Lollapalooza treats us all right. The unbelievable and consistently great lineups, the fabulous food vendors, and a city deeply planted in our hearts, Lollapalooza is a gentle giant with ace results. This year the truck got placed under shady trees towards the Budweiser Stage in the artist lounge hanging with our friends from Whole Foods & Tito’s Vodka. We got the ultimate listening spot for acts like My Morning Jacket, Bright Eyes, and Coldplay all weekend. Though, the highlight acts on that stage goes to Sunday opener The Joy Formidable, infectious sound of The Kills, and the perfectly synchronized first beat of Deadmau5 with the second massive downpour of rain.
The expansion of acres on Congress & Columbus Drive, the new layout of stages such as the move of the dance tent to an isolated dance mecca, and scheduling made the festival feel perfectly spread out and never overcrowded. The fence jumpers were a sight to see this year too. Fellow cream slinger Adrianne and I were riding in the festival express along Lake Shore Drive when we witnessed a mob of 75+ teens scaling the 8′ brass fences, crossing the major highway, and heading our way to scale the second 8′ brass fence. Police and security spread out ready to catch and chase the successful fence jumpers. “To be honest, I’m here for the mob today. I’m not that concerned about the music.” Flying bodies in every direction and the fact, that more are coming, we yelled for our golf cart driver to get out of there and get us to see The Cars. I’ve been a fence jumper in years past but with this heighten security measures this year, there would be no way for me to accomplish a successful teenager rampage.
Thanks Jared for hustling to get all the photos he could with 130 bands, roaming with the 270,000+ fans and our fence jumping friends, and ridiculous lakes of mud to maneuver. In my humble opinion, with the emergence of mud people and finally crossing Eminem off my must-see list from childhood, this was my favorite Lollapalooza yet! Ice Cream Man, film crew member Jaron and I roamed the last hour of Lollapalooza starting at the mud dance party at Deadmau5. Jaron, who happened to be missing his shoes, found some forgotten sandals to make this mission of walking through festival mud a heck of a lot easier. As we walked, people were slip n’ sliding belly first through mud lakes, race climbing various structures to dance on, and muddy bodies letting loosing, we continued our journey to see how the end of Lollapalooza looked all around the fest grounds. We snacked on baked Scallops in seashells for 5 bucks while listening to Cold War Kids, made a trip to Midwest hero Kid Cudi’s set in a mud war dance tent, and finished our mission with simply rockin’ taste of Foo Fighters. The Foo’s ended with an encore of “Everlong” with a big thank you & goodbye by Lolla creator Perry Farrell. We headed back to the truck, realized we were stuck in a lake of water up to our ankles, and decided to leave the truck for the morning. Thanks Lollapalooza, Ben & Jerry’s, Popsicle, Spotify, & Dig for Fire, you made a truly memorable weekend. Hopefully next time we can join in on Lollapalooza in South America!
Check out the videos from Lollapalooza 2011:
Lykke Li “I Follow Rivers”
Dom “Telephone”
