Lollapalooza

Chicago's answer to Reading or Glastonbury just without the camping occurred this weekend past. Been looking forward to this weekend for a while now. Chicago is famous for its many festivals during the summer but if I could only go to one this was the one I'd go to.

I saw many acts over the weekend most of which I had either never heard or had only heard a few songs. The list includes: Wavves, The Constellations (my favourite new band of the weekend), The Big Pink, The New Pornographers, Neon Trees (who played a set in the Hard Rock Cafe car park, which is 2 blocks from me, the next morning), Chromeo, a little bit of Lady Gaga, The Strokes, Rebelution, Stars, Social Distribution, Slightly Stoopid, Switchfoot, Minus the Bear, MGMT, Arcade Fire and my favourite act of the weekend Green Day.

The Constellations are an act from Atlanta who describe themselves as a Psychedelic soul-rock explosion. They didn't have the greatest slot of the weekend (1pm on the Friday on a minor side stage) but they certainly gave everyone a good show. Their bassist looks like John Belushi with Jeff Lynne's hair. Their album is called Southern Gothic and I'd advise everyone to check them out on Myspace

Neon Trees are a band who have released one single which is getting a fair amount of airplay. The song itself is called Animal and is a decent indie pop song. When they appeared on stage what I wasn't expecting was to see that the singer looks alot like the male singer from the Scissor Sisters and certainly has a similar stage presence. They put on an excellent show which I got to chance to experience again the next morning. I was lying in bed when I heard music from the Hard Rock Cafe. I recognised the song and went to my window to see it was Neon Trees soundchecking. About an hour later they played a full set a very random experience but a good one.

The small amount of Lady Gaga that I watched from afar was certainly interesting, which is to be expected. I wasn't really interested in seeing her but as The Strokes started half an hour after she did I figured I'd have a look. Her stage show takes the form of a musical play more than a normal gig. She would play a song and then tell part of some story. It did get to the point where I was thinking just shut up and play a song.

By far my favourite act of the weekend was Green Day who played an incredible two and a half hour long set. I am normally someone who maintains that smaller venues are better than larger ones. However this set made me reconsider, being outside you can definitely do things that you can't do inside. The ridiculous amount of fireworks being a good example. One defining part of the set was the amount of people from the crowd that the band brought up on stage. One guy was brought up to sing the song Longview, he then became the most envied person in Grant Park when Billie Joe Armstrong (the singer) gave him his guitar. Other memorable moments include the sheer amount of fireworks, the size of the production and the guy dressed in a pink bunny outfit staggering on stage and downing beers before the show. I was certainly hurting the next day, concerts can be quite an effective workout. In fact my feet have only just stopped aching after the punishment I inflicted upon them over the weekend.