Members Review Lollapalooza

The following is a compilation of mini-reports send to us from several BPD members who spent 3 days @Lollapalooza:

The Black Keys duo of guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney forged their reputation with a spare but potent Led Zeppelin-meets-White Stripes sound that was tailor-made for their compact blues-rock tunes. Those songs framed the hour set, but the highlight came in the middle when they brought out a bass player and keyboardist to flesh out the material from their terrific new Brothers album. That album embraces elements of R&B and psychedelia in addition to blues-rock, and songs like She's Long Gone, Ten Cent Pistol and Next Girl benefited from the fuller instrumentation.

Newly established stars Arcade Fire confidently opened their headlining set on Sunday night with Ready To Start from their just-released The Suburbs album — and found that many in the crowd already knew the lyrics. They followed with tunes from their first albums, including No Cars Go, giving their dueling violinists and accordion player a workout. The delicate Rococo from Suburbs found frontman Win Butler strumming an acoustic and singing in a Neil Young-inflected voice. The crowd wanted anthems, however, and the Canadian ensemble obliged with Neighborhood (Tunnels). Butler dedicated the majestic Crown of Love to The National, with whom they toured and who preceded them on the Lollapalooza bill.

Green Day's 2½-hour set Saturday was more off-Broadway than punk rock, unsurprising since its music has long been tinged with pop and theatrics. Hits from the two-decade-deep repertoire shared the set list with two medleys of rock classics (including Hey Jude, Iron Man, Highway to Hell and Satisfaction) — all punctuated by fireworks and jets of flame. Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong led the proceedings effortlessly, from openers Song of the Century and 21st Century Breakdown through the extended encore, highlighted by American Idiot and Good Riddance (Time of Your Life). The feel-good ending sent the set 15 minutes over the city's strict 10 p.m. curfew, but no one, least of all Armstrong, seemed to care.

In America, the compelling dance songs of French quartet Phoenix are often used to pump up sales of cars and viewership of movies and TV shows. Saturday night they were even more effective in pumping up tens of thousands of their adoring fans, who looked to be mostly electrified young women. Vocalist Thomas Mars and mates delivered most of their keyboard-driven pop-rock hits (the bulk from last year's Grammy-winning Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart) in a brisk smart show that never lagged. Though they're devilishly handsome, the band members attended to business and didn't waste time preening (Mars did wade into the crowd near the end, however). The band had been slotted to play for 90 minutes but left the stage after just 55. Before jokes about the French work ethic could circulate, however, they reappeared and delivered a three-encore bonbon: an acoustic version of Air's Playground Love; an older dance number, If I Ever Feel Better; and of course a joyous 1901.
 
Austin-based Spoon, slotted at 6:15 p.m. on one of the main stages, may be the ideal pre-sundown band. They rock, mildly and wittily, and engage in a roughly equal number of detours into pop sweetness and distorted vocal and guitar effects. Leader Britt Daniel has a boyish, beach-boy look and an earnest voice that's best suited to delivering emotional lyrics, and the band sounds neither angry nor mellow, hovering mostly in the moderately anguished realm.

During their 75-minute set the quartet sounded most engaging when augmented by a horn section, on songs like You Got Your Cherry Bomb, Jonathon Fisk and The Underdog. On one of the more intricate numbers, My Mathematical Mind, Daniel sank to his knees and held his guitar in front of an amp a la Hendrix, but wound up in an echo-laden cul de sac. The set list spanned 1998s A Series of Sneaks (Advance Cassette) and the new Transference (Written in Reverse and Got Nuffin'), hitting emotional peaks with I Summon You and Don't Make Me a Target. The audience, mellowed by another day of perfect conditions, was more inclined toward swaying than fist-pumping, and Spoon fed the mood deftly.

What's left for Lady Gaga to reveal? By the end of her two-hour, 18-song, epic performance Friday, she had laid it all out on the stage — her beliefs, her multitude of musical influences, her skin, her brazen vulgarity, her athleticism and her soul. The staging of the story line — Lady leads her troupe on a nightmarish journey to a Monster's Ball— was over the top and well-choreographed, and it projected well in the vast outdoor setting. But it was the few quieter moments that surprised the most. Sitting at the keyboard for Speechless and the new You and I from her in-the-works album, she revealed a lusty, more-than-serviceable voice reminiscent of the saloon-singing style of Billy Joel. Some may also have been surprised by the heavy-metal influences that augment the David Bowie-esque glam in songs such as Fame and Boys Boys Boys. But by the time of closer Bad Romance, surprise had given way to awe.

Not everyone was caught up in Gaga mania, though it may have seemed that way. New York indie rockers The Strokes, reunited after being on unofficial hiatus since 2006, drew a respectable crowed to the north end of Grant Park at the same time Gaga commanded the south end. Their set drew heavily from their 2001 debut This Is it. They opened with New York City Cops, a song that was pulled from that debut just before its release. "I think they sound great," says Ryan Labery, 31, of Chicago. "I stopped by Gaga to see the spectacle, but I had to come back to The Strokes." 

Apparently, the thing to do was to toggle back and forth between the back and the front. Regardless, BPD members had one hoot of a time.

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