Lollapalooza 8/2/24 (and now 8/3/24 too) (and now 8/4/24) pics and reviews

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

Ended up meeting my "hook up" for a backstage "pass" (actually wristband). Opens up a whole new world in regards to my enjoyment of the festival - and accessibility. As some pics will attest to.

FifteenOeight - Ok. Not terrible for an opener at 12:00pm on a small stage.







Artist Village - Empty, filled up a lot later. I'll post more pics.





Backside stage left (T-Mobile stage) biggest stage


PawPaw Rod - I liked him/them.


Twinsick - A for effort, D for music.





I'm going to post multiple posts because too many pics to share in 1 post.

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

Militarie Gun - Pretty good if you like hard "rock".



One of the best FREE perks of the festival if you only have General Admission tickets/wristbands.
You have to be a TMobile customer. I hooked of my friend's daughter and niece.
Couches (you can't see them in pic) chairs, bar, shade from the sun, great views of two of the 4 biggest stages. Not crowded.



Qveen Herby - Great performer. Not bad musician. This was right around the time it started to get crowded. Doesn't look crowded because the people you see in the crowd are the people who have special crowd access (assured to be up front - you pay extra). You'll see bigger douchebags than me in the later photos and then my walking off stage with Qveen Herby and the douchebags.


Some Chicken!






Bad pics of Veeze - He was really good. Most impressive thing to me was seeing him later in the Artist Village and he was introducing himself to some "big wigs" who were sitting at a table with me. They were with their daughter, (my guess around 12 or 13 years old) and without skipping a beat he said, "Is this your daughter"? They of course said yes, and he said to her - "Hi, my name is Karon, nice to meet you - what's your name"? Then he proceeded to ask her what/who she was looking forward to seeing. I felt it was a class move.



Sexyy Red - One of the highlights of the day for the festival goers. Put her on the smaller of the two big stages. Mistake. Crowd was ridiculously big. Other mistake is it was the stage where the K-Pop dudes were playing later so all these Korean teenage girls were forced to listen to FUCK, EAT MY PUSSY, etc.
Don't know why but I am missing a bunch of pretty good pics. Here are some bad ones.

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

Renee Rapp - Ok, I'll out myself as the asshole I am. I didn't realize she's as big as she is and I didn't realize she's more Billie Eilish-ish than beauty queen. I'm not a fan of her music but she put on a great show. Pics of her in the Artist Village getting ready to go on stage and then on stage.






Laufey performed with the Chicago Philharmonic. I had no idea what type of crowd a classic Jazz lounge type singer performing with a philharmonic would draw but I would guess she had between 5,000 and 10,000 people. Maybe more. She's very talented and it was nice to hear when I wanted to just kick back and relax.


LOL! Brandi Cyrus. Slightly more talented than me at playing other people's music as a "DJ".
They put her on a pretty big stage. I'm not kidding when I say she had less that 500 people at her set. She could not have been happy.



This was fucking ridiculous. They put Megan Mahoney on a small stage and there was a shitload of people. Security was struggling. Wouldn't let me backstage - which I felt was moronic. I get not letting me ON stage but that was on them for being incompetent. They let me stand upfront with TON of professional photographers a for a song or two then booted me because they couldn't handle the scene.
Very good performance and there was a lot of LOVE for her. Ton of people belting out her lyrics singing alone with her.




Stray Kids - My guess is most people feel K-Pop is bubble gum music. It is to a point. Think N'Sync / Boys to Men but the couple of performers I have seen have had an edge to them. I'm going to post a video so you can get what I mean.
I only stayed for a couple of songs. Not my thing but a heck of a show as they have down to a science.





28:27 mark you get some Led Zeppelin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCks8Iw-Smw

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

8/3 - Too lazy (and kind of busy) to post pics right now.

12pm Skrillex - "Surprise set". Fine. Don't get why he's better than 99,999 other people who do the same thing but hey, if the kidz like him - great. By far the most crowded I have seen the festival at 12:00pm.

Brigitte Calls Me Baby - Gutter calls them garbage. Not cool of me and they aren't really garbage but I'm not a fan of bands who try too hard to sound like other bands. They were trying to be a cross between the Psychedelic Furs and The Smiths.

Armani White - He/they did what he/they do and did it well - for him/them.

Happy Landing - One of the 5 best performers I have seen in the past 5 days. Great band who I predict will get a big stage gig at Lollapalooza in the next couple of years. I also predict they open for some band/s who play large stadiums. The would/will be a great warmup band.

Leisure - Perfect name because that's my attitude towards them. Not bad, not my thing.

TV Girl - See Leisure. I did laugh when they went on stage and there was a sound problem at the very beginning so they walked off. One of the guys was pissed and had a drum stick he threw on the ground right in front of me. Took a lot of effort for me not to laugh in front of him. They have a big following so they made their followers very happy.

Ive - I caught the last 3 minutes. Ok if you like Japanese girl "bands". THEY are not a band.

Deftones - Put on a great show. I don't love them but they were great as a band/performer.

Killer Mike - Loved how he had a bunch of people come out at the beginning for the hype and they had a religious theme and then 30 of the first 50 words he "sang" were the N word.

The Killers - I'll say it. Perfect festival band to appease the masses BUT...... WTF? a. Sound was not good for a band of that magnitude. Better small venue/studio band than large outdoor venue. b. Seemed like they were in a hurry to play their "hits" and set on auto-pilot.

Yoasobi - In typical Gutter fashion, I walked from the "headliner" and went to see the obscure foreign band on the Barcadi Stage (very small stage). Musicians I have never heard of and I know I will never see again. I'm not a fan of their (Yoasobi) type of music but hey - I give them props. They were really good. Was a nice way to end the evening.

ZERO chance I do 10 hours today. I have a busy day at work tomorrow and want a relaxing early and mid evening.

[jhawks99]

Thanks for sharing gutter.

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

Thanks for sharing gutter.

Thumbs up.
I figured if one person is interested it makes/made it worth my while to post.

Classic yesterday was this......

I bet my buddy $5 that if I asked 10 random kids at Perry's Stage if they knew who this is (guy in the hat, white shirt, vest) - not a single one would know.
I won $5.
If you don't know, it's Perry Perry Farrell. If it wasn't for him, Lollapalooza wouldn't exist.

[TDub]

glad you had a good time. Gonna be honest though, none of that looks even the slightest bit enjoyable to me.

[japhy]

I asked my daughter how it was going up there yesterday. She loves Chicago. Her brief description of Lolla I thought was kinda interesting.

Laufey with the entire Chicago Symphony on stage right after Sexy Redd and before a 8 piece kpop boy band was REALLY impressive to witness. The change over between those and how to make those 3 acts work on the same stage was crazy

No word on the music. But big props for the crews working the venue. When she was there a decade ago the reports I got were all about the music.

I will keep looking for her to pop up in your photos Gutter. Thanks for the images and reviews.

[pdub]

glad you had a good time. Gonna be honest though, none of that looks even the slightest bit enjoyable to me.

You’d have to pay me my hourly rate to go.

That includes my time getting there and back. And all costs to get in. And a 50 dollar per diem.

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

glad you had a good time. Gonna be honest though, none of that looks even the slightest bit enjoyable to me.

I get it. Not an ideal atmosphere for a lot of people to see/hear live music.
A woman who I would guess is around 40 was telling me how she had to drag her husband on Friday. He said it was nice to see/hear the music but no way did he want to come back on Saturday and Sunday. She said he hates Lollapalooza and she loves it and loves big music festivals. To each their own.

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

I asked my daughter how it was going up there yesterday. She loves Chicago. Her brief description of Lolla I thought was kinda interesting.

Laufey with the entire Chicago Symphony on stage right after Sexy Redd and before a 8 piece kpop boy band was REALLY impressive to witness. The change over between those and how to make those 3 acts work on the same stage was crazy

No word on the music. But big props for the crews working the venue. When she was there a decade ago the reports I got were all about the music.

I will keep looking for her to pop up in your photos Gutter. Thanks for the images and reviews.

I'm upset I didn't see (or don't think I saw but very possibly may have?) your daughter. If she was on the Bud Light stage there is a decent chance I may have seen her. I will keep looking through my pics later today.
Yes, incredible how well the stage crew can change over from performer to performer! Kudos to the crew.

Speaking of which..... This was on the Bud Light stage - Doesn't appear to be your daughter.

https://twitter.com/doitbigchicago/stat ... 5122076898

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

glad you had a good time. Gonna be honest though, none of that looks even the slightest bit enjoyable to me.

You’d have to pay me my hourly rate to go.

That includes my time getting there and back. And all costs to get in. And a 50 dollar per diem.

Like I said to TDub, I get it.
On a money front, it's not cheap to go, not even for GA. My buddy LOVES to go, he has money to go in a manner in which he buy VIP but he goes GA and refuses to pay "face value" to do it. He waits until he finds someone who either gives him a wristband (ticket) or sells him one for under face.

I have a feeling if you were in Chicago, had nothing else planned, there were a couple of bands you really like, you could walk to Grant Park, I would GIVE you VIP and/or backstage access, and you only had to attend those two performances, you just might enjoy yourself. Key word being "might".

[pdub]

Depends on how many people are VIP. Am I still in a crowd of, I dunno, 400 plus people watching?

Backstage access means what? I get to maybe meet the artists if I really try? It’s just too desperate feeling/does nothing for me.

[RainbowsandUnicorns]

Brought my camera yesterday. As usual, they gave me a hard time when I tried to bring it in. Always have to explain to them it's not a "professional" camera.
Mayor Johnson was there with his daughter and I thought he and his way too big security team was going to block my view on stage for Hanabie. Fucking asshole! Thankfully he didn't.

Hanabie - HILARIOUS that they are these tiny Japanese girls who were as polite as can be (actually bowed to me in the Artist village while they were playing Ping Pong) and then came out and rocked harder than all hell.

Johnson -


Hanabie -






Valencia Grace - Polar opposite of Hanabie. Nice, quiet, great voice, but too mellow for me.




Nico Vega - Great band if you are in a bar and want some live music. I don't consider them to be a "festival" band but they were on a small stage. I have seen them before.





Teezo Touchdown - I have no idea how to describe him. I thought he put on a good show, but my buddy said he thought he was terrible. I think part of that was my buddy was out in the middle of a big crowd and it was fucking hot with the sun beating down on people. Yes, the microphone is in the bouquet of flowers.






VINCE STAPLES - I have seen him before. He is who he is. Asshole security guy wouldn't let me use my camera. I told him my iPhone is more powerful (it's not) and it's not a professional camera and he gave me a stare down. Dude was about 6-4/6-5, 280, and I said to myself, let it go.



Teddy Swims - Fantastic. Fuck Jelly Roll. This dude is less known than Jelly Roll and I feel better.




Some Blink-182 shit sitting side/back stage.