August 4, 2008

Hippies, hipsters, and rock n roll oh my!

Lollapalooza 2008.
Sam, Marnie, and I spent the weekend in music heaven. We'd talked about going for a couple of years and this year we're finally all in the area at the right time. So we got our tickets and personalized our band schedules on Lollapalooza's website. Generally speaking, when I have incredibly high expectations for something, especially a mini trip, I am usually disappointed. This weekend proved me so very wrong. I had the most amazingly wonderfully time with my two beautiful friends. We talked ourselves out about boys, old friends, gossip, work and tons of other random things. On top of the fabulous company, we had fabulous music. Two days of band hopping in the most incredible setting. Every time I looked up at the Chicago skyline that surrounds Grant Park, I was amazed. This festival full of dirty, music loving people plopped down in the middle of a huge city. It's pretty cool. Prime people watching. Plentiful tattoos and dreds.

Friday night Sam and I got into town just in time to meet Marnie outside of her apartment and book it to Grant Park to see Radiohead. They're a pretty diverse band and I was very impressed with the show. (as a side note, I've never listened to a lot of Radiohead.) We then met up with Jannson and some of his and Marnie's friends plus Meredith and spent the night dancing and singing at a bar called the Hang Up. We didn't get to bed until 5AM. When the girls of 717 party, we do it right!
Saturday morning we woke up with a little bit of our voices gone (what happens when you try to talk in a really loud bar) and kinda hungover. On our way to the park we stopped at Walgreen's where Sam bought Bounce sheets, which are supposed to work like bug spray when rubbed on your arms and legs. Not sure if they kept the buggies away but they smelled really good:) Our Lollapalooza line up for the day was as follows
Dierks Bentley (yeah country at Lolla!)
MGMT
Explosions in the Sky (OK, kinda, we heard them as we stood in line for the bathroom/ice cream)
Okkervil River
Broken Social Scene
Wilco
Wilco was great. Also really enjoyed MGMT and Okkervil River. Despite the hangovers and minimal hours of sleep the day was still good. Thank God we went to bed at a decent hour that night. It made all the difference on Sunday I think.

Sunday morning we had breakfast with Marnie's old roommate (most amazing cheese grits I've encountered in the north!) and then took off for the last day. Line up

What Made Milwaukee Famous
The Whigs
John Butler Trio
Amadou & Mariam
Iron & Wine
Gnarls Barkley
The National
I really enjoyed all the bands we saw on Sunday. What Made Milwaukee Famous was a really great accidental find. John Butler Trio absolutely blew me away with incredible guitar picking and jamming. The National, well they've been my new favorite band lately and they did not disappoint. Unfortunately Sam and I had to leave to get home and missed Kanye West. Even more unfortunately we screwed up the I65 detour and ended up driving all the way to South Bend on I80/94. Awesome.

I'm dragging a bit today thanks to getting to bed at 4AM on top of all the walking and sitting out in the sun we did, but it was all so very worth it. I can't wait to really investigate all the new music I discovered. Yay for my ever expanding music collection! Can't wait for Lollapalooza 09 ladies!!

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