The Age of Miracles, The Age of Sound

Lollapalooza was rainy.
and Hot.
and Dusty.
and Crowded.
and it frequently reeked of marijuana.

It was also quite a lot of fun. The list of bands I saw perform at least 1 song is as follows, in order:
Frances England, The Gaslight Anthem, Heartless Bastards, Hollywood Holt, Fleet Foxes, The Decemberists, Andrew Bird, Kings of Leon, Depeche Mode, Ezra Furman & The Harpoons, Delta Spirit, Moneypenny, Miike Snow, Ida Maria, Los Campesinos!, Joe Pug, Perry Farrell, Arctic Monkeys, Santigold, TV on the Radio, Ben Harper and Relentless7, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Neko Case, Cold War Kids, Deerhunter, MSTRKRFT, The Killers.

None of them were bad. A few of them were great, and a handful were welcome surprises. Thanks to all of the friends I ran into who also tolerated my frequently late text messages. A new iLike playlist based on Lolla has been posted on the right, brief recaps on some of my favorites are below, and a few more pictures from the weekend are further down.

The Gaslight Anthem, a band I'd heard of but never listened to, was my first real set to catch for the weekend. It was raining and the crowd didn't seem to mind, knowing the two days to follow would be excruciatingly hot. The band is from New Jersey, they sing working class rock n' roll in the style of Springsteen, and the lead singer was wearing a Social Distortion t-shirt. If you don't think this is right up my alley you don't know me very well.



Hollywood Holt perfromed just about the same set I saw for $5 at Wicker Park Fest. He still had the EXPLOSION sound effects, he uses mostly the same lines in between tracks, and his track about not giving a crap what your friends say about your outfit is still hilarious. This dude pictured was having a one-man dance party.



I probably have 2 or 3 Delta Spirit tracks from either My Old Kentucky Blog or Gorilla vs Bear or some place my brother linked me to. People would say they're somewhat Dylanesque, venturing into alt-country. The lead singer called his brother from the stage, who was getting married that day, and had the crowd wish him well. The band's performance in the heat on Saturday was so geniunely earnest and full of energy that I bought their album on Monday. The back cover photo on the album is dated from the early 70's and shows a middle-aged couple playing chinese checkers in the bathtub.

Los Campesinos! are a bunch of exuberant kids from across the pond who bang on their instruments and everything else within reach, belting out songs of musical chaos and disorganization that somehow end up sounding terrific. This band reminds me of a litter of rambunctious puppies playing around together until they exhaust themselves. I picture the band going back to their tour bus after each show and curling up into a pile for naptime. That analogy is terrible and does them no justice.

I love the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and everything they've recorded. Thanks to a little help from Jack Daniels, there was probably no one in the audience who enjoyed their Saturday evening headlining set more than my friends Ben, Verdo and I.

While Neko Case sounded great, and the Killers were better than I thought they'd be, my Sunday faves were both Deerhunter and MSTRKRFT (only because I was at the Sox game and missed Ra Ra Riot and their beautiful cellist). I'd never gotten into Deerhunter, having seen them once before but from a distance. This time I was much closer to the stage and finally understood just what it is that makes them so beloved by the "mybandsarebetterthanyourbands" crowd. I'll be paying more attention to their recorded output.



MSTRKRFT is just damn fun. See Rick's earlier post for their recent video for "Heartbreaker", featuring John Legend.


That's me, centered on the bottom of this photo, taking a picture of myself & the band on screen.




Graham Elliot's Lobster Corndog


Moneypenny


Dirty Hipsters cooling off in the fountain.

And I've Got One Two Three Four Five

Just Notes:

For golfing once a year I'm not nearly as terrible as I should be.

Reminder that EBONY is on Twitter -- @EmptyBlog. Sign up and follow the stupid crap I write about.

John Barleycorn, #111, (ALL OF THEM), after an incident in the summer of 2007, had been collectively blacklisted as a destination by many friends of the 907. A particular manager, drunk with power, didn't like the fact that we were spending time with people (girls) he seemed to think he had some sort of ownership over. As he had the bouncers at his disposal, he had them escort us off the premises. There had been about 25 people at the bar that night (slow night). Upon kicking us out, we took roughly 20 of those people with us to another location. Tool.

Dreaming up the idea behind EBONY we realized we would have to visit a Barleycorn once again. It was a brief visit, many thanks to the GUR staff for making it bearable.

Immediately after entering Moe's Cantina, #112, our entire crew of 10(?) formed a huddle at the front of the bar to assign artists for the "lead the dance floor" contest. If you're going to look like idiots the entire time you're at a bar you might as well start as soon as you get there.
Also taking place at Moe's: The "who has the tightest calf muscles" contest. Stephanie won. Many of us want a rematch.

Last night, because it's my weekend already, I met up with Halljams and Cornerstone Heidi at Danny's (not within the EBONY radius). Danny's is a good bar. A GOOD bar. Not, however, the kind of bar that deserves a line all the way down the block to get in on a Wednesday night at 11pm. The hipsters are here and they're full of sweat. They also need to branch out a bit.

Cabbing north and looking to continue our coversation about tragedies and college youth, Hall and I hit up the much more well lit and subsequently less empty Village Tap (also not an EBONY bar). Nothing spectacular to report, just that the Village Tap deserves your business.

FYI, ESPN: The White Sox have been creaming the best 2 teams in the AL for the last week. So this morning while watching Sportscenter I'd like to see Sox-Angels highlights early in the lineup -- not 34 minutes into the show, after 20 minutes of Red Sox-Yankees preview coverage and right before the human interest piece on the Fake Umpires of Toronto.

Busy weekend ahead, I'll try to recap as much as possible afterwards:
Hot Doug's
Elvis is Alive 5k (bike marshall)
Lollapalooza for 3 days -- all day, everyday
Sox-Indians on Sunday @ the Cell

Also...90+ degree weather. I was built for this. Senses working overtime.