Lollapalooza Blog

“Do you see that?” my friend Charles asked, pointing at the sunlit pavement shining menacingly as we stood in one the few shaded areas Grant Park has to offer.  “I want to stay out of that.” 

It was about four p.m. on Friday, Aug.1.I had just arrived at Lollapalooza for three days that would pan out very differently from what I initially expected.Sure, there would be a lot of music and sweat and sunlight, but it was the people sweating and cheering and fighting and dancing, peeing in the Porto potties or against the fences next to them, who made this festival memorable.Because once you’ve stood in a puddle of urine courtesy of the girl who didn’t want to leave her Radiohead spot, your focus begins to drift towards the individuals around you and away from the band that brought this massive crowd together.    

Gogol Bordello

Loud, fast gypsy rock, fat mustaches, and an accordion.  These are where my ears and eyes wandered when I crossed Grant Park from the Bud Light Stage to the AT&T Stage for Gogol Bordello.  My first thought was to commend whoever placed this band on day one, as I could think of few other acts that could get people dancing so merrily.  Having so recently attended Pitchfork, I felt compelled to compare the two festivals, and what stood out to me more than the differences in sheer number of people was how much more unrestrained people appeared here.  It wasn’t just that everyone was dancing (and believe me, everyone was dancing); it was that they were dancing poorly and didn’t give a shit.  People hooked arms and swung around in circles, they stood in lines and imitated the Rockettes – basically, every dance move you don’t take seriously (except for the Macarena, even that had no place here).  Sure, there were a lot of people standing in place and nodding their heads, but even they appeared more festive than the normal indie kids (probably because of their tie-die shirts, which, surprisingly, were everywhere).  I was one of the non-dancing minority when I first arrived, but only moments into “Start Wearing Purple” I found myself swaying my hips and chasing my friend in circles.  The good vibes were irresistible.

Mates of State           

A similarly energetic and fun band followed Gogol Bordello at the Citi Stage, a smaller setup nearest to AT&T.  Mates of State, a duo with a thin, male drummer and blonde, sweet-singing female synth player (the epitome of the hipster couple?) offered a sugary follow-up with its own supply of dance music.  There was a similar, though noticeably smaller group of eager fans willing to hop around, most of whom appeared to be in high school and so happy their parents had allowed them to be here.  At least that’s the conclusion I had come to when Charles turned to me and said, “I keep wanting to say ROFLpalooza.  Is that wrong?”

Next my friend and I went to Bloc Party, careful to find a good place we could hold onto for Radiohead at eight.  Between the end of Bloc Party’s set and the end of Radiohead’s, some seventy thousand people gathered behind us.  What surprised us more than the masses around us was the remarkable behavior of the few near us. 

Radiohead

Before Thom Yorke even came onstage, we knew we were in for an unforgettable show.  No, not because of the band, but because the girl next to us just peed in a cup and poured it on the floor, and, shit, that’s urine approaching my feet.  Gross.

As the crowd began to really coalesce, people got close.  Most were tolerant of this, as most expected it to happen.  I was surprised to find that despite how many people were here, I managed to find someone nearby who I hadn’t seen in five years, standing on the outskirts of the baseball diamond closest to the stage.  I made my way over to him with my friend, and when I felt a backpack nudging my back moments later, I began to expect the worst of the drunk guy wearing it on his stomach.

“This is bullshit!” he cried as Radiohead began.  “I have zero space.”

“Dude, take it easy, everyone’s cramped up,” said his friend, who’s name I believe was Travis.

“Travis, we need to do something about this.  This won’t do.”

So this guy behind me begins doing what he thinks is the sensible thing to do in order to make space – hitting me more with his backpack and threatening to elbow everyone around him.

“What are you doing?” my friend asked.

“We all need to elbow everyone,” Backpack Guy explained, “Then we will all have space.”

“Looks like I’m getting elbowed in the face,” my friend declared.

This discussion was interrupted for a brief moment while we all listened to a peak point in a song by, what’s that band called again? Oh right, Radiohead.  Then, I started feeling the bump against my back from Backpack Guy’s backpack.

“Is that bugging you?  I’m pregnant, I’m sorry about that,” he said, nudging me again and again.  “Maybe if you moved up a bit you wouldn’t feel it.”

Then Backpack Guy saw two girls move away in front of me, leaving a small gap that, if I had taken, would have given me a worse view of Thom Yorke’s puppet-like dancing.  “Take that gap!” Backpack Guy told me.  “Take it or I’m going to elbow you!  You have no choice!”

Then, a strange thing happened.  Backpack Guy’s tone changed.  Compassionately, he said, “Hey,” he said, “We’re all in this together.”  Then he pulled out a small pipe.  “If we’re all staying here, then we’re all fucking!  You kids like marijuana?”

Perhaps it was Thom Yorke’s special powers that lulled Backpack Guy into calming down and playing nice.  Seeing the friendly smile that came to his face when he offered us his pot made me think it was something more.  Maybe despite his drunkenness and his highness and his mob mentality he managed to realize that Charles and I were people with feelings and aversions to things like elbows in the face.  I thought about this as I gave Backpack Guy a thumbs up when he asked how we liked his drugs.  Then when he started yelling, “You’re not attractive!” to a girl on some guy’s shoulders blocking our view, I knew there’d be more to this weekend than the awesome fireworks during “Everything In Its Right Place.”

 Stay tuned for brawls at the House of Blues, break-in attempts, the top five ways to ask for drugs, and a cameo appearance by women's undies at NIN. 

Empty Lolla thoroughfare minutes during Radiohead's Friday night set.  Photo by Stuart Tiffen.

There might be a few more post-Lolla posts in the pipeline, but for the most part we'll be drawing things to a close with a rundown of all the great many sites who linked to our coverage over the weekend, sending us readers, commenters and google mojo!

These were the top 25 referrers for the Lollablog and the number of readers they sent over between the first day of the festival, August 1 and today, August 5.  Notice the different Guns and Roses fan communities for different countries.  Make with the clicky.

1. Blabbermouth Records News Blog - 2,073 Readers
   
2. Official Lollapalooza Message Boards-  764 readers
   
3. Sun-Times Lollapalooza Blog - 494 Readers
   
4. YouTube - Our video of the start of the Rage set has been viewed 25,000 times so far and received 100 comments- 445 Readers
5. MyGNRForum.com - The first of many GNR fan sites that linked over to our Slash photos - 221 readers
   
6. Official Rage Agains the Machine Message Board- 157 readers
7. Brooklyn Vegan Blog - 143 Readers
   
8. Pop Watch - EW.com - 137 Readers
9. VelvetRevolverForum.com - 91 readers
10. TimeOut Chicago's Out and About - 86 readers
11. One-Percent.com - 65 readers
    
12. ShowHype.com - 65 Readers
    
13. Echoingthesound.org - 58 Readers
    
14. gunsnroses.com.pl - 48 Readers
    
15. HereTodayGoneToHell.com - 27 Readers
16. PerryFarrell.net - 26 Readers
17. gnrdaily.com - 25 Readers
18. 93x.com - 24 Readers
19. ChopAway.com - 23 Readers
20. MTV.com's 'You R Here' Blog - 22 Readers
21. Gunnersbrasil.com - 20 Readers
22. SonyBMG Music (link here and here)
23. gnrla.mejorforo.net - 11 readers
24. gnrfrancophone.net - 10 readers
25. beenafix.com - 8 readers

Thanks to everyone who picked up on our coverage.  Next time we get some Lolla-related news, it'll show up here.  Until then, see you next summer.

The heat was on and the clothes were practically off this weekend at Lollapalooza. It was the perfect place for tattoo-spotting.

Here's a look at some of the best ink:

If you spotted any interesting tattoos at Lollapalooza this year, tell us about them in the comments below.  If you've got pics, send them to windycitizen@gmail.com 

#1: The Led Zeppelin Wizard

Name: Tamara Appleton
From: Australia
Came to see: Black Keys, Girl Talk, Radiohead
Her tattoo: Tamara has the wizard from a Led Zeppelin album on her back.

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails belts out a chorus during his Lollapalooza headliner set Sunday. All photos and video, Brad Flora. Note: All photos were taken by aiming my point and click at the video monitors overhead. No pit access for this joker.

Updated with setlist and more videos, Monday 1:00 pm

48 hours after Radiohead lulled a massive crowd at Lollapalooza 2008 and 24 hours after Rage Against the Machine incited it to violence on a scale not seen in recent years, Nine Inch Nails performed a lush, challenging set that seemed to satisfy those who stuck it out.

Rumors hit the internet earlier this week that NIN architect Trent Reznor was pulling out of his Sunday headlining slot only to be shot down by an image posted to NIN.com, a snapshot of Rage Against the Machine's performance taken from backstage, presumably by Reznor himself.

The show comes amidst a resurgence for the band, due, some say, to Reznor's embrace of all-digital forms of music distribution, use of guerrilla, interactive marketing and his decision to keep releasing new music at a prodigious pace.

The Setlist

1,000,000
Discipline
Closer
Intrumental
Piggy
The Warning
Vessel
Wish
Terrible Lie
Survivalism
Only
The Hand that Feeds
Echoplex
Hurt
In This Twilight

The set started off with 1,000,000 from "The Slip," released in May as a free digital download.

Watch the first minute below:

Another highlight from the early part of the set was "Closer," the so-filthy-it's-awesome song that every kid I knew in 1997 was trying to track down.

Watch the first minute below:

As is to be expected, Nine Inch Nails' light show did not disappoint, bathing the industrial band in flickering strobes, lasers and at one point a kind of rusted chain-link pattern.  One of the more memorable effects was also one of the simpler ones, a digital backdrop that cast the band in stark silhouettes.

Mallets galore

After a spirited launch, the set cooled as Reznor and his band (which included someone sporting a kicking Malcolm Gladwell fro) stepped into a percussion instrumental.

The aforementioned guitar player with a Malcolm Gladwell do.

During what I'll call the "mallet interlude," Reznor himself was not visible on stage at times and the music dragged a bit.  At one point, from my vantage point out in the crowd, the already unusually-quiet-for-a-rock-festival music was drowned out by all the people suddenly talking around me (perhaps it was a taste of my own medicine after talking during Radiohead).

Reznor looking a lot older than I'd like him to....means we're all getting older, too, etc.

From where I stood, it seemed like a lot of people were heading for the exit around this time.  Kanye West had started up his set on the other end of the park and the faint strains coming from it were also about as loud as the plunky, moody music coming from the stage.  Also, Kanye definitely sounded like he was having a lot more fun over there.

I followed a group out to the main entrance onto the Northern field to compare incoming bodies to outgoing bodies.  You can see the video I captured above and judge for yourself whether people were coming or going to see NIN. It looked about even to me.

Reznor, looking creepy.

The instrumental break came to a close and the band played "Piggy" another mellow song, but certainly more accessible than mallets and a dark stage.

The video below gives a glimpse of the scene near the back of the crowd, in front of the nearby Playstation stage during the song.  I found it a spooky scene, a bit like a nightmare version of evening at a Disney theme park, trash everywhere, city lights in the background, worn-out, bedraggled wandering in and out of an industrial street lamp. That's garbage you hear crunching under my feat.  Despite ubiquitous recycling and trash bins all over the festival, the standing areas were still a mess after every performance all weekend long.  You'll see bins in the clip below.

The last song I caught before ducking out to try and catch some of Kanye's set was a powerful rendition of "Wish," which the band turned into a real pulverizer.

Watch a snippet below:

A Well-received Set

Fans I spoke with afterward said Nine Inch Nails' performance lived up to their high expectations.  The refrain common to the half-a-dozen people I spoke with went like this:

"So awesome.  So awesome."

The Hacky Man

One guy who definitely enjoyed the show was the ball-capped, 40ish guy in a shredded t-shirt who seemed to be everywhere that weekend, playing hacky sack. At first you think he's just an eccentric dancer, then you notice the sack.  In the clip below, you can see him go to town near stage-right at the Nine Inch Nails show.

Heading Home

The crowd that left the Kanye and NIN shows was noticeably more laid-back and less amped-up than the throngs that streamed out after Saturday's Rage Against the Machine set. The police I spoke with said that they hadn't any more officers on hand than the previous night, but they weren't seeing anywhere near the aggression levels from people walking home. Nevertheless, the entire west-edge fence had been pulled down starting from Balbo up about a block and police were forcefully restraining a man on the curb on Michigan avenue for drunkeness, so there were still some winkles from a security standpoint, just nowhere near the total failure of the night before.

As I did not stay through the end of the performance, there are some things missing from this write-up that you could help with: Setlist, reports from the front-of-barricades, more thoughts on how NIN worked as festival closer.

Tons more video from youtube

Hurt (includes moving intro from Reznor)

Piggy

Survivalism

In case you hadn't heard, things got ugly during last night's Rage Against the Machine set at Lollapalooza, both in the mosh pit and the streets outside the festival, where between 500 and 2000 freeloaders formed a flying wedge and crashed a police barricade about 2/3rds into the set. As one Chicago Police Officer said to me, "they all got in."

Jim DeRogatis and the rest of the Sun-Times' crew at the festival took great pains to piece together just what happened last night. Read it here.

The highlights:

"The opening for this mass surge came when the gate opened to allow the CTA bus that had been parked in that area to leave....

According to security personnel who were on the scene, the incident happened some time after the CTA bus pulled out. What prompted it was a C3 staffer ordering security to open the access gate to ease a bottleneck in the crowd already in the park. Concertgoers were jammed on a stairway leading down to Hutchinson Field, and some wanted to leave the crowd.

Security initially resisted opening the gate, believing "It was a bad call, bad judgment" by the C3 employee to open an access point that was not supposed to be unlocked until after Rage's performance ended. But when the C3 staffer insisted, security complied, and as people began to leave Grant Park, the crowd across the street seized the moment: "They bum-rushed the gate like they were in Korea protesting the Olympics."

The flying wedge of gate crashers entered the park and broke into two contingents, one simply rushing down the stairs and into the field and another hopping a high fence to gain access to the field through the V.I.P. areas and luxury cabanas."

Be sure to check the full story out:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/derogatis/2008/08/raging_during_the_rage_set_h...

Rage Against the Machine opening its Lollapalooza 2008 Saturday headliner set with "Testify." (Band takes stage at 1:20 mark.)

Fifteen years after their first Lollapalooza, Rage Against the Machine pounded through their hits during a set unsurprisingly marred by violence and crowd-control problems Saturday night at the south end of Hutchinson field, creating a din whose ferocity matched the mosh pit it incited, a sweaty crush of limbs that brought the concert to a (thankfully temporary) halt more than once. They opened with "Testify" and closed with "Killing in the Name of." In between, people got hurt, barricades were trampled, Obama was somewhat lamely called out and many f-bombs were dropped.

As one teenage girl said to a friend after the show: "That was the most dangerous thing I've ever done."

After sprinting out of the gates with "Testify" and "Bulls on Parade" frontman Zach de la Rocha cut the band off near the end of its third song, "People of the Sun" to urge the crowd to back up and "look after each other."

"We got enough problems out there in the streets with these f---ed up politicians and cops...Save that s--- for the streets," he said, eliciting snickers from a guy near me, who shouted "Rage against injury!"

But problems continued, in the pit and elsewhere. Ten minutes later, after wrapping up "Know Your Enemy," de la Rocha again asked the crowd to back up, now more or less pleading and threatening to cut the set short if the crush up front continued. During this second, near four-minute hiatus the band huddled ominously at the front of the stage and handed the mic over to security to dole out more warnings.

To complicate matters, about 30 minutes into the set a crowd estimated by witnesses at being between 400 and 1000 people crashed a security gate near Columbus and Balbo after police opened it to let out a bus, according to one witness. The rush was stopped only by a dozen officers on horseback according to the Sun-Times.

Is it so surprising that a band whose music orders people to "rise up" would have a rowdier crowd than Radiohead's the night before? There did seem to be a stronger police presence for Saturday's headliner. Police were clearing the stairs this time after the Radiohead crowd had blocked them the night before.

After the show, the crowd, still riled up, streamed out into the Loop, chanting, climbing lamp posts and generally have a good time.  Seeing the otherwise deserted loop full of bodies moving towards the El felt more than a little like a scene out of Cloverfield, but instead of fleeing from a monster, the crowd was being nudged along by a quartet of mounted Chicago police officers.

Obligatory Political Call-Out during "Wake Up"

In what seems like a tradition, de la Rocha used the instrumental break on "Wake Up" to fire some lefty, but generally anti-authoritarian politics at the crowd in which he called out "brother Obama" and spoke of a "new generation" of young blacks and latinos who don't care about national politics and who are going to force a reckoning.

Here's the audio, recorded from the field.  It's indecipherable in places, but gives a sense of the high drama.

I've uploaded it to the Internet Archive.

Transcription:

"For these last eight years, all we've heard about is a mysterious outside force that threatedns our security and our liveihood everyday... *indecipherable* ...that some outside force is threatening our wayof life and our jobs and our livelihoods...and after *indecipherable*...it must dawn on us that its the big government that is the terrorist force sitting across from us. 

"And I'm not just talking about the Bush administration, but the whole sick, conformist apparatus *indecipherable*

"They're supposed to step up and be our voice and congress they turned their backs on us. They turned their backs on the workers.  They turned their backs on the soldiers.  They got right behind Bush lock step and got this country into another sick war.

"Now we know brother Obama.  We know brother Obama.  But I tell you what, if he comes to power come November and he doesn't start pulling troops out of Afghanistan, I know a lot of people who are gonna stand up and burn down every office of every Senate.

"All this now we've been seeing is just the beginning, it's just the beginning.  And no matter what happens in these *indecipherable*, I'll say this.  That there is a generation of young black and latino brothers and sisters that are gonna force everyone in this country to make a decision very soon about what side they're going to stand on.  And they're a generation of kids who don't give a f--- about national politics.  They care about bread.  They care about water.  They care about housing and they care about justice.  And they ain't gonna f---ing stand for any of that siii.  They're just gonna take it. 

"This new generation of blacks and latinos *indecipherable* are gonna make this country an offer it can't refuse.  So wake up!

The Set:

Save for the distraction of wondering if they'd get to finish the set, the performance itself was near flawless. Rage hasn't lost a step. There's an interview with guitarist Tom Morello on their live DVD in which he says, with the exception of the UK's Prodigy, he's never met a band that could match Rage's energy on stage. Saturday's show definitely lived up to that promise. Morello and De la Rocha were in near-constant motion and played to the roar of the crowd all night long. When they returned for their encore, Morello came out sporting a Cubs cap, pissing off every Sox fan within earshot.

Setlist

1. Testify
2. Bulls on Parade
3. People of the Sun
4. Bomb Track
5. Know Your Enemy
6. Bullet in Your Head
7. Born of a Broken Man
8. Guerilla Radio
9. Ashes in the Fall
10. Calm Like a Bomb
11. Sleep Now in the Fire
12. Wake Up
13. Freedom
14. Killing in the Name of

Other people writing about this

• TimeOut Chicago: Rage Calls Out Barack And, Not Surprsingly, Creates Some Chaos
• Jim DeRogatis' Lollapalooza Blog

Photos by Jing Zhou.

Long the worst-kept secret of Lollapalooza 2008, rock guitar legend Slash joined festival organizer Perry Farrell, his wife Etty Lau Farrell and paparazzi-magnet DJ Samantha Ronson on stage Saturday afternoon for a rousing but technically-handicapped singalong performance of Farrell classic "Jane Says."

Lured by text-message alerts announcing the former Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver guitar player's appearance, festival-goers packed into the tent shell where they first took in a DJ set from Ronson and a handful of techno-infused original songs performed by Farrell and his wife, a former backup dancer who worked the crowd in a saucy, leggy polkadot ensemble.

Slash emerged much later than expected, frustrating many, but delighting the anxious crowd nonetheless, judging by the roar that errupted as he strapped on his trademark black Gibson Les Paul, plucked a few chords and gave the audience a quick grin.

Slash kept to power chords and rhythm accompaniment for a techno-driven rendition of "Mountain Song," watching Satellite Party guitarist Carl Rotivo for the chord changes and puffing away on a cigarette as he played.  His one solo was less than memorable, but no one seemed to care.

Near the end of the tune, the sound system cut out on the group leaving the Farrells awkwardly singing into muted microphones while Slash played only through his onstage monitor.  Farrell motioned to cut the song short and they cleared the stage.

Chants of "Slash! Slash!" filled the tent until the performers returned to launch into "Jane Says."  But again, the sound system cut out, this time only about 24 bars into the tune. 

This time Farrell and friends rolled with it, motioning for the audience to sing along with them.  And they did, turning what would have been a minor disaster into a familial singalong of a classic song, led by its hip-thrusting, arm-waving pied-piper originator.

Unable to address the crowd through the PA at the end of the song, Farrell simply brought Ronson back onto the stage, where the foursome was joined by the Farrell's kids and Slash's as well, playing up the family vibe of the affair, before disappearing backstage, to golf carts and away.

While Slash sat waiting for his golf cart to take off, a fan shouted "Tell Axel to get his shit together," which drew a smile from the man who wrote the licks that drive classic Guns N' Roses songs like Sweet Child of Mine and Novemeber Rain.

More than one fan was less than impressed by the performance, complaining that he crowded into the bandshell to hear Slash and only got about 3/4 of a song from him.

If you were there, what'd you think?  Was it worth the wait?  Does Slash sound as good in person as he does in Guitar Hero?

More Photos

Dude #1: *Hold hands above head* There's God, up here.
Dude #2: *Nods*
Dude #1: *Lowers hands an inch.* And then there's Rage Against the Machine, just down here.

Back on the board for day two. Gonna crank out some posts in a few minutes.

All photos by Jing Zhou except first, by Brad Flora

Just got back from Radiohead.  Notes:

1. There were a lot of people there.  A regular multitude.  This cell-shot is murky, but it conveys the scope of the event.  I'm pulling a number of the air, but I'm guessing there were 75,000 people in attendence (which is in line with this prediction via the great Greg Kot of the Tribune.)

2. Radiohead played the hits.  And then they kept playing more hits. I don't have a setlist for you, but they definitely played:

• 15 Steps - The band started the night off with the first song on their latest album, "In Rainbows." (ID'ed by commenter, Kevin, below.)
• Everything in its Right Place - The crowd went nuts for the opening chords of this one.
• Paranoid Android - Not the best live rendition I've heard of this one, but who's complaining
• Optimistic - Thom Yorke hit a few opening chords before this tune...and I recognized them immediately, turning smugly to Jing to announce (correctly!) what the next tune would be.The falsetto drones that run through the tune were HAUNTING.
• The Bends - The soaring telecaster solo sounded incredible in the flesh.
• Idioteque - Last song of the night.

• Airbag - This was song #2 (after a tune from the new album that I didn't recognize).  Huge crowd pleaser. That cut-up bassline never gets old.
• Fake Plastic Trees - Nice mellow song.  I wanted to rouse my whole section of the crowd into a singalong...but they were way to busy yelling at people and getting angry (watched show from a precarious spot near the stairs.  Much pushing/shoving.)
• National Anthem - This sounded pretty darn good.  I didn't care for the radio samples they layered over the tune, but so long as they nail the rhythm section it sounds great.  Of course they did.
• No Surprises - Another crowd pleaser. I was honestly a little bored by this one in parts, though I like the recorded version of the song a good deal.
• Bodysnatchers - They ripped into this one like it was a bag of nacho cheese combos fresh off the rack from a Marathon Station.  Just fun, raunchy rock.
• Dollars and Cents - Yorke's voice really screamed on this one.
• 2+2=5 - More on this in a bit as it was the highlight of the night.

Police helicopter hanging overhead during Radiohead's set.

3. Highlight of the night: Perfect song at the perfect moment in the perfect city.

Chicago's Police have been getting a lot of bad press lately.  Security at the last "big event" (Taste of Chicago) was sorely criticized after a stabbing occured nearby.  Lollapalooza's a big event for the city.  The festival program includes a message from Mayor Daley.  They're not taking any chances with safety this year, errecting a police tower at the northern Hutchinson Field.

If security was beefed up this year, I sure didn't notice it during the day. What I DID notice, however, and everyone else watching Radiohead, was the helicopter hovering over the crowd throughout the night, shining a spotlight down on the assembled masses.  It was downright creepy, conscioiusly knowing that you're being watched.  That you're all being watched.We'd all just seen Batman, too. It was a little too "Gotham" for me.

And it was during the helicopter's second flyby that Radiohead let rip with the opener from their 'Hail to the Thief' album, 2+2=5, a song that, while not baldly political, certainly has anti-authoritarian, anti-Bush overtones, with its refrain of "All Hail to the Thief!"

Seeing the copter overhead, hearing the band belt out the angular chords, I wondered if the crowd saw the connection.  It sure seemed like it, judging by the applause the song received.  Here was a tune that addressed what was happening that very moment to all 75,000 us. Who in the crowd didn't want to shake their fist at the blinking lights gliding overhead?  Only at a rock festival, eh? 

4. Strangers really do bond at rock shows...sometimes. I hadn't been to a festival-style concert in quite some time.  So I'd forgotten the weirdo bond that can grow between people stuck together at random in the crowd, but who both enjoy the music together.  Jing and I stood next to a really scary-looking skinhead covered in tribal tattoos who told us he snuck into the festival. I made a few comments to him here and there as people jostled into us and eventually we were talking Radiohead and having a grand old time.  He confessed that he knew all the songs but couldn't remember any of their titles.  I admitted I knew all their titles but hadn't heard the latest album yet.  So we helped each other out.  Everything was pretty chill, other than the moment when someone looked at him funny and he shoved the guy into next Tuesday...at least it wasn't me!

But sometimes the bond just isn't there. The hipster gal in the purple tank top standing on my left glared daggers at me all night long, first for *gasp* talking during the show, then (I think) for bobbing my head a bit too much and belting out a line or two of The Bends.  I responded with a smile every time, but she only gave me more hate and eye-rolls.  Boo!

----------------------------------------------------------------

I can't say whether this was one of Radiohead's better or worse performances.  It was my first time seeing them live.  Truth be told, the crowd seemed pretty subdued.  Late in the set, Yorke called them out actually, saying something along the lines of "You don't have to be so quiet."  Of course, this elicited a roar from the audience, but even then it was far from deafening.

There may have been just too many people there.  My perch was about 400 yards from the stage with an unobstructed view.  But thousands were stuck clear across the field, with only suspended monitors playing live feeds from the stage.  I can imagine I'd feel somewhat underwhelmed from that point of view.

On tap for tomorrow: Rage Against the Machine, plus a look at the most colorful and weirdest tattoos at the festival.

Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/lollablog

What'd you think of Radiohead's set?  Was it up to snuff? 

Did I misread the helicopter/2+2=5 moment? 

Were you also the unwitting target of a hipster hate?

More Photos

Parts of the set were accompanied, to great effect, by fireworks.

Radiohead's lighting rig was pretty nifty. Here are some captures from a few of the better setups they tossed at the crowd throughout the night.

You wouldn't know it by looking at the headliners (Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead), but Lollapalooza is going to great lengths to accomodate families and children.

There's a Kids stage, where marquee names like Jeff Tweedy and festival sponsor Perry Farrell are scheduled for short, family-friendly sets.

And then there's the Tag a Kid booths all over the festival.

Here's how it works:

1. Take your kid to the booth.
2. Fill out a form with your kid's name, your name and a cell number.
3. They out a sticker on your kid (hence the name, Tag a Kid).
4. If your kid gets lost, they go to one of the Tag a Kid booths.
5. They find your form and give you a call.
6. You pick up your kid.

I spoke to Mona, one of the volunteers working this particular booth.  She estimated that the festival had tagged 1,000 kids as of 5pm, when I spoke to her.  Thus far, no children had reported to the booth to look for their parents.

Should  there be more kids at Lollapalooza? Should there be kids at all?  The organizers are clearly kid-friendly.

Off to catch the end of the Raconteurs set and get a spot for Radiohead... wish me luck.

Send me your tips, photos, tweet us at http://www.twitter.com/lollablog

See you in a bit.  I spent some time exploring Dell's latest attempt to pander to generation Y, an air-conditioned dome near the main stage.  I shall chronicle the weirdness within later tonight.