Chicago is a walking city. We have pretty decent public transportation. But we also have a very easily navigable grid system. The sidewalks are big and clean (Hello, New York - jeez). And the entire lakefront is lined with pedestrian and bike paths. We're used to getting around on foot. So, it's not that unusual to walk from, say the Loop up to Lincoln Park (3 miles). Friday night, I was out with my friend Rewhatever until late (home about 2:30 a.m.). Walking. Drinking. Walking. Drinking. Walking. In sandals. The dog got me up around 6:00 a.m., and I was up for the day.

Saturday was Lollapalooza day. I took the train in from the burbs, full of tourists. And a bee. You would swear there was a shark in the water from their (collective) reaction. Though I love all creatures, great and small, these people were annoying the shit out of me. So I whacked the bee with a sandal. Hopefully, he wasn't the spiritual leader of all bees, dinosaurs won't rule the future, and my karma is still 51% good. But I killed the fucker.

Downtown, it was in the upper 80's. Sunny. Humid. The train station is about a mile from the lakeshore site of the festival. I was going to be out in the sun for the next 8 hours. So, for once, I decided to take a bus. The bus stopped right in front of a pile of vomit. I had to giant step over it. I hoped that wasn't a sign of my beekiller karma.

On the bus ride over, I had two opportunities to right my karma. First, a family got on, and the father was a paraplegic, in a wheelchair. They said to the driver that this was their first time trying to get on a bus with the chair. They seemed confused by the bus's chair restraint system. I helped them out with it. Meanwhile, another tourist family tried to board, paying their fare in cash. The bus doesn't accept cash. I had a fare card, and paid their fare.

The fest itself was pleasant. I met up with Rewhatever and Dilf around noon. Our fest:

Nada Surf - Great sound mix. Hot and sticky. The first audience participation of the day - a two-step version of the Temptations walk. The music got a little same-y after a while, but a nice way to start the day.

Feist - What a pretty voice. Much funnier and more playful than her CD would suggest. I'd be very happy to see her again. One fan held up a sign, the front side read "Date me?", the back read "Burritos, maybe?". She challenged his sincerity, commenting on "the fickle burrito hearts of men." We tried to make it over to the other end of the fest to catch the end of the Go! Team. We made it for the final 60 seconds or so. But the audience was so into it, that I think I'll try to catch some of the footage online.

Coheed & Cambria - We planted on a hillside. This was kind of fun. Doughy guys in long-sleeved black shirts on a hot Saturday afternoon. Their lead singer, Claudio Sanchez, has hair that completely conceals his face. So it was delightfully "Cousin It"-ish to have close-ups of him singing up on the Jumbotron.

Gnarls Barkley - felt like a Pep Rally. The band were dressed like Bjorn Borg (or Owen Wilson in "the Royal Tannenbaums" if you don't go that far back.) Cee-Lo had the other great voice of the day.

The Dresden Dolls - I finally met up with my daughter (who had just gotten there for the day). The Dresden Dolls are a cabaret variation of the White Stripes. Piano and drums. With over-dramatic, precious lyrical content. The crowd seemed to eat it up. Didn't do much for me.

The Flaming Lips - The first unbearable crowd. 60,000 people were at the fest, and I think 2/3 of them were there. Dilf, Rewhatever and I had gone our separate ways during the prior hour. Trying to regroup, cutting through a crowd like this, was almost impossible. My daughter (wisely) opted out of the crush of people, and hung near the periphery. Dilf and I eventually found each other (aided by text messaging). Rewhatever was fried, and threw in the towel. The Lips were fine. Not wonderful. But fine. They've got their schtick down. They milked "Yoshimi" out to about 10 minutes (about 9-1/2 minutes too long, it's "Lips for Dummies"). And did the same with "She Don't Use Jelly." But they ended with a beautiful version of "Do You Realize?"

One of the nice things about the festival was, it was pretty damned hot, but not dangerously damned hot. So people weren't drinking a lot of alcohol. So, though it was crowded, there really didn't seem to be too many asshats about. I stuck to water and iced tea all day.

Dilf and I opted to bail ahead of the masses, and skipped the last two acts. This time we walked back to the train station. A few blocks away, someone asked for directions to the station, and we said we'd walk him there. The man said that he had had eight drunk driving convictions. So he had to walk or ride the train everywhere. After a few blocks, he started complaining that the legal system was bankrupting him by refusing him a permit to drive to work. Again, the man had eight drunk driving convictions. He didn't exactly have my sympathies.

At the train station, Dilf and I went opposite ways. I got on an escalator and started walking up. I tripped over my own feet, and gouged the front of my lower leg, right on the bone. Again - I killed one fucking bee.

I rode home on the upper deck of the train, with a dozen members of a Spanish-speaking family having a "my children can scream louder than your children, and I can ignore them longer than you can" contest. And they keep the train air conditioned to near cryonic levels. So as hot and sticky as I was coming from the fest, I was shivering by the time I got home. I took a hot shower, got in bed, and slept for 11 hours straight. I don't think I've had that much sleep in 20 years.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 06, 2006 at 12:43 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.