Lollapalooza Day 1

I had an awesome weekend at Lollapalooza, in Chicago. Dan McNeil, Tom Geer, Brandon Vloch, Jesse Consolatti and Joe (Brandon's brother in law) made the trip and none of us left disapointed - great music all weekend and the whole experience really did vastly exceed my expectations.

This post is only going to do Day1

Sound Team - A good start to the weekend. A solid band who (now that I look) has a pretty cool website for you to check out, including a recital with some magazine cutouts of themselves.

Next up were The Subways. These guys were awesome. I didn't think that I'd be seeing one of my favorite bands of the whole weekend at noon on the first day (this show ended up 4th in my overall rankings). The lead guitar and vocals was very animated - jumping up on the base drum and jumping off and just generally everywhere. The bass player was also all over the place. She was basically unwilling to forgo dancing just because she had to play at the same time. Definitely check out this website too - the videos for two of my favorite songs are readily available on the front page. They're also listed on the Lollapalooza site as one of the "Six Bands Who Might Oneday Headline This Gig"

Aqualung was up next. I had seen Aqualung before (opening for David Gray) and am going to see them again coming up (opening for The Fray) and they're 'fine'. I guess the best way for me to describe them is that they're a great band to open for David Gray.

Then came a show that I was definitely excited to see. The Eels were one of the bands this weekend that I'm sure I liked more than anyone else in our group. They sported a variety of costumes - the lead had a WWII fighter pilot look while another guy sported a Security outfit and a crazy demenor - karatee chopping and speaking jibberish up there: which really suits the Eels about perfectly!

Then on to The Editors and Umphrey's McGee - finally a couple shows that were good but not great so I could lump them together and make this Day 1 post less than 80000 words long. Both of these are big up and coming bands though - I'm sure we'll see much more of them coming up soon.

Next for me was Iron & Wine. This show I was by myself sitting on the grass for a good portion of. In my opinion - probably pretty much the perfect way to see them. Very laid back - very enjoyable.

Next I had a tough decision. Do I see My Morning Jacket, who I really like and have a couple of my favorite songs from a year or two back? Or do I see The Raconteurs - with Jack White and a first (last?) CD like there's - this one is an obviously good show. Well, Brandon, Joe and I went to check out My Morning Jacket... probably a mistake. They were fine but boy am I glad that we made it over for the second half of Raconeurs - clearly my second favorite show of the fest.

The night ended with two good bands that sounded just like they should have: no better and no worse. The Violent Femmes (they bring all their equipment on the bus) and Death Cab for Cutie. The Femmes are a band that I really had to see - I've listened to them for so long I don't know how this is the first time I've seen them. Death Cab was one that I expected a little too much of, I think. They put on a good show and I'm glad that I got to see it, but I didn't think it was one of the better ones of the weekend.

So, that's DAY 1 ONLY! I'm going to definitely seperate these out into different posts.