tonyballinger.com

To state the obvious: it’s not Coachella. At this point in my travels, Coachella remains the gold standard for concert festivals. Perhaps someday when I go to Leeds, Glastonbury, Reading, or the Fuji Rock Festival that will change. But for now, Coachella is the standard.

Don’t get me wrong: if they have Lollapalooza in Chicago every year, I’ll go. Especially if they continue to do a 2,000 ticket presale for $35 before they announce the lineup. Lollapalooza for $135 is still cheaper than Coachella, but for $35 it’s cheaper than most shows I see that the Vic, Riviera, or Aragon. And at $35, there will be SOMETHING you want to see. Of course, once you add up the $3 VitaminWaters I drank to survive Lollapalooza the bargain starts to diminish considerably.

But it was fairly well laid out. Although the crosstalk between the stages was annoying (especially with Widespread Panic) it was nice to be able to walk around and catch half sets. If that hadn’t been possible i would have missed a lot of music at Lollapalooza. You can’t catch half sets at Coachella – the grounds are just too big. The food selection was good, and reasonably priced. The water situation was total bullshit – but you’ve probably heard enough from me about that subject by now.

I guess the real sticking point for me is this: it’s not what Lollapalooza was. While The International Noise Conspiracy are a bunch of whiny, overly-dramatic assholes – they do have somewhat of a point. Kinda.

The original Lollapalooza (and maybe the first few) were about creating a place for "alternative music" and the people who loved it. It was a place for us back when there was no place for us. It also served to give some attention to bands who may have had a niche following, but had never had a wider exposure.

But this event was true to Lollapalooza like Woodstock II was true to the original Woodstock. It was just a concert, and in some ways that feels a bit empty in retrospect. While the original Lollapalooza was still a big festival, it still retained some kind of grassroots feeling. But this didn’t – and with the name Lollapalooza I expected it to. This in contrast was Lollapalooza – brought to you by SBC, Coke and Budweiser.

But I still saw a ton of bands in my hometown for a $35 ticket.

So I’m not really complaining. Except about the water.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 31st, 2005 at 8:23 pm and is filed under Concerts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.