Basking in the Radiance of Lollapalooza

By: Dennis M. Kelly

What an absolutely perfect day for day two of Lollapalooza, 79 degrees and partly cloudy, and a whole new batch of great artists to enjoy! I was especially pleased with this weather for those like Liz and Tey, some of the wonderful security personnel who make sure everyone gets into Lollapalooza smoothly that it was going to be a mild day for them.

Starting right off on the Discord stage, Oslo/Boston artist, Aiida kicked things off with her Aretha Franklin, Dua Lipa inspired Pop / R&B music. Being a recent graduate of the Berklee College of Music, and appearing through the Berklee’s Popular Music Institute (BPMI), she follows in the footsteps of artists, Emilia Ali and Honeysuckle who have performed at Lollapalooza previously. This is just one example of how Lollapalooza helps young artists prepare for the ever-evolving music industry, and gain a lot of great exposure.

Aiida’s performance was absolutely stellar with her vocals soaring through the Windy City breezes supported by her equally talented band as she performed hits, ‘Puzzles’, ‘Talk (About What)’ and her amazing rendition of Stevie Nicks’ ‘Landslide’.

Follow Aiida on her Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/aiida_ii/

Opportunity Missed

Look, it can happen to the best of us and I was all prepared to check out Jasiah on the Bud Light Seltzer stage, but due to delays in preparing for Machine Gun Kelly’s set, it was pushed by to 1:30 and scheduling wouldn’t allow for a delay like that unfortunately. Only to see later that Jasiah went out into the audience during his very awesome looking performance and created quite a frenzy. That was one performance I will for sure regret having missed.

With every opportunity missed however, presents new ones and on my way back to the press area, the dreamy sounds of Daisy The Great reminded me I wanted to see them too, so, I stopped back on over to BMI’s shaded stage and took in the great vibes. Just caught the tail end of ‘Easy’, such a beautiful song with perfect harmonies that can give you chills.

Performing songs, ‘Cry In The Mirror’, Tik Tok favorite ‘The Record Player Song’ ‘Rill Rill’ by the Sleigh Bells, and an unreleased song that (I believe) was called ‘Liar’ kept the large crowd in a very chill mood throughout their set while sharing stories about food poisoning at their House of Blues show the last time they were here. Very light-hearted, very open and a great band to connect with.

Another artist I really wanted to see again, this time on the T-Mobile stage was Jordy and was lucky enough to catch the last two songs, ‘IDK Sh!t’ and closing off his set with ‘Till It Hurts’. He is such an amazing artist who is so authentic and showed his excitement demonstratively and that openness really draws people in, like myself. We’ll have an interview with him coming soon, so, stay tuned for that.

Wet Leg opened their first US festival show with their hit ‘Being In Love’ to a very packed Discord stage with a 90’s alternative grunge and pop rock that everyone was heavily into. They immediately followed that with ‘Wet Dream’ a song that currently has over 24,830,000 listens on Spotify making this quite the successful song for this Isle of Wight band.

I then caught a glimpse of La Doña performing beautifully on the Bud Light Seltzer Sessions stage to a packed crowd there too on my way to see Mahalia, another British artist (from Lester, specifically) talking openly about the background of her life and her songs. Performing songs, ‘Do Not Disturb’, ‘In The Club’ ‘Simmer’ and toning it down for the impactful ‘Grateful’ which reached everyone in the slow R&B song on a much more emotional level.

Mahalia shared in great detail the background of her new song, ‘Whatever Simon Says’, about a relationship with an ‘absolute nutter’ and how now ‘the only love that she cares about, is the love for herself’ after how this relationship impacted her. It is so important to have that love, before going into a relationship while maintaining a balance of love for one another.

After an interview and portraits, I caught some of the incredible set of Austin-based producer, DJ, pianist and activist, LP Giobbi on the nicely enhanced Solana x Perry’s stage. She spins a very unique blend of electronic music that really sets herself apart, mixing non-traditional (Rock) music and her amazing piano and layering it into a solid house blend unlike any other. She released a new single last month called ‘All In A Dream‘ featuring DJ Tennis and Joseph Ashworth, give it a listen.

There is so much more to go from Lollapalooza and they’re going to be hot ones, literally, so, stay cool and hydrated out there!