August 5-7, 2011
What an amazing experience Lollapalooza was for me. It was my first time covering the festival as a member of the media, only this time, I did it without my camera… Ok, fine. I did it PRIMARILY as a journalist, and made my camera my companion – how could I leave it behind??! It was a bit of a mental adjustment to go back to my journalism roots once I found out that I was granted a media pass rather than a photo pass, but I really had a great experience with it. In fact, because of Lollapalooza, I plan on continuing doing interviews from from time to time in addition to music photography work.
I owe a huge thank you to my friend Cara Carriveau , her Mix 101.9 coworkers, and my friend Theresa Carter of The Local Tourist for their help, for lending me their media tent when it wasn’t being used so I could meet artists for interviews there, and for taking some photos of me and the artists. I took some photos for the Mix, and also got to meet a bunch of bands/musicians including Grace Potter, The Pretty Reckless, Patrick Stump, Damien from OK Go, Kerli, Cage the Elephant, and My Morning Jacket. One of the more hilarious moments: Grace Potter posing for a picture, pointing out the that microphones they were holding reminded her of “flaccid penises.”
In conducting the interviews, I really wanted to take an informal approach to things in hopes that the interviews would give everyone a more realistic look into the artists’ personalities and worlds. On a few occasions, topics were requested to remain on a professional-only basis, but even these interviews were fun to conduct. The best part about this whole experience was that this is the music world – ANYTHING goes, and if you happened to be sitting next to a table of complimentary champagne and sipping the deliciousness of the fizzy adult beverage throughout the day, nobody knocked you for it. Of course, I don’t know who would do such a thing… but a little birdie told me that two parts water went along with each part of the bubbly ;)
While I probably shouldn’t admit this, my favorite interview moment from the fest was with Tim and Dan of OK Go (honorable mentions were Tab the Band, Jacob from Young the Giant, and the members of Deluka) – these two spent an entire half hour with me, filling me in on what it’s like to be a member of the OK Go clan, and just joking around. We talked about tour bus disco parties, making film parodies, episodes of Scrubs (well, I brought it up and noted the song “Guy Love,” because of the way the interview was going), and even the chopper gig – I know NBC viewers would love to catch a glimpse of an OK Go dance party a la Tim on dance friday if he were up for it someday. When the guys had to tend to other interviews, Dan’s very sweet and former musician wife hung out with me and talked for quite some time. What a lovely person she is!
I couldn’t very well go through my heaviest interview day without going to see some of the performances. A Perfect Circle was top on my list, and I enjoyed the show solo until I spotted two of my favorite rocker pals, Chad Cherry and Nate Arling of The Last Vegas – SUPER pleasant surprise, and fantastic surprise concert companions. Cara and Theresa were so kind and generous to venture out into the throngs of hungry concert goers, and picked up one of the raved about lobster corn dogs that were unveiled during the media conference that morning. The catch? I had to leave the APC performance just a tad early to head over to the media area, as they couldn’t find me among the sea of rock fans. I bid adieu to my TLV boys, and reunited with my girls. How was the lobster corn dog? Contrary to what you’d typically expect this food on a stick to have been, it was more of a delicately battered lobster mixture flash fried and delicately decorated with a perfectly seasoned special sauce to accompany it; a true piece of delicious culinary genius. Oh, who am I kidding with this foofy talk? The truth was, after taking a bite of this thing, my eyes widened as I told Cara and Theresa I was having a mouthgasm from the deliciousness of this unique and wonderful food gem. I followed up this life changing food experience by interviewing Kids These Days – VERY fun interview with a unique and diverse group of musicians and artists.
My first day of interviewing had officially ended, and I was able to relax and enjoy some more music. Cara, Theresa, and a few of the Mix 101.9 people and I watched a good portion of the Muse show. Having been one of my favorite bands in the past (I had a musical love affair with the band from their beginning days until the release of the very disappointing Black Holes and Revelations), I surprisingly found myself dancing and singing along to many of the songs. The surprise display of fireworks behind the stage while they played, “Hysteria.”
After an early exit from the Muse performance in order to beat the crowds, the girls and I changed clothes and headed to the Belve Music Lounge. This was a super frustrating experience, as our confirmed access was denied, and we had to wait for nearly two hours to see some of the bands we all interviewed perform. Even one of the headlining bands was denied entry to this party, as the fire marshals were closely monitoring attendance. In the end, we were only able to watch Fitz and the Tantrums, seemingly the darlings of this year’s festival, play their highly energetic, fun, and crowd pleasing set. My favorite part had to be the more than six foot five man jumping around and singing along to every lyric, and just having a great time – it really made me smile to see the positive things that music can do to people. F&tT were followed by a lack luster DJ set by DJ White Shadow. In DJ White Shadow’s defense, the crowd high tailed it out of the party soon after the band wrapped their set. Those who stayed behind kept dancing, though the scene reminded me of one you’d see at the end of an evening at a wedding reception.
I really have to give big kudos to the folks that ran the festival for how smoothly everything went, considering the challenges that came along with the weekend. The throngs of people were absolute chaos, but in a surprisingly controlled form for most of the three day weekend. The exception? The crowd for Saturday night’s Eminem concert, according to my media pals who experienced it first hand. People without tickets were jumping the barricades to get into the show, the crowd was somewhat hostile, and even the performer himself was described in an unfriendly manner by many who attended the show – it made me really glad I didn’t go to the Eminem show, especially after nearly having a panic attack from the supersaturated yet considerate crowd at the Deftones performance earlier that afternoon.
There were a few heart breaking occurrences during the fest. Perhaps the worst was the heartbreaking death of a 25-year-old woman who was riding her bike home from Lollapalooza on Friday evening (Here’s NBC’s article on this young woman), second to the theft of band Portugal the Man’s entire equipment roster and tour van. It was pretty amazing to see the social media work for the good of people for once, as the band ended up recovering nearly everything that was stolen from them. The thief, identified as Juan Ocampo, was charged with one felony account of theft for the crime (here’s NBC’s article on this story).
The weather tried to bully festival-goers, but failed at scaring them away. The erratic weather drenched the crowds, Grant Park grounds, the stages, the gear, the bands and their crew. On Sunday, you literally had to walk through almost three inches of standing water that looked and smelled like a cow manure stew in order to stand anywhere near the stage on the South end of Grant Park. The Arctic Monkeys had to delay their performance for a bit in order to ensure their equipment wouldn’t be a casualty to the passing storms. Foo Fighters front man, David Grohl, took a different approach to the torrential downpour by saying, “I don’t give a f— if it’s raining. You stinky f***ers finally got a bath.” After a customary Foo Fighters concert belch into his mic, David Grohl and the Foos proceeded to rock amid the seemingly sideways rain, pouring on them and their fans like a innumerable fire hoses. THAT was a rock moment, and this photographer owes so much gratitude to a young couple (Selena and a young man whose name I still cannot remember) and their umbrella for helping shelter my camera and my career. Thank you both SO much again!
Suddenly, it was over. It’s hard to believe that it has been one month since Lollapalooza, and that fall has already kicked my beautiful summer to the curb. So sad … but because I can’t very well simply write about my Lollapalooza experience, here are some of my favorite pictures from the music-saturated weekend:
[foogallery id=”30810″]Here’s the complete list of the bands I interviewed:
Links:
Lollapalooza:
Official: http://www.lollapalooza.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lollapalooza
Twitter: http://twitter.com/lollapalooza
Amy Aiello:
Official: http://amyphotochicago.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amyaiellophotography
Twitter: https://twitter.com/amyphotochicago
