After Radiohead's ridiculous performance the previous night (and having to stand in one place for 4 hours to get a decent spot for it), we decided to take it easy today. Luckily, it seemed like most of the bands we wanted to see were the least popular acts for their time slot, so we saw a ton of amazing bands and somehow never had to fight for a good spot spot to watch them.
3:30 - Devotchka
Last year, when Juno was released, and the Moldy Peaches were unexpectedly transformed into a household name (at least among teenage hipster girls), they also instantly became the world's most overrated band. This was remarkable, not because they don't write good songs (even though Beat Happening does that schtick much better), but because they're not really a great band (the music supervisors on Juno were smart to find the only 10 songs in their repertoire that don't sound embarrassingly awkward). Which is why I find it odd that the previous year, when Devotchka provided the soundtrack to that year's indie darling, Little Miss Sunshine, the exact opposite happened. Their involvement in the film allowed people to slag them off as "the Little Miss Sunshine band" and stop listening to them as soon as liking that film ceased to be cool. They occupy an odd musical niche of being too harsh and slavic for the Starbucks/Barnes&Noble set and too clean and professional-sounding for the Pitchfork crowd. So most of the Lollapalooza audience did themselves the disservice of seeing hipster wunderkinds MGMT instead, which allowed me to score a perfect spot to see one of the best performances of the weekend. They rocked out out on some of the most badass gypsy spaghetti western music you've ever heard, with singer Nick Urata shredding the guitar, bouzouki, and the theramin just as effortlessly as he belts out Spanish love ballads. I think I read somewhere that early in their career these guys used to do the music for Dita Von Teese's burlesque show, which seems like maybe a more appropriate setting than the Grant Park bandshell, but they pulled it off well, and strangely never looked out of place wearing a heavy tuxedo jackets and chugging red wine from the bottle in the mid-afternoon sun.
4:30 - Explosions in the Sky
With the afternoon sun at it's peak, we decided to just grab some beers and sit back on the lawn for this one. At first listen, Explosions in the Sky don't sound like a band of country-fried Texans that do soundtracks for high school football melodramas, but really I think it makes sense. They have a violent aversion to lyrics, melodies, and really anything that doesn't involve giant swells of wailing guitar fuzz. They're all about making the largest, most dramatic crescendos they can and challenging you to devour it like a 72 oz. sirloin. There's also no real breaks in their performance, so there's no way of telling where one song ends on another begins, which would have been pretty boring if I didn't feel like I was drinking the most epic pint of Bud Light that has ever been consumed.
5:30 - Okkervil River
I'm convinced that Okkervil River is actually just the bizarro version of Spoon. Both bands are from Austin, both clearly have an unhealthy obsession with Brian Wilson, and Will Shef kind of looks like an adolescent version of Britt Daniel. But in contrast to Spoon's sense of understatement and minimalism, Okkervil River seems intent on cutting open their carotid arteries and bleeding their hearts all over your speakers. And while sometimes their naked sentimentality is often a bit uncomfortable to listen to, you have to admire the sheer energy they exert in the process. When they went into "Our Life is Not a Movie" the crowd went wild, and the band milked it for everything it was worth.
6:30 - Broken Social Scene
After seeing Okkervil River spend the last hour losing half their body weight in sweat, I have to admit that I found Broken Social Scene a little boring. I've always considered BSS to be a bit overrated, which is not to say that I think they aren't a solid band. They are. But that's all they are. They're like Ayn Rand's Canadian indie rock nightmare, with so many members that it's almost impossible for any single member to stand out and do anything truly great. And indeed all of the members of the band that actually want to do anything interesting have to break away to do it. They opened with "Pacific Theme" which seemed to match the mood of the lazy, slightly overcast summer evening, but mostly just made me sleepy. The show got a little more lively when they invited Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan from Stars onto the stage, but really I think I would have rather just seen them play a set of Stars songs. When I finally realized there was no chance that Leslie Feist was going to be joining them, I decided this would be a good time for me to get a jug of wine and meet back up with Claire and Joe for Sharon Jones.
7:30 - Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings
Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings might be the least original musical group of all time, and indeed probably make the strongest possible case against artistic innovation. They pretty much don't acknowledge the the existence of any pop music made after 1975, with Jones strutting about the stage, calling directions to the band with the attitude and intensity of a coked-out James Brown, and the Dap Kings laying down the groove so tightly you'd sware they all thought the Godfather himself was gonna rise from the grave and give them a beating if they didn't land on the one. The showmanship was remarkable, and Jones even found some time in her hour of nonstop funk to belt out a couple gospel tunes with enough soul to rival Aretha. If not the best, this was certainly the most dancable performance of the festival.
8:30 - Wilco
I would personally like to thank whoever planned the festival and decided to schedule Wilco at the same time as Rage Against the Machine. Like a lightning rod for macho douchebags, RATM drew all the most obnoxious members of the crowd away from this end of the park, allowing me to enjoy Wilco in peace, and with a pretty decent view of the stage. The band came out wearing suits that looked like some kind of cheeky Takashi Murakami interpretation of Glen Cambell's wardrobe, which, it goes without saying, was awesome. The band ran through a good mix of songs spanning their entire discography (they even played a song off A.M.). I was a little surprised at how little they played from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but the version of "Jesus, Etc." they played couldn't have complimented the glowing Chicago skyline more perfectly. I was also surprised that they played "Spiders", the 10-minute kraut-rock noise jam on A Ghost is Born, and I could go on about all the great songs I wish they had played, but really I was just mad that they had to get cut off after an hour and a half.
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