Aug

4

Lollapalooza 2008 Day 2 - Foals, BSS Steal The Show

Posted by Administrator

August 4, 2008 |


(photo by David Evans of MOKB)
What any festival should be about is a combination of bands you know you love and bands that are brand new to you and you see for the first time. Lollapalooza is chock full of heavyweight bands, with several acts playing second or third support to the nights headliners that could be headliners themselves at other festivals. My Saturday at Lolla had a combination of the old and the new, and they fit in nicely alongside one another.

The Chicago weather for day 2 was a huge relief compared to the sauna like enviroment that was Friday. And as I stepped off the train I actually felt a nice breeze during my walk to Grant Park. The sun was out, but was not the same enemy that wore me out only 2 hours into Day 1. My first intention after breaching the gates was to check out Foals, who were playing an early afternoon set at the Citi stage in the middle of the park. The UK band put out a great debut this year on Sub Pop, Antidotes, and I was hoping would translate well in a live setting. As the band ripped into their high energy set, the crowd was surprisingly more than ready to push the energy right back and it made for an impressive combination of clapping, bouncing and all out fun.

Foals included great songs from their debut like “Cassius”, “Balloons”, “Red Socks Pugie,” “Electric Bloom” and “Two Steps, Twice.” It was certainly one of those sets that smack everyone upside the head and as I predicted, several people walked away saying “that was great, who were those guys”?

After that great start to the day, I decided to scale the park and head towards the PS3 stage, which saw Devotchka already in the midst of their set. By the time I made it over to the the next stage, to wait for Explosions In The Sky, I was ready for a drink and a break. As anyone who has attended knows, the grounds are not very conducive to seeing multiple bands quickly. Explosions was worth the wait though, as they took the stage with a Texas flag hanging from an amp and mentioned that “without fans like you, we would not be here”, which would be the only words out of their mouths of course, as they launched into a great set of instrumental burners. I knew I would only be able to see about 30 minutes of the set though, as I prepped for another jaunt across the grounds, so I was stoked when “Catastrophe & The Cure” made its way into the set early on.

I hoofed it back to the other side to see a small portion of Spank Rock’s set before refueling yet again in an attempt to keep up my energy. After a quick recuperation, I made my way over to see part of Jamie Lidell’s set, which was raucous as ever. Off the strength of his great new album Jim, Lidell had a full band backing him up and the portion of the set I got to witness was just what you might expect from him, plus about 5 times crazier.

But it was the other side of the grounds that I had in mind again, (man, I walked alot) and got ready for Wilco early, by checking out, Broken Social Scene. I really like BSS, but was sorta expecting a bit of a let down since I knew Feist, Emily Haines and Jason Collett were not going to be on stage. However, the set was just short of brilliant, as the remaining BSS collective did more than make up for those that were missing. Amy Milan joined the band a few songs in for a great rendition of “7/4 Shoreline” and the Kevin Drew stepped away and let Brendan Canning do a couple of songs from his solo record, and Andrew Whiteman stepped up for an Apostle of Hustle tune as well. I guess that is what I get for underestimating BSS, they were great.

Wilco capped off a great day at the festival, which I already went on about here. I will have some final thoughts about Lolla 2008 in the days to come as well.

Related Posts:
Lollapalooza 2008 Gets Started TodayLollapalooza 2008 - Wilco Do A New Song, Wear New SuitsLollapalooza 2008 Day One - Radiohead Lives Up To Top BillingComing To Cincinnati - Mates Of State + New AlbumWilco - Take Me Out To The Ballgame @ Wrigley Field

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