Day 2 Lollapalooza 2010 "Well, ain't that just special, people." ~ Mike Ness

Saturday, my sister, who had been ill the day before, was feeling better.(right,Clara...tee hee) We got out of bed at the crack of noon, had a nice lunch and watched too much Showtime 2. Got to the venue by 6:15pm, after downing a Kuma burger and a filafel, just in time to catch most of Social Distortion's set. Mike Ness was every inch a pro. You can just tell he has 20 years of stage experience behind him as he completely owned the stage, comfortably cavorted with the audience and belted out songs in excellent form. The acoustics were flawless. When you've been doing this for as long as Ness has, there is a confident swagger to your walk onstage and he definitely had that. You can just tell when someone doesn't have anything to prove. Let's call it the " I really don't give a f*ck what you think," attitude. Social Distortion just IS and ALWAYS WILL BE cool. Period. I also appreciated his casual banter between songs. The first song we heard him perform was 'Don't Drag Me Down' from the White Heat, White Light, White Trash lp. It was so good to see him still rocking because the last time I saw Social Distortion play live was in the mid 80's as a young and enthusiastic teenager and I first became a fan in 1984. He really struck a chord with me and, I must admit, I couldn't help but scream out like a deranged fan, "Hell yeah! I remember THAT!' when he introduced his next song by saying, "I wrote this back in 1983 when being a punk rocker was truly dangerous."

If you were there in the 80's when punk was a true fringe youth movement and not just a commercialized fashion style sold at Forever 21, then you know exactly what he is talking about. It was a different world back then, of course, and punk was truly the edge. It was the real deal. Great memories, is all I can say. Then he ripped into Mommy's Little Monster. I couldn't stop dancing! This was too friggin' amazing! He introduced the next song, Sick Boys, as a great "drinking sing-along." Amen to that! It was perfect. EVERYONE was dancing and cheering. Even the 60 year old guy standing next to me who admitted he had never heard of Social D. before declared, "These guys are great!". Part of my joy may have been not being squashed like a sardine in the front row. I don't know. The overall experience, however, was just second to none. These guys, after all these years, could still bring home the goods. As I recall, SxDx (a pseudonym) were one of the forerunners of American punk and the ones who invented that now familiar punk sound of wanging out really fast power chords repetitively and changing them with a heavy slide, backed by a really solid jumpy drum beat. That's Social Distortion.

To watch these guys play on a stage with the Field Museum to their left and the Museum Campus Tower building on their right, gleaming in its steel and glass magnificence, was pretty hard to beat. It was a beautiful day and here I was watching Mike Ness do a 'Pete Townshend' jump with this guitar (sweeeeet!) and then keep on rolling with Reach for the Sky. But it was about to get better.The next number was the ultimate highlight of their set at least as far as I am concerned. Only because "Ball and Chain" rules. In my opinion, its the best song Ness has ever written. It's been covered by many bands including the Replacements. There is something about that song. Without any choice in the matter, my vocal chords sang along to the song , my fist pumped at every chorus and my feet, with a will of their own, jumped up and down. It's a beautiful heartfelt song that pretty much says it all.

Next was 'Highway 101' and then 'Sometimes I Do' with the off-the-cuff intro, "You don't have to be Irish to love this song but it sure helps." The set was finished off with Still Alive and then Ring of Fire, before which Ness tipped his hat to the African American community by saying, "Let's face it people. Without good black music, there wouldn't be good white music. And that's why this man is my hero." I assume he was talking about Johnny Cash who was of course far from black unless you are referring to his attire. Cash has been called "The Man in Black" and even "The Father of Punk." As I recall, when he passed in 2003, the entire aging punk community went into mourning, myself included. My Dad introduced me to Cash when I was in elementary school by reverberating Ring Of Fire through the house at deafening decibels. He did this with Gregorian chant, too, but that's a different story.

Cash's daughter, Rosanne Cash, has stated, "The song is about the transformative power of love." What I found out from Social Distortion's performance, however, is that I never left the Ring of Fire to begin with. For me, its about the enduring power of love. I grinned, fully satisfied at the end of the set, as the newly converted senior by my side said, "I'm going out and buying some of this music." Transformative works, too.

IT AINT OVER UNTIL THE FAT LADY...err,umm...I MEAN ARCADE FIRE SINGS> STAY TUNED FOR DAY 3Lollapalooza to be posted shortly

Day 3

Must mention before I get started on Day 3 , that last night (Day 2) as we floated 5 feet off the ground after SxDx, Spoon wafted over to us from the Budweiser stage and just pulled us in a like a monster magnet. I liked Britt Daniels' voice and heard some energetic guitar riffs that made me want to dance. I couldn't check them out more as I was yanked by the collar in the direction of the exit at this time. But from what I heard, they definitely deserve more of a listen which I will get to sooner or later on iTunes.

Truth be told, the morning of Sunday was spent wandering through the Field Museum. We just needed a break from the crowds, the heat, the sweat, the general cow-herd scene. At least the Field is airconditioned. I was immediately drawn to the dinosaurs ( I have a son that is eight years old and if I didn't bring him back some dinosaur photos and stuff from the Sue Store, it was going to be mutiny) and the Egyptian collection. Interestingly, the Egyptian collection was loaded with talismanic scarabs and beetles and I couldn't help hunting for them all over the place looking for symbolic descriptions and meanings on the placards. Between the mummies, the sarcophagus, the Eyes of Osiris and the scarabs, the hours flew by. But it wasn't the last time I was to come face to face with the magical scarab in Chicago.

After a lingering dinner with libations, we meandered over to Lollapalooza. As we got within auditory distance of the Budweiser Stage, I panicked as I heard 'Time to Pretend' being played. Then my panic turned into a dorky delirium (that song is one of those happy-dorky-delirious songs) as I tried to run/walk (ever try to run but look like you are walking?) to MGMT as that is one of the most epic songs on Oracular Spectacular. I had already missed Pieces of What, Brian Eno, Electric Feel ( SOOO love that song) , Flash Delerium, Of Moons, Birds & Monsters, It's Working, The Youth (excellent song), Song for Dan Treacy, and Weekend Wars. I cringe to think of it but between the jetlag,muggy weather, battle wounds from the Strokes and everything else, it really was nice to just recuperate and chill for a while. Time to Pretend, a satirical portrait on the life of rock stars, is just so clever, zany and rocking that the combination makes it irresistably likeable. And the 3 adjectives of 'satirical, zany and rocking' sum up just about all MGMT's songs ...although you can substitute 'satirical' with 'spacey' on a good deal of them but hey, that works too. If you don't believe me that these guys are cool, would you believe Paul McCartney? He handpicked these guys to tour with him--literally, sought them out and called them up. Next, they played Destrokk, The Handshake, I Found a Whistle, Kids (love it!) and Congratulations. The crowd was a sea of bandanna-wearing Andrew V wannabe's. It was really funny. Andrew V was wearing a polka dotted shirt with the collar flipped up Elvis-style (now that I think of it, Julian Casablancas was trying to emulate Elvis a little also) and these oversized squarish sunglasses, giving him this 70's almost Elton-y vibe. And I appreciated Ben breaking out with the green frog hand-puppet which he held up to the mike and made dance or something.
A little Henson-esque goofiness is always appreciated.

After it was obvious that they had played their last song and had thoroughly rocked our faces off, we said our final farewell to Lollapalooza with Arcade Fire. Whether we like it or not, all good things eventually come to an end and all good endings need a Funeral. They actually played every song off that lp except for Une Annee Sans Lumiere, Neighborhood #4, Haiti and Back Seat. They played Ready to Start, Empty Room,The Suburbs, Rococo , Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains),We Used To Wait and Month of May off their newly released (August 2, 2010 to be exact) album The Suburbs. And they also played No Cars Go, Intervention and Keep the Car Running from their 2007 release Neon Bible. It was a perfect way to end the three day extravaganza and more than a little poetic as Arcade Fire is "bittersweet" personified. That's what I like about them; they have such a unique sound.

I just became an Arcade Fire fan earlier this year and it was the Funeral lp that won me over. I find their sound haunting in an achingly sincere way and I just love that I never know exactly where the melody is going. It somehow always manages to go somewhere that makes sense on an aesthetic level. Win Butler's voice has the raw, sweet emotion reminiscent of Black Francis from the Pixies and you can read more about that in the review below. [scroll down to the very end] Ditto goes for Regine, Win Butler's wife, and if you don't believe me then just listen to her sing 'In the Backseat' on Funeral.

Anyways, as I left the show good and ready to take a nice shower, the city was overrun by Lollers. They were all spouting out superlatives, 'awesome,' I guess, being the one I heard the most. Its funny walking in the city. It's like being the anonymous observer of random tweets of people you don't know. They whiz past and you get little snippets of conversations only with the added visual snapshot to go with the tweet. Such as a snapshot of a guy in a green mohawk talking to his girlfriend who looks like Janeane Garofalo or the CPA looking guy striding down Dearborn Street with his mother. I mean, you don't really know the story at all because you're just getting a little 2 second snippet of an image and an audio bit as you walk by in the opposite direction but it is intense getting dozens of these little bits of binary code non-stop when all you want to do is just get to your hotel room and not think about anything at all. I kind of miss the palm trees.

Oh, one last thing. A couple days later as we stood in front of Forever 21 and I joked that this is something someone would do in a Cougar Town episode, we decided to go in because they had NYU t-shirts and its impossible to get NYU t-shirts in the state of Hawaii. Impossible. Since I have a brother and cousins in Manhattan and a Dad that works in New York, I have always wanted a shirt that a New Yorker might wear. So we go in and as I wait in line to pay, something winks and twinkles at me from a display. I knew the second I saw it that I had to have it. Dainty, silvery and simple, I pulled it from its display and purchased the necklace on the spot, only later to discover upon closer inspection that it's a scarab holding a tiny faux diamond.
Whenever I wear it, it will remind me of the Strokes show and Lollapalooza. Oh, what a time we had.