Basham on Lollapalooza

(Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne—inside his infamous plastic Bubble—gets a hand back to the stage at Lollapalooza 2006. Photo by Dinah Kotthoff.)
It’s still morning as my plane approaches Midway International. Looking out the window, I see a train snaking its way through a checkerboard of fields growing unidentifiable crops. Thirty minutes later, I’m on the Orange Line to Grant Park, looking out the window at a city I’ve mostly learned about through songs and books and films. Having rarely ridden a train, I can’t help but romanticize my short trip and I begin to hear the voice of the late, great songwriter Steve Goodman, a Chicago son who died much too early:
“Riding on the City of New Orleans, Illinois Central Monday morning rail…rolling ‘long past houses, farms and fields…Good morning, America, how are you?”
Sentiment aside, I make it to Lollapalooza 2006—yet another incarnation of Perry Farrell’s dream which began fifteen years ago. Eager to see if it, too, can earn a place in Chicago lore, I step through the gate.
DAY ONE
When first walking across the softball fields I hear the opening day fanfare blasting through the P.A. system right before a mass of humanity comes running onto the grounds. Ironically, Sound Team kicks off this end of the fest with “The Fastest Man Alive”. Much of the crowd, who had been heading toward the main stage where The Subways would be performing in 45 minutes, suddenly stop to check out the Austin band whose recent CD Movie Monster is attracting a lot of attention. Their power pop is fun, exuberant and sometimes very clever.
I learn firsthand just how big the new Lollapalooza is when I walk to the north end to catch deadboy & the Elephantmen. It’s a pleasant 80 degrees, and I’m surrounded by a crowd of shiny, happy faces of fans getting their first buzz of the day on $5 beer. Unfortunately I get my first taste of “sound bleed” when Midlake’s performance nearby is irritatingly mixed with deadboy’s—it’s a problem that continues throughout the festival. Still, the band plays loudly enough that you can hear the raw, bare-bones drama-rock vocals of singer/guitarist Dax Riggs.
I make the long trek back south and hear The Subways’ frontman Billy Lunn bellow out to the audience, “You look f—ing beautiful to me!” Soon he’s running through the crowd while bassist Charlotte Cooper whirls and leaps about on stage in her white short-shorts and cowboy boots. The set is terrifically buoyant, as Lunn and Cooper blast out pop like a fire hose as in “I Want to Hear What You Have Got to Say”.
Alone with his guitar, Sam Beam begins his set as Iron & Wine with the beautiful “Eyes Wide Open”. But hip hop rapper Lady Sovereign and her band, normally quite entertaining on their own, are easily overheard from a nearby stage. While theses bleeds could be an interesting blend, like something from a Captain Beefheart album, this isn’t one of those times. Beam’s band kicks up the volume with “Woman King”. Its primal beats and visual lyrics somehow harmonize with the sun’s descent and a rising moon. This metaphorical happenstance seems to revitalize Beam as his guitar playing becomes more intense and he introduces some new, blues-tinged numbers. Perhaps, after years of self-recording at home, Beam has learned a little from Calexico, with whom he collaborated on In the Reins. Maybe he could pair up with Lady Sovereign—but next time in the studio.
The overused moniker “supergroup” has once again been dragged out—this time to describe The Raconteurs, a union of The White Stripes’ Jack White, power pop pal Brendan Benson and The Greenhornes’ rhythm section. But what’s truly super is the band’s performance, the highlight of Lollapalooza. At the risk of gushing, these guys have blended 60’s British pop with everything from Zeppelin to The Clash and created an original, but still familiar, sound that rocks Lolla to its core. It doesn’t hurt that they can play, but there’s a chemistry here that wasn’t revealed on their good-but-not-great debut album Broken Boy Soldier. In addition to their own material, the quartet thrills fans with a dead on rendering of Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang, Bang” and then out-Gnarls Gnarls Barkley a day early with a kick-ass blast of “Crazy”. We can only hope that a live CD or DVD is in the works.
DAY TWO