Lollapagoddamnit
So the bands I really wanted to see live at Lolla are Crystal Castles, Beirut, My Morning Jacket, Deadmau5, and Foo Fighters. There are a few other bands I'd like to see if the timing works out, but those are the biggies for me. Crystal Castles is on Friday, Beirut is on Saturday at the same time as My Morning Jacket, and Deadmau5 and Foo Fighters are on Sunday at the same time. The one I want to see the most is Beirut, because I've loved every song of theirs I have heard, they allegedly are great live, and I want to see how many instruments they include in their stage shows and how they do or don't change their arrangements to reflect that. I don't think there are any bands that day Jon wants to see, and the ones that I am not sure if I will like but might check out are playing much earlier in the day. While I have in years past enjoyed wandering from stage to stage between destination bands, listening for something new and good to catch my ear, doing that for four hours is kind of insane in the kind of heat Lolla usually features and the kind of lines for port-a-potties that happen when tons of people are all chugging cold drinks to cool off in it. GAH.
I'm not sure if we'll even go because $90 is kind of a lot to end up maybe just seeing one band. We are, however, going to one night of Pitchfork, though sadly not the night with Neko Case, who I have been waiting about ten years now to see live for a second time. I really wish we had a good reason to do a day at both, though. Why do they have so many bands like Coldplay, Muse, and Eminem this year anyhow?!? I thought Lolla was supposed to showcase alternative and/or underground bands, not necessarily to the exclusion of bands that are popular, but generally including popular bands with a home-grown fan base or deep roots in a certain type of music, or who maybe haven't done a big tour lately.* These bands constantly tour, do about a million shows, are in commercials on TV, have their music both in Best Buy and on iTunes/Amazon, are all over the radio, have HBO specials, etc. I don't think you can call them "alternative" or "underground" by any stretch of the imagination, and frankly, Coldplay is settled out of court a lawsuit for plagiarizing a Joe Satriani song that, when they got their hands on it, was turned into something just a hop, skip, and jump away from elevator music. Elevator music. That's really what this festival wants to promote? Plagiarized elevator music?
And the scheduling is just...ugh! I am pretty sure that Beirut and My Morning Jacket share a lot of fans, as do Sleigh Bells and Mountain Goats (also playing at the same time as each other; also bands I might want to see) and DJ Mel and Explosions in the Sky (also playing at the same time as each other). We've been going to this almost every year since it rose from the dead and declared Chicago as its permanent home; one year that we missed it, we really wanted to go but basically considered the ticket cost money that should be going toward buying our house. This might be the first time we decide not to go because we just aren't interested enough in any one day. Hopefully next year they get over this whole anniversary thing and go back to normal.
*Yes, I know that last year, Arcade Fire and Lady Gaga played, and both were all over the Grammys, which means they are now definitely mainstream. It is worth noting, however, that both acts played Lolla years ago early in the day on small stages with their small-but growing fanbases not even taking up all the room available in the area. Lady Gaga pretty much went unnoticed her first year there and didn't really break through for another year after that, something that has been noted more than once in the press (for example, by Jim DeRogatis). I personally like that Arcade Fire in particular started out small, building their reputation as a good live act partly by playing at Lolla, then came back later when they had achieved success and headlined. It sort of proves this idea I have (and Lolla promotes themselves as having) that good bands who aren't yet big bands fill the bulk of the show, and then the already-known headliners drawn their fans in to sort of make the event pay off if, say, the relatively-unknown or new bands don't draw anybody. In short, you can go see a lot of great bands you maybe never heard of for a great price, and these headliners that draw a crowd sort of pay for it, so that if you go see a band at every time slot, it breaks down to about $10 per band, far less than you could see the headliner for on a tour and about as much as, or even a little less than, you'd pay for one of less-known bands in a small venue. If you think of the lesser-known bands as future headliners, which is (or was) often the case, it becomes an even better value--an "I can see them now for $10 and in two or three years, it will cost me $40-$60 to see them on tour" kind of thing. If you RUIN THAT by making it impossible for people to see the bands they want because they're all playing at the same time, put bands as headliners that people have possibly seen twice already in the past year, don't try to include bands that "started out" on the small stages as headliners, overlap so many sets that you are almost guaranteed to miss part of a set by a small-stage act if you do go see them (thereby ruining part of the value of that "$10/band" thing), and put bands as headliners that drown out the other bands because of their "stadium sound" (looking at Muse, here), it kills that beautiful idea that made Lolla so great in the first place. Eventually, it might also cause the event to get too big, making the cleanup cost not really worth it for Parkways, the awesome foundation affiliated with the event, reconsider--because it looks like Lolla doesn't "sell out," they just issue more tickets.
I was so excited when Lolla came to Chicago and when they announced a partnership with Parkways. I hope this year is an anomaly and Lolla doesn't stop being something I love and start being yet another Chicago thing I shake my fist at when I see it (like the parking meters).
Hilarious aside:
This morning on the radio, a WGN guy was talking about Lolla and pronounced Deadmau5 as "Deadmau Five" instead of "dead mouse."
I'm not sure if we'll even go because $90 is kind of a lot to end up maybe just seeing one band. We are, however, going to one night of Pitchfork, though sadly not the night with Neko Case, who I have been waiting about ten years now to see live for a second time. I really wish we had a good reason to do a day at both, though. Why do they have so many bands like Coldplay, Muse, and Eminem this year anyhow?!? I thought Lolla was supposed to showcase alternative and/or underground bands, not necessarily to the exclusion of bands that are popular, but generally including popular bands with a home-grown fan base or deep roots in a certain type of music, or who maybe haven't done a big tour lately.* These bands constantly tour, do about a million shows, are in commercials on TV, have their music both in Best Buy and on iTunes/Amazon, are all over the radio, have HBO specials, etc. I don't think you can call them "alternative" or "underground" by any stretch of the imagination, and frankly, Coldplay is settled out of court a lawsuit for plagiarizing a Joe Satriani song that, when they got their hands on it, was turned into something just a hop, skip, and jump away from elevator music. Elevator music. That's really what this festival wants to promote? Plagiarized elevator music?
And the scheduling is just...ugh! I am pretty sure that Beirut and My Morning Jacket share a lot of fans, as do Sleigh Bells and Mountain Goats (also playing at the same time as each other; also bands I might want to see) and DJ Mel and Explosions in the Sky (also playing at the same time as each other). We've been going to this almost every year since it rose from the dead and declared Chicago as its permanent home; one year that we missed it, we really wanted to go but basically considered the ticket cost money that should be going toward buying our house. This might be the first time we decide not to go because we just aren't interested enough in any one day. Hopefully next year they get over this whole anniversary thing and go back to normal.
*Yes, I know that last year, Arcade Fire and Lady Gaga played, and both were all over the Grammys, which means they are now definitely mainstream. It is worth noting, however, that both acts played Lolla years ago early in the day on small stages with their small-but growing fanbases not even taking up all the room available in the area. Lady Gaga pretty much went unnoticed her first year there and didn't really break through for another year after that, something that has been noted more than once in the press (for example, by Jim DeRogatis). I personally like that Arcade Fire in particular started out small, building their reputation as a good live act partly by playing at Lolla, then came back later when they had achieved success and headlined. It sort of proves this idea I have (and Lolla promotes themselves as having) that good bands who aren't yet big bands fill the bulk of the show, and then the already-known headliners drawn their fans in to sort of make the event pay off if, say, the relatively-unknown or new bands don't draw anybody. In short, you can go see a lot of great bands you maybe never heard of for a great price, and these headliners that draw a crowd sort of pay for it, so that if you go see a band at every time slot, it breaks down to about $10 per band, far less than you could see the headliner for on a tour and about as much as, or even a little less than, you'd pay for one of less-known bands in a small venue. If you think of the lesser-known bands as future headliners, which is (or was) often the case, it becomes an even better value--an "I can see them now for $10 and in two or three years, it will cost me $40-$60 to see them on tour" kind of thing. If you RUIN THAT by making it impossible for people to see the bands they want because they're all playing at the same time, put bands as headliners that people have possibly seen twice already in the past year, don't try to include bands that "started out" on the small stages as headliners, overlap so many sets that you are almost guaranteed to miss part of a set by a small-stage act if you do go see them (thereby ruining part of the value of that "$10/band" thing), and put bands as headliners that drown out the other bands because of their "stadium sound" (looking at Muse, here), it kills that beautiful idea that made Lolla so great in the first place. Eventually, it might also cause the event to get too big, making the cleanup cost not really worth it for Parkways, the awesome foundation affiliated with the event, reconsider--because it looks like Lolla doesn't "sell out," they just issue more tickets.
I was so excited when Lolla came to Chicago and when they announced a partnership with Parkways. I hope this year is an anomaly and Lolla doesn't stop being something I love and start being yet another Chicago thing I shake my fist at when I see it (like the parking meters).
Hilarious aside:
This morning on the radio, a WGN guy was talking about Lolla and pronounced Deadmau5 as "Deadmau Five" instead of "dead mouse."