lollapalooza day one

way i see it, waiting to buy that ticket was a gift and a curse. gift because of the price; curse because of the agony of waiting to see if it would work at the gate. as soon as i got past the ticket collectors, i was struck with an overwhelming sense of relief. arms outstretched and high, i ran to tim and either punched him in the arm or gave him a manly hug. i don't remember which. i'll opt for the punch.

my schedule didn't pan out. i couldn't get up early enough to make it to tim's by 11:00am. even if i did, we still had a debate over public versus private transport. we elected private and parked in mark's parking spot off of lake and something.

we took a cab from there and made it just in time to buy a beer and watch the start of ted leo. ted leo was great, especially with tim there to tell me song titles and albums associated. i swore that i saw cheryl, but i was too caught up in the madness to try to make it to her.
from there it was polyphonic spree, who i've never seen live, but whose show was outstanding. beers were disappearing because of the heat, and we took a break to eat and listen to against me! from the picnic tables in the shade. they are a punk rock anthem type of band and they have great stage presence. the kind of punk rock you want to dance to.

tim said he enjoyed the music of m.i.a., who i had never heard, so we walked all the way back to the bud light stage to watch this sri lankan tamil, female rap artist from the uk. she was surprisingly on target and aggressive. a little bit of lady sovereign, but a little harder and tones of old skool backbeats. she complained a little bit about having a sore throat, but it never affected her performance, as she rhymed without incident.

back to blonde redhead, whose performance didn't stand out to me, however since tim and friends have given positive reviews, i'll be listening to their tracks soon. here, we finally met roy, and had a quick meet up with anna, alya, allison, and chelsea, who, since i was drunk, kept calling kelsey.

guest blog :: by roy chamcharas
I went there are around 5 PM. Met up with Irene, saw some Silversun Pickups - then found Bri and Tim - we sat far away from Satellite Party with Bri's friends. Bri and Tim were there earlier. Then we tried jockeying for a good spot for LCD Soundsystem. We found the best location in front of the sound board. LCD did not disappoint at all. LCD Soundsystem had the best show that night, especially that "Where are your friends tonight?" song. He really knew how to sing and had great stage presence banging all the instruments around him.

After LCD, it was Daft Punk - they had a good light show. They were dressed as robots on top of this 2-3 story tall pyramid. Then somehow Tim, Dar, Bri, and I found our way to Argyle because we had a craving for pho. We find this tiny old place where everyone was singing Vietnamese karaoke. I passed in and out of consciousness while nibbling on the tender bits of beef in my pho soup. Next thing I know I was waking up on a coach at Tim and Dar's place with Bri on an air mattress.

i agree with roy's testament that lcd soundsystem was the most passionate and crowd rocking performance of the day. if you can see a show in the near future, i guarantee that it will not disappoint. you don't even have to know their music to really appreciate the energy and life they inject into the crowd.

i was starving and exhausted by the time daft punk came on. i spent the first couple songs laying on the banig, trying to rest my feet from the pain of standing in flip-flops all day. the light show was, by far, the best i had ever seen in a concert, coinciding with the electronic music perfectly. roy got lost for a bit, and when he found us, we were ready to leave and eat some phö. it was a pain in my ass, but we walked back to the parking garage and somehow, we made it to little vietnam.

one thing roy did not mention was that we initially walked into a restaurant that looked open. in reality, they had just finished a meeting which i joked was a call to arms, for a socialist or communist united states. they told us they were closed and they gave dar a propaganda flyer which amused us with its illiteracy. instead of writing out "nazism", they drew a swastika and then wrote "-ism" next to it.

in the little vietnamese restaurant we finally did eat at, we were eyeballed like a bunch of tourists. but fuck that. i ate the goddamn tripe-ass phö... something they like to call the special phö. nothing like the stomach of some animal to complete your evening.