Yesterday was the first day of Lollapalooza, and I’m working on collecting my thoughts on last night while I’m in an airport waiting to fly back to San Francisco. The heat made me reconsider a lot of the original plan I had set in my head, but I went with the flow and found myself a couple new musical gems that I’ll be hoping to catch up with once I’m back to the real world.
The obvious thing to write about would be the Radiohead headlining slot, which started right on time after the Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks set. I felt rather fortunate that “15 Step” opened the show, something that I felt was rather symbolic for me given the fact that I listened to it a few times on the train ride in anticipating the live version. And most everything they played was something I recognized and had heard recently, so the set was great front to back. Problem is, I was way too far back for a lot of the early part of the set and didn’t get the gumption to attack my way into the crowd until about halfway through. It really was fantastic, though. Can’t wait to see these guys at Outside Lands again — I’m going for the front row next time, for sure.
The day started with a truly mind-blowing set from Holy F*ck. From there, I caught a bit of Rogue Wave, saw the first two songs that The Go Team did, caught the first 30 seconds of the Holy F*ck DJ set across the park, then went all the way back to see what was kicking with Yeasayer on the main stage. The Kills were immediately following and I dug what I saw there, then we headed over to the other end of the park to see The Black Keys. The crowd was out in full force there and most of the people had arrived at the park by then. I listened to Cat Power in the background while me and my crew grubbed on some food while hiding from the sun in “the forest,” and then we headed over to see the end of the Grizzly Bear set, the first real “surprise” for me during the day. I loved this band. Why had I not discovered this sooner?
After that, I saw a bit of Bloc Party then watched the fantastic set by CSS, definitely my unexpected highlight of the day. Soon before they finished, we made our way over to the main stage area to get ourselves some sort of spot before the Radiohead set began. They played notes to signal the start of the set and then launched into “15 Step.” I was smiling.
It was a great day. I can’t wait to see what the guys cook up for themselves while attending Day 2.
