Lollapalooza
Three days after the event, my ears still could hear the heavy beats.
Many years ago a friend at work took days off to watch Lollapalooza. Instead I just watched at home on Hulu. There were maybe 3 channels live-streaming, and switching between channels or play them all together was really convenient.
This year, Peacock live-streamed the Paris 2024 Olympics with a 4-in-1 view. The main view has the sound, and one can choose any of the views to watch full-screen. Lollapalooza can totally do this. Or I suppose one can pay for VIP+ and stay in a lounge all day long, they must have screens for all stages in all angles, and the sound would be perfect.
Take the opposite of that, it basically summarized my first live experience. I decided to give up the couch and join the live frenzy. I was taking a stay-cation, it only made sense to check out the most important local event in my city. AND it was a rest day from running, I got plenty spare time (other than to catch up with the BP readings.) So as early as 11am I was already at the door.
Sunday was the last day of the 4-day event. The weather was brutal, predicted at 90F without any clouds. As a runner I was confident, but how about others? I was so happy to find cooling stations and hydration stations immediately. The cooling system had huge fans blowing mist of water, and there were many of them. Generally I found equipment like this and beer/food and rest rooms very adequate and satisfactory. Whenever I felt thirsty, I could find a beer tent right away. There were 4 strips of food suppliers lined up along the main passage. The variety of them felt like a "Taste of Chicago" event, also there were separate "dessert villages". It was quite convenient, maybe too convenient, to associate the wrist band (NFC chipped) to a credit card, and then wherever one needed to pay for anything, just scan it. The default "tip rate" was quite high: a beer after tax and tip was $17. It was just too convenient to even change the amount of tips.
Some people said they walked 14mi on a single day at Lollapalooza. I didn't know that before I went. Oh my how much walking was it! The timetable showed concurrent programs, however walking from one venue to the other was such a waste of time. The south end had a main stage (T-Mobile) and a DJ stage (Perry's), it was about 5 minutes to walk between them. The north end also had a main stage and a side stage. Between the north end and the fountain, which was the middle point, there was a small stage (BMI) of big fame. The BMI stage also had the best shade of all, by the way. One could almost see the other main stage from the middle point or from another, but walking between them took at least 15 minutes (0.6mi)
Then the best strategy would be just go to one's favorite band, grab the best spot and never leave, risk dehydration or heat exhaustion. Unfortunately I didn't do my research and didn't have a favorite either - my purpose was to sample all the flavors. It felt more and more like going to a conference, be it either technical or finance focused. At a conference, the rooms were always so far apart, and one had to choose what to attend and what to give up. It was quite possible the musical event was organized in a similar way, except that not all programs started at the same time. Main stages had longer programs, and it took more time to setup. The extra time would allow people to walk over and form a nice crowd. After "sampled" a few programs I was completely exhausted. To be honest, I really prefer classical music where only one program can be played at a time. All the music sounded the same to me, especially at the DJ stage: whenever I walked by, all day long I could only hear the same transition piece, as if they used the same synthesizer.
One big reason I didn't enjoy it much, was that I got myself a pair of "party plugs". I was so proud of the decision b/c I didn't want to lose my hearing after a day of blast. But it also made all bands sound the same. It also had an interesting effect at the "T-mobile" main stage: only the main singer was audible, the other singers in the band completely lost voice. It could be me or it could be some technical issue, but the J-anime singers just sounded terrible, and then the PTV band - oh my. P was amazing, but the other band member was just screaming without sound coming out. It was so silly and funny, the singer got so excited, I could see their twisted face on the big screen, but I couldn't hear anything.
The bands I watched and liked: one of the guitarist in Good Kids, or maybe the entire band was amazingly alive; the PTV band esp. the drummer; the Venezuela girl and the British both interacted with audience a lot. On the DJ stage, ZD was the last one and had so many light effects, the music mixed with old video tapes and faded pretty well.