lollapalooza’s original lineups filled with shit-hot alt up-and-comers. You’ve heard it a million times, I know, but their live show silences a lot of nagging doubts about last year’s most-hyped band. The gaudy strings, the near-choral backup vocals, the amped-up percussion section: all are perfectly suited to a live setting. Who would have thought that a band from Montreal that wears suits and sing about death could rule a hot summer day? Maybe it’s sheer power-in-numbers, but I dare you not to dance when that breakdown at the end of “Wake Up” comes around. I don’t care how staunch and cynical you are. Of course the crowd for the show was packed with 16-year-old girls jockeying for a good spot for the Killers, who would play later at the same stage. That finally, was Lollapalooza ’05’s saving grace. Despite the phone-company advertising, the high ticket prices, the $3 bottles of water, the heatstroke, the gray hair, the cell-phone activism, the obligatory jam band, and the crushed plastic beer cups that littered Grant Park, Lollapalooza still managed to perform at least one public service. The Killers, Dashboard Confessional, and Louis XIV were there to annoy, but they also drew in a whole lot of kids who were tricked into watching the likes of The Arcade Fire and Dinosaur Jr. And that, my friends, is a kind of corporate trickery that I can live with.