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| Crowds on Day 1 |
I just got back from three wild days at Lolla and I'm exhausted. The weekend was interesting, to say the least. The highs were high and the lows were very low, but overall it was well worth the $280 I dropped on tickets and the other $100 on food (eep). For those of you who didn't make it to Lolla, here are a few of the details from my Lolla experience.
Day 1
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| The view for MS MR from our spots |
Who I saw: MisterWives, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, MS MR, Alabama Shakes, alt-J, and Paul McCartney
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| I watched Paul McCartney from up on the hill |
Highlights: Day 1 was actually a pretty good day. I had a lot of fun and saw a lot of bands I really liked. Day 1 was the day where the little things really stood out, like spending time with friends and such. At MisterWives, hearing lead-singer Mandy call out society on gender roles while doing pushups was pretty great. Dancing to the jazz stylings of St. Paul was also pretty nice. We got pretty close to the stage at MS MR as well. To cap the day off, listening to Paul McCartney and singing along with a few of my closest friends was absolutely amazing.
Lowlights: Well, the heat, obviously. It was burning hot. The real lowlight was actually some of the adults we encountered. Lolla is mostly populated by the under 30 crowd, but with headliners like Paul McCartney and Metallica, there were quite a few older people this year. Not only were many of them rude, some of them were plain violent (I was hit and pushed by a middle aged man yelling obscenities at me, and this guy was sober). My friends and I ran into several unpleasant encounters with such people and it totally bummed our vibe.
Day 2
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| Our view for Banks |
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| Sorry for all the zoom, but that was our view at Tame Impala |
Highlights: Not gonna lie, day 2 was really, really weird. It's kind of difficult to pick out the highlights from this day because it's a bit of a jumble. I guess highlights come down to seeing Banks and Tame Impala. I liked but didn't love Tame Impala's album, but we had amazing spots close to the stage and they're just an experience live. The crowd was super rowdy and fun to be in. On the other hand, I'm a huge Banks fan (I own her on vinyl) and she was just as good live (if not better) than the album. It was an experience to say the least.
Lowlights: There were plenty of lowlights (this was the worst of my three days by far). For starters, we went to see Walk the Moon but the crowd was terrible and again we were attacked by old men, so we left the crown and sat in the fields. But the speakers were messed up so we couldn't hear them. Basically, we didn't see or hear Walk the Moon. Next, at Tame Impala, a girl was crowd surfing and she was dropped on my head. My neck still hurts because of it. And at Banks, all hell broke loose. Right after Banks the Pepsi stage had G-Easy, a rapper. Well, the G-Easy crowd decided to rush the stage, essentially trampling those of us who were at Banks. Things became so violent that at some points my feet didn't even touch the ground and I was being carried by bodies. It took us forever to get out of that mess and we were just sobbing on the other side. It was terrifying and we went home after that.
Day 3
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| The legend, Florence Welch, in the flesh, taken while I was bawling my eyes out |
Who I saw: The Wombats, Circa Waves, Twenty One Pilots, Of Monsters and Men, Florence and the Machine
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| The Wombats: my ultimate nerdy music crush |
Highlights: All the performers! I literally saw three of my favorite bands (The Wombats, OMAM, and Florence) in one day, and they all rocked it! For OMAM and Florence, I literally got in the audience during Twenty One Pilots and stood for four hours, progressively moving closer and closer to the stage, but it was well worth it. I bawled like a baby during the first few songs of Florence's set because I was so convinced that her set would most likely be cancelled due to weather. That day felt like a religious experience, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Lowlights: The evacuation kind of sucked. It gave us a nice breather during the day, but otherwise I would have preferred to stay in the park. Also, the crowd while waiting for Florence was packed like sardines and I wasn't sure I would be able to hold out long enough to actually see Florence, but oh it was soooo worth the wait.
That's my Lollaplooza recap. We came, we conquered, and on Monday we slept it off. See you next year, Lolla!
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