While so many festivals struggle these days, Lollapalooza not only perseveres, but has boomed. One of the biggest music festivals in North America, this year it enjoyed a three-part documentary about its entire history, from touring alt-nineties roots to its twenty-first century version in the center of Chicago at Grant Park. Yes, it’s not what it was, but that’s because instead of wallowing in the past, it has embraced today & tomorrow, with more music than you could possibly catch, Thursday-Sunday, August 1st-4th:
If you’d been doing Lollapalooza since the start (like your correspondent), you were worn out by Day Four. Sunday is always a bit of an odd duck at the festival, as usually not quite as big as the day before, but also your last chance to rock out.
While there was still some exuberant pop-rock like always, such as Waterparks at the IHG Stage, there were notably some moments where country made its way in. More straight-up down-home was Treaty Oak Revival at the BMI Stage with their song about being in the ‘friend zone’ (which actually doesn’t exist), but overnight Georgia hit Teddy Swims played to a big crowd at the T-Mobile Stage. His big, sex-positive hip-hop had almost a revivalist edge, shades of now-country-leaning Post Malone.
While Lollapalooza is better suited to catching the overnight internet hits like Swims and Day One’s Chappell Roan, it can still reel in the ol’ overnight alt-hits, even from across the pond. The Last Dinner Party has made waves on both sides of the Atlantic with this year’s Prelude To Ecstasy (QRO review), and Lolla seemed like the perfect place for them to widen their appeal. However, a last-minute cancellation of another act this day (Dominic Fike got sick) meant a schedule change for other artists, and while technically going from the Bacardí Stage to Tito’s was an upgrade in size, it was not in sound quality (or shade availability), swapping trees & grass for hot concrete. Still, the women gave it their all with orchestral attitude, even if you couldn’t get close enough to develop a crush on each one (each for a different reason), for it to feel like a sin or give me the strength.
While WILLIS closed out the BMI Stage with relaxed blues (and a good crowd), Conan Gray made a triumphant return to the festival, no longer slightly awkward up-and-comer (QRO photos at Lollapalooza ‘19), but now bona-fide pop star – with the fashion to match. Meanwhile, it was nice that indie-pop acts such as Cults and Two Door Cinema Club, both the flavor-of-the-month years ago, are not only still making music, still making wonderful indie-pop, but indeed still playing good stages at Lollapalooza ’24 – even if they were scheduled directly against each other (Bacardí & IHG, respectively).
There haven’t been a lot of big reunions to headline festivals this year, but we have had Tom DeLonge rejoining Travis Barker and Mark Hoppus in Blink-182 on the T-Mobile Stage to close out this festival. What was once a sophomoric punk band has since grown into veteran icon status – but they’ve still got all their silly, stupid, dirty jokes. Yes, there were probably those who were put off by middle-aged guys talking about having sex with the other’s mother or dick sizes, but if you’d made it all the way to Blink, what did you expect? And they didn’t skimp on the hits or the extras, including the not-yet-released “Can’t Go Back” and material from their various side-projects. And it was great to see an actual punk band headline Lollapalooza, like it was the nineties all over again.
-words: Ted Chase
-photos: Amelia Baird (save BMI Stage, courtesy of Erika Goldring)
