In the media tent at Lollapalooza and the stories and blog posts that came out of it, the focus tends to fall on the festival’s obvious hooks: the canonical band with a reputation to uphold (Depeche Mode’s Friday-night headlining set spanned their career), the high-profile schedule change (the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who replaced the Beastie Boys after Adam Yauch announced his cancer diagnosis, played a bit of “So What’cha Want” in tribute), the potentially derailing injury (No Age guitarist Randy Randall took the stage with his arm in a sling after dislocating his shoulder in a dance contest), the band-on-band drama (when Animal Collective cut into Tool’s set time, Tool started playing along to Animal Collective’s set).
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Personally I often prefer the show happening offstage. Dedicated people watchers know that big festivals like Lollapalooza—where enough freak-flag-flying fans to populate a small city are fenced into a space the size of, well, Grant Park—provide top-notch entertainment for amateur sociologists. Some of the stuff I noticed last weekend didn’t do much more than make me laugh or scratch my head—Viking helmets were weirdly popular this year, for instance, and I saw quite a few jock dudes inexplicably wearing MGMT-style face paint. But keeping an eye on the crowd often rewards you with some genuine insights.
You’ve also got your metal hippies, who mostly came out for Tool—less carefree than the original flavor, more likely to live in small towns and do Robo trips. I like them because they sketch out most other concertgoers with their weird heavy vibes.
But it wasn’t just the clothes and Diplo’s house-heavy set that made Perry’s feel like 1997 again. The whole area was crackling with ecstatic energy—not necessarily pill-induced either, though let’s just say I saw a lot more than one pacifier. It was the same kind of we’re-all-in-this-together party vibe that for me balanced out rave’s many, many downsides.
“Peace, Love, Unity, and Respect” was a popular motto with ravers back in the day. It was supposed to sum up everything that raving was about, though it was more often a wish list rather than a description of what was actually happening. It’s never felt realer to me than when I saw the kids at Perry’s defuse a bloody brawl with nothing but positive vibes.
