Lollapalooza, day two

After I went home from day one, I ended up going out to meet up with my friend Johnny C to see the Flesh Hungry Dog Show. I was out until nearly 1 am drinking Jack and Coke, so my plans to get up early and work out before day two didn't happen.

I make it to Target and get some milk and some cargo shorts. The cargo pants I wore on day one were too damn hot. I make it to the park, all sunscreened up, a little before two and head straight to Tapes'n Tapes who are playing the MySpace stage. I've built them up in my head quite a bit-even though I haven't really listened to their music-so I'm a bit disappointed with their solid perfomance.

Silverchair follows them on the AT&T stage. The lead singer has the cheesy rock banter down pat. I can't tell how much of it is a put on. He also has the rock guitarist thing down, playing it with his teeth, kneeling down to play parts of songs just by changing the settings on the pedals. He started the show wearing a jacket and no shirt, then took it off revealing a pretty cut body, some tattoos and bilateral nipple piercings. He says the drummer asked him to clarify that they weren't gay. I was happy for the clarification. I've noticed several men in Chicago who appear straight, but with pierced nipples. It's something that doesn't make any sense to me. (But I don't like my nipples played with, so maybe it's just me.) Anyway, it sounds like Silverchair has been listening to a lot of Rush and Prog Rock since the last time I listened to them. Also, they have the crowd sing the chorus on a lot of their songs. I never really considered them a chick band, but it's the girls who seem to know all the words.

I get a call from my friend Adam and we try to meet up near Buckingham Fountain. We're not able to find one another, but he texts me an invite to his boss's vodka lemonade after-party. This day is delightfully overcast and a great temperature. It keeps threatening to rain, but at this point it hasn't.

One of the best things about this festival is that Grant Park has real, brick and mortar bathrooms with running water. They have several hundred porta-potties, but there was never much of a line at the real bathrooms. So I head to one and was waiting with about 4 guys for a urinal and this guy comes up and opens the door to one of the stalls. It's the handicapped stall, and when the door opens everyone in line has a direct view of this poor guy reaching around to wipe his ass. The guy apologized for opening the door and threw it shut. The guy wiping his ass, in this kind of pathetic voice, said it was alright and then apologized for not locking the door. He explained that he could not get it to lock. All of us in line have now become part of this interaction and here is where it gets really disturbing: When the guy slammed the door shut, it slowly swung back open.

They guy, who is still wiping his ass asks the guy to please shut the door. But he's so aghast that-even though he is maybe 3 feet from the door-he has his head bowed and eyes closed-trying to pretend he is somewhere far far away-and does not hear him. Those of us in line hear him, but are already far more involved in the situation than we want to be and are doing our part by pretending the door isn't still open. The third or fourth time the guy's pleading voice asks him to shut the door, he snaps back to reality and shuts it for him.

So I pee, wash my hands and head out for a Bratwurst and some new sunglasses. I watch The Roots who are performing at the Bud Light stage. They give a great summer afternoon concert, all rhythm and joy with inspired versions of some of their best songs. (My favorite was a sped up and extra groovy The Seed.) Here's what they sound like live:



Ragina Spektor disappoints me with a rather extreme faux gratitude. She sees the crowd and looks positively shocked that anyone's there. Was this a surprise concert? Did her friends tell her she was going to see someone else perform? 'You all are here to see me?' every glance seemed to say. Some girls behind me start mocking her, screaming loudly, 'We love you Tori!!!' She dedicates a song to, I think, 'Patty Smith' (rhyming Smith with pith, not scythe) and drumming a chair with her right hand while playing her piano with her left. The drummings terribly syncopated, it becomes more so until I have to believe she's just fucking up. At that point I leave and get an ear of corn (delicious) and catch the end of The Hold Steady (excellent).

I see The Yeah Yeah Yeah's, who are a revelation. She introduces Maps by asking if anyone in the crowd had fallen in love that summer, saying that there is nothing as sweet as summer lovin'. She dedicates the song to everyone who has fallen in love and the crowd seems to buy it. Enough so that I thought I have been misreading the song all these years, until at the end of the song she holds up the mic like it's a dagger and plunges it into her heart.

On my way to see Spoon, I run into one of my best friends from school, Sean, whom I haven't seen or heard from in four years. I hang out with him and his little brother for the rest of the night. At the Spoon show, there's a couple in front of us, she has her back to the stage and is alternating between making out with him (with her leg hiked up around his waist) and dancing/rubbing against him. Sean leans over and asks me if I think 'they're on E or just assholes.'

'Assholes,' I say. Spoon's giving a great show. Later, someone's weaving through the crowd in front of us, but when he sees the couple, he comes to a dead stop and looks first at them and then at me with a 'what the fuck' open-mouthed look on his face.

'It's been going on for some time,' I deadpan, shaking my head.

'They were in front of me at the last show, too,' the girl next to me says. 'They've been at it all afternoon.'

'Do you think they're in love,' I ask her, 'or just assholes?'

'Assholes,' the girl says.

'Assholes, definitely,' the guy weaving through crowd agrees, before continuing on his way.

We head over to the Bud Light stage to watch Interpol. They are, as expected, very, very good.

I take the train home and go to sleep.