Danny Doom’s Booze Cabinet

I saw this one sitting there in the archives and could not believe I never posted it. A classic! This was taken at the Congress Hotel during Lollapalooza this summer. Oh, what a glorious time it was.

The Big-Ass Beer. 24 friggin oz. Pretty cool, man. Kinda fills out the skyline.

No long stories to tell here, just a quick rundown. Ah, who am I kidding? Bring on the long version. Let’s just throw it out there: Lollapalooza has Pitchfork beat in so many ways. The sound is superior, the lines are shorter, the choices are greater and the lakefront setting is the best there is. And no 312 beer! Anyone who tells you the heat was unbearable is a wimp. The only bummer was the rain on Friday, but we didn’t show up til around 5 or so.

The Decemberists performed their rock opera, “The Hazards of Love,” in its entirety and it was the first and best part of that day. Well, I really only saw 2 other bands that day: Of Montreal and Depeche Mode. DM played “Never Let Me Down Again” and that made it for me. Love that song.

That’s a screen shot, of course, of Colin of The Decemberists. I wish I had a picture of Shara Worden, the guest vocalist who kicked ass. Wow, what a voice.

There’s Perry with some female party guests. That was…interesting. Saturday I saw the Arctic Monkeys and I was kind of like, eh, ok. Missed Santigold while stuck in a huge bottleneck that threatened to swallow us whole (also mentioned here), it was the one low point of the whole thing. TV On the Radio was great and Animal Collective was…also interesting.

We hung in the south end for Tool and that was pretty awesome. Prog-metal, man. I don’t do hair metal, or rap metal or really any kind of metal, but prog-metal I can handle. At least for a little bit. Then we went back to the Congress Hotel for our usual post-show hijinx, as we did on Friday.

Sunday was easily the best day and we got there kind of early for Cage the Elephant. I posted a video of theirs from Letterman recently and it’s a cool song. The show was good, rockin’ and full of energy. Singer dude was floating on the crowd for a while.

Heard the very end of Kaiser Chiefs then went all the way back for Dan Deacon, which was cool, and relaxed for a while as Vampire Weekend played across the field. Man, they suck. Seriously. Cold War Kids were ok, but I just couldn’t get into it. Left early to catch Lou Reed, who was fashionably late–15 minutes late.

Still, the show was great, Lou didn’t disappoint. So glad I chose to see that show over Snoop and Deerhunter, the toughest choice of the weekend. Next was Band of Horses and they had to wait for Lou, who went over his time and then some. It was kind of funny, the old guy showing up late and then refusing to follow the rules.

Band of Horses were good but we left early to hit the right side for Jane’s Addiction. Apparently The Killers grabbed the bigger crowd, which makes sense since masses of people tend to gravitate toward the shittiest music. Have I mentioned how much I think The Killers suck? How I knew I had a great weekend: I didn’t see or hear The Killers at all.

Jane’s started and Band of Horses was still playing but we were on the right side and so it didn’t really affect our sound. Jane’s was awesome. It was a great set, great to hear “Three Days” and “Then She Did” from the long side 2 of Ritual De Lo Habitual. I always liked that side better. Almost prog-metalish! And of course, anything from Nothing’s Shocking was great to hear. Loved it, loved the show. ADDED UPDATE: I forgot to mention, Perry Farrell’s between-song banter was weird, funny and never too long. Wayne Coyne could learn a lot from this, and actually play a full set of songs. I’m just sayin’.

Yeah, I missed having any huge headliner that I really loved like Radiohead or Pearl Jam, but it was nice to have a little more room to move. The shows I saw were a lot less packed than the last few years. The sound was great and I think I only had one bathroom line that was kind of long. Those giant beers were something else, but they disappeared after the first night. Probably a good thing. Drink three of them and suddenly you have a six-pack in you.

Anyway, another great year. Hard to believe it’s over already.

A story I forgot about from Lollapalooza:

I said goodbye to my friends after NIN and left on Sunday night alone, and as I walked out I passed a booth with some girls and some meatball sandwiches. What was this about? Lollapalooza was over, yet there were still some sandwiches left, so they decided to give them away. I had no idea how hungry I was, but I took a sandwich and put a couple of crunched up dollar bills into the tip jar (a burly Italian man started yelling at some frat-types who took sandwiches without tipping–”tip the girls!”).

I walked on toward the L eating this meatball sandwich, and it was the most delicious sandwich ever. It had two giant meatballs on it that filled up the whole bun and plenty of sauce. I’m not a guy who ever eats meatball sandwiches, but man, was this great. Thanks, girls and burly Italian guy, for the free meatball sandwich. What an end to Lollapalooza it was for me.

Another year of Lollapalooza is over, and what fun we had. Here’s my somewhat brief and mostly non-chronological recap, starting with the band of the year, the decade, the best band there’s been in a long while, Radiohead. I managed to snake up pretty close on the left side, but could not manage any good pix, except for these screen shots. Here’s a ghostly Thom, in double:

And a band shot, kind of:

Umm, this giant spacepod building? Where did that come from? That was not there last year.

The Flaming Lips screened their movie Christmas on Mars, but who wants to watch a movie when you’re at a music festival? Well, we couldn’t get in anyway. We tried to get some special Eat Your Own Spaceship popcorn, but that was a no go as well. It looked, and smelled, quite delicious.

I had no idea what was going on over at the RATM show, as I had decided to see Wilco instead. Sounds like there were some meatheads on parade, although I would have liked to hear the Rage. But I missed Wilco last time they played Lolla and I had hopes of an Obama appearance, which, alas, never happened. A pretty good show anyway by Jeff Tweedy and his smartly dressed band.

The cops kept a watch over Grant Park in this nifty surveillance contraption. Frightening. Put wings on this thing and we’re all in big trouble. I’m surprised the Rageheads didn’t take this thing down, or at least pelt it with trash and beer. Maybe they did?

The Congress Hotel was a madhouse as usual, it was fantastic. On both Friday and Saturday nights the bar and lobby were completely overrun by the inmates. The place is right out of a Hunter Thompson book.

I had no idea Janet from Sleater-Kinney was playing drums with Stephen Malkmus, so that was a nice surprise. The next day I was walking to Grant Park and passed her on Jackson. Brush with greatness. I was up close at the show, but couldn’t get a good shot of her from my angle, so, the screenshot:

Greg Dulli, Mark Lanegan…The Gutter Twins! They were great, even in the sunlight. One of the best of the weekend. The deaf/signer person (what would she be called?) was really into it, and I was captivated for a while by her general bizarreness.

I have no idea where I ran into this kind sir, but it was somewhere in or around Grant Park:

I thought this girl was a bit cheeky:

Nine Inch Nails closed it out on Sunday night. I started over at Kanye and caught a few before trekking all the way to the other end for NIN. Good show, if a little gloomy. “Hurt” is a great song.

I don’t have any (good) pictures of them, but Explosions in the Sky were majestically awesome, it was one of my favorite sets of the weekend. Also, Devotchka, who I last saw at The Hideout a few years ago, was pretty good, and MGMT had the biggest crowd for a non-headliner, it was nutty. Gogol Bordello was weird and good, Gnarls Barkley didn’t hold my attention for long, except for the great Radiohead cover of “Reckoner” and Girl Talk threw a great party. Iron and Wine is still kind of a snoozer to me live, although I still like their records. Cat Power too.

Who’d I miss? Love and Rockets. The National. I would have liked to have caught them both. Overall, the lineup was more about curiosities than must-sees for me, so I did a lot of wandering. It was easily the weakest lineup of Lolla in Chicago yet, and we had a much smaller gang this year, but I’ll take it. Proud of my city, once again.

Coming down from three days at Lolla. More pix later, but first I’ve got to reattach my brain.

Photo courtesy of Denver Jim! Dat’s a sweed loogin Fad Dire!

Off to Lolla, see you on the other side!