The Sun-Times reports that the Chicago Park District has signed a new deal with C3 Presents, the Austin, TX, concert promoter behind Lollapalooza, that will keep the festival in Grant Park through 2018. By that time, live music will be telepathically transmitted directly into our iLobe brain-stereos. Possibly.
If Chicago is awarded the Olympics, Perry Ferrell’s mega-gig takes the year off in 2016. Of course, this is assuming the world doesn’t come to a fiery end in 2012.
As part of the contract, the Park District ups its take of the concert’s gross revenue from 8% to 10.15%. This year’s festival brought in $1.6 million dollars for the park district.
Another decade of Lolla provides enough stage slots for just about every remaining broken-up band to reunite. But, hey, after the events of this past Tuesday, Lollapalooza feels like a casual picnic in the park.
The most curious tidbit from the news story is that anyone, according to Chicago Park District Supt. Tim Mitchell, can book Hutchinson Field for $250,000. So what are you waiting for, local bands?
Update: In response to this post, a Lollapalooza spokeswoman says security followed "proper safety procedures." More below, along with additional pictures.
Update 2: A Lollapalooza spokeswoman says: "Unless the person in your photo comes forward, by law no hospital, doctor or medic can release the person’s name or extent of his injuries.” More below.
Update 3: Images of this incident were also taken by Clayton Hauck, including an image that appears to have been taken prior to his injuries, an image of him walking by the ramp, more images from the ramp (1,2,3), additional images outside the gates, some of which appear to take place after the photos below (1,2,3,4), and a shot of the concertgoer receiving medical attention, including oxygen.
Click the image to view a hi-res version.
Though the Chicago Police Department reports that the number of arrests during Lollapalooza numbered only 14 – the last was for ticket scalping - and organizers of the three-day fest are downplaying two separate crowd control problems during a Saturday set by aggro-protest rockers Rage Against The Machine, an incident involving security and a Lolla attendee during a Sunday performance by Girl Talk appears to be a black mark on an otherwise solid performance by the private security firms hired to staff the event.
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From the window at our watercooler we can see the cranes continue to take down the the Bud Light stage. As the trash and framework of Lollapalooza 2008 is slowly swept from Grant Park, we’ve taken a day to rest up and reflect. Here are some of the TOC staff’s most memorable moments.
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We’ve finished posting all our photos to our Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3 Flickr sets, including new photos of Nine Inch Nails, Love & Rockets, The Ting Tings and Witchcraft.
You can also review our Lolla-related words and stuff here.
Photo: Greg Hanrahan
It’s a footnote in the Lollapalooza program, and the official maps make no mention of it with an icon, but in a red and yellow circus tent behind Perry’s Stage, the Flaming Lips are screening their backyard b-movie Christmas on Mars. In 2001, after finishing their career-redefining Soft Bulletin album, the Oklahoma candy-psychers salvaged a 10,000-gallon tank from a gas station, dropped it on singer Wayne Coyne’s property, and dressed it as a space station. Over the course of seven years, family and friends (including some moderately famous Hollywood types) rolled through Oklahoma City and pulled on a jumpsuit for a role in Coyne’s nostalgic sci-fi flick.
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There’s a palpable excitement in the air as thousands of festivalgoers at the Bud Light stage, and beyond, anticipate Cleveland industrial rockers Nine Inch Nails headlining set.
A very chiseled and short-haired Trent Reznor appears with his touring band, all dressed in black and surrounded by smoke. Rehab has been good to him. Thundering drums, grinding guitars and Reznor’s screams are usurped by the muddy sound. For a rock show of this grandeur, it should be as epic as Rage, but it isn’t. Hell, even Iron and Wine sounded louder earlier in the day.
Despite the sound issue, NIN draws from a discography of eight albums spanning almost 20 years including last year’s Year Zero and the bonafide classic, The Downward Spiral. The stunning visual show gives Radiohead a run for its money, alternating between red lights and swirling backgrounds, and enough strobe lights to give an epileptic a seizure.
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For more Gnarls Barkley and Kanye photos, and more from Lollapalooza Day 3, see our Flickr stream.
After watching Slash casually peel off solo after finger-lickin’ solo, I walk a bit down the path to the opposite end of the guitar-playing spectrum—The Black Kids. Somehow this band has hoodwinked critics and the British public into buying its schoolyard take on the Cure’s bubbliest moments. Pitchfork controversially issued a sarcastic apology in place of a review of the Jacksonville band’s debut, and our own John Dugan didn’t care for it either. But even considering how shrill, strained and twee Reggie Youngblood’s voice sounds on record, it’s positively torturous live. All the cute ba-ba-ba’s in the background can’t cover the fact this group can’t play their instruments. They’re coasting on cheery charm, but as soon as the next flavor of the month comes along…
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For more Saul Williams photos, and more from Lollapalooza Day 3, see our Flickr stream.
Midway through Saul Williams’s set, he broke it down: “To be honest, Lollapalooza has such a kick ass lineup that I feel sorry for you,” Williams told the crowd at dusk. “You have to choose between Nine Inch Nails and Kanye. My whole purpose in life is to make music where you don’t have to choose.” Williams has made a career out of auspicious statements like that, which often work well on paper and not-so-much live, but today was different.
Fronting a quartet of guitar, DJ, keys and “hype girl,” Williams played a lot of material off last year’s download-only album (but now commercially available) The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust! (produced by NIN’s Trent Reznor). And unlike on past albums, within it Williams has found the perfect blend of race commentator, slam poet and confrontational punk rocker.
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I caught a mid-afternoon set by the only blind couple from Mali playing this weekend, Amadou & Mariam. You know, that Afro-blues duo that Manu Chao produced on 2005’s Dimanche à Bamako. Flanked by a band of four supporting musicians, they breezed through funky, syncopated fare. Note how few ethnic acts Lolla included this year. This token entry follows far behind the Pitchfork Music Festival’s afro-obsessed lineup.
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For more Girl Talk photos, and more from Lollapalooza Day 3, see our Flickr stream.
Like any "real" band, Greg Gillis as Girl Talk needs to take his work on album (such as his most recent Feed The Animals), and improve on it or reinterpret it in some way in a live setting. Since he’s known for reworking samples live, it’d be a cheat for him to merely re-play the album’s elements since he’s already had plenty of practice. (Sort of like showing off how you can get through World 1-1 on the old 8-bit Super Mario Brothers after you’ve already beaten the game.) But on the whole, the set lacked the immediacy of the album, which, given the circumstances, just shouldn’t happen.
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