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Monday, August 06, 2007

perry ferrell has warmed my black soul... oh, and he's also a crackhead

Here are my notes from Lollapalooza this year:

1) Muse: wow! Listening to their album and studio recorded stuff is... okay, i guess. Nothing impressive. Seeing them live was astonishing - it not only sounds better live, more energic and visually interesting - but it has more impact musically seeing the songs played live. They stole the show, if you ask me, BUT they may be tied with...

2) Daft Punk: What a light show. I mean, how else could you make 2 DJ's look interesting? They don't play any music (yea, yea... they make their own samples and do everything themselves, etc., I'm aware of this), they just stand there at DJ tables and spin. So why not wear robot costumes while standing in a giant pyramid with a CRAZY light show going on behind you? Visually spectacular, and I give them props for having their own distinguishable sound.

3) Blonde Redhead: While the twin brothers (guitarist/singer and drummer) are each 70,000 years old, and I'm not a huge fan of the asian girls vocals (she's trying to sound a bit too much like bjork for my taste), this was an unexpected treat to witness. The music is innovative, the group dynamic is interesting, The sound boards and effects they use are well-done - and their songs are still pretty catchy and accessible. I'm surprised they aren't more popular.

4) Pearl Jam: What can be said about this band that hasn't been said before? They barrelled through their hits, with an unexpected State of Love and Trust from the Singles soundtrack. The real show stealer for them in my eyes (and this will surprise no one) was when Matt Cameron (originally of Soundgarden fame, and a top 3 drummer on my list of favorites) played a 4 minute drum solo. Good times!

5) Dear and the Headlights: I like them, they're fun, they're accessible - They were relegated to the smallest, worst sounding stage for the very first slot of saturday. They started on time at 11:15am. Unfortunately, they didn't let anyone into the festival until 11:15am. Great, eh? ugh...

6) The Fratellis: This was a good start for me to the fest. They played Friday at like noonish, so I went there during lunch. Not the greatest music on earth, but whatever. It was nice to get outside and see how it was setup and such.

The rest of the bands I saw are as follows (in no particular order):

7) Jack's Mannequin
8) Ludo
9) The Cribs
10) Snow Patrol (from a distance)
11) The Roots (from a distance)
12) Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (for like one song, before we couldn't take it anymore)
13) !!!
14) Against Me
15) LCD Soundsystem
16) Silversun Pickups (for like 4 songs, before going to Blonde Redhead)
17) Chin Up Chin Up (for like a song)
18) (unfortunately, from a distance, and by accident) Regina Spektor - and that bitch should be shot in the neck!
19) Yeah Yeah Yeahs (for about 3 or 4 songs)
20) Silverchair (from a distance, and by accident)
21) Motion City Soundtrack
22) My Morning Jacket (hand-job)

So 22 bands altogether - not bad for $60. There's very little that I'll complain about. I'm upset that the doors opened late for no real reason at all. I don't like that Muse has HARDLY been mentioned in any of the reviews I've read so far. I thought Pearl Jam's sound was done very poorly, as well as most acts on the far south AT&T stage.

The best sounding stage was the MySpace stage. Food was decently priced, and the event was fairly well run.

I didn't see Amy Winehouse, and I hope her star fades away faster than the number of shows she doesn't go to cause of "exhaustion" (aka, herion and coke).

Not much else to say, other than someone needs to buy me some aloe for my sunburnt neck!

xoxo

posted by grey as mike @ 10:27 AM

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