The first day of the festival's ninth year in Grant Park featured a range of artists, from up-and-coming acts such as Chance the Rapper and Icona Pop to Lollapalooza veterans The Killers and Nine Inch Nails.
"That ain't 50!": Many large festivals aren't heavily populated with female-fronted acts, but this year's Lolla lineup houses more than in year's past, and Friday kicked off with strong performances from Emeli Sandé, Jessie Ware and Icona Pop. But as Ware pointed out: "It was funny, because yesterday, (someone said), 'It's the biggest year for women. Twenty percent are women.' I was like, 'That ain't 50!' "
When Scottish-bred Sandé took the stage, she was immediately engaging both vocally and in style. She sported a green-dyed tuft atop her platinum blonde hair, showing off some added flair in her gospel-infused set. "If you know this song Heaven and you have good intentions, sing along with me," she said with a smile, to which the crowd obliged. Her inspirational material matched her enthusiasm: She filled the stage with gesticulations that punctuated her buoyant refrains. And while she took a moment to sit at the piano for the anthemic Next to Me she didn't sit still for very long, pouncing back up to move about the stage and further engage the singing-along audience.
MORE: 6 emerging artists to catch at Lollapalooza
LISTEN: Get in the groove with a Lollapalooza playlist
PHOTOS: Lollapalooza artists with animal-inspired names
Mutual admiration: Jessie Ware also sang along to one of Sandé's tunes. "She's an excellent songwriter, and she can sing, (as) you can hear," said Ware, gesturing toward the stage where Sandé was belting it out. "She's a wonderful performer. She's so talented, and I'm happy that it's going on for her." The two gifted singers pack power, but at different amps. Where Sandé's resonates at arena levels, Ware's feels more intimate, relying on pretty subtleties. Naturally, Ware's style also bodes well in intimate settings, where she often banters with the audience. "You have to work harder at a festival because most people are passing by, maybe they'll check out one or two songs," she said.
Just the night before, Ware played a different kind of show: poolside at the W Hotel Chicago-Lakeshore. "They put a bridge over the pool, so people can stand, then people were standing all around the pool, then we were on one side of the pool. It was the weirdest place I played a gig."
In the large festival setting, Ware created a more personal atmosphere, singling people out in the audience, asking them to dance during If You're Never Gonna Move. During the jazzy Sweet Talk the audience swayed in unison with her.
Ready for the weekend: Dark clouds were beginning to roll in by the time Icona Pop hit the stage. As Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo, wearing white (Hjelt) and black (Jawo) matching plastic dresses, launched into the party dance jam, Ready for the Weekend, the sky was ready to shower concertgoers with a heavy, but short-lived rain. Other highlights included their first-penned tune Manners and while their extended version of I Love It came close to derailing with a long drop out, they brought it back at the song's close.
The fashionistas, who asked a friend to make their futuristic-looking outfits ("You feel like you get superpowers when you put them on," said Jawo), shared who they were digging style-wise at the fest, and one act they admired was Ghost B.C. "I mean, you don't see who they are. Their whole image, no one knows what they look like," Hjelt said. As for what festgoers wear, comfort rules, but so does donning very little, according to the duo. "We saw a lot of guys that were almost naked, and they were covered in glitter. And that was gorgeous, yeah, more of that. More naked!"
Icona Pop is getting ready to release its full-length debut album, This Is… Icona Pop (out Sept. 24) and they're also enjoying the spoils of being essentially homeless. "We're getting a tour bus and American tour that we're starting," said Jawo. "And that's gonna be fantastic, that's going to be our home on wheels." For the tour, Hjelt said they're working on building a "spaceship," adding, "It's going to be like a mothership to control everything, so it's going to be the center to what we're doing. And then we're going to have a lot of fun gear to play with and lights. It's going to be awesome."
Stacking the hits: New Order wasn't shy about doling out the hits, and their fans were happy to hear them. Those looking to shake it to the '80s new wave dance pioneers had plenty to cull from: Ceremony, True Faith, Blue Monday and Temptation among them. And while the audience let loose, so did Bernard Sumner, who did a little dance shuffle during Bizarre Love Triangle. The absence of bassist Peter Hook might've been keenly felt by diehards, but it seemed most in the the happily dancing audience were unaffected.
Sibling non-rivalry: There were the old-school dance hits on Friday, and then there were also newcomers to the charts. Australia's sibling duo Atlas Genius are getting some chart action with songs If So and Trojans from their When It Was Now album that came out earlier this year.
Brothers Keith and Michael Jeffrey said keeping things in the family is an advantage. Even their dad pitches in with the band: He runs their sound. "We've grown up with similar music tastes and influences, and, you know, we sort of don't have to sugarcoat anything," Michael said.
"During the creative process, you can be really brutally honest about, 'OK, this is working, this isn't working' — you want to cut to the chase when you're recording. Those periods, those rare fleeting moments when you're inspired, when you're creating — you're not always inspired, it's up and down like any creative pursuit," added Keith. "Sometimes we probably offend each other, but the upside is that you get over it pretty quickly when you're brothers."
"The next day everything's fine again. You forget it," Michael said. They aren't the only siblings on the Lollapalooza 2013 lineup, with The National, Tegan and Sara, Haim, Court Yard Hounds and Disclosure among the groups on deck who literally grew up together.
The return: The Killers and Nine Inch Nails are Lollapalooza alumni and both headliners have also had their time taking a break. NIN's Trent Reznor recently ended the band's five-year hiatus with the very tour that begins with their Lolla appearance and the promise of a new album, Hesitation Marks, out Sept. 3.
The Killers ended theirs, including some side projects along the way, with the release of last fall's Battle Born. But they may take a time out again, drummer Ronnie Vannucci said just before they took the stage. Side projects have been positive for the band, he said. "It does help, because too much of one thing can be a bit disastrous at times."
"Everybody in the band has different sort of boiling points as to what they're interested in taking on and what their bodies and minds are ready for. That explains (why) some of us that got involved in, you know, playing video games for a year or making records, it just depends," he said of their last time apart.
Taking another hiatus hasn't been discussed. "But I just feel like, I don't know what the vibe is as far as getting back into a room and making another record. Because it isn't like the old days where we would just (say) 'Hey, let's meet at my house in the garage at 3, and we'll play until 7, and we'll go get something to eat and then we'll record some stuff.' It is like you do that, plus you have to plan the next two years of your life.
"For some people, they don't really want to think about planning the next two years. For me, it's like a food group. It's very hard to slow down from a train like that. But at the same time, it's a real bum-out to be around people who aren't wanting to be there. So you can't force it, otherwise it just ends up being a bad time for everybody."
Regardless, it was clear their fans were excited to see them and the band also seemed to be having a good time at Lollapalooza. Their side of the field was massively packed, and for their second headlining appearance at Lolla, they comfortably pulled out the hits from the get-go, launching with Mr. Brightside and Spaceman; Smile Like You Mean It soon followed.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the park, NIN's Trent Reznor and company had a good-sized crowd, though navigating it was much more sane than the tight confines of The Killers' section. It also felt much more subdued. During the atmospherics built into sludgy grooves of The Way Out Is Through, the band was awash in a red haze. Things livened up onstage and in the audience for the explosive Wish, played back-to-back with Survivalism.
No comments:
Post a Comment