Baz Clark

Just back from Lollapalooza this weekend. What an awesome festival! I feel like I need to give it some pimping…

Grant Park, where Lolla takes place, is right in the centre of Chicago so it’s really easy to get to. The city provides an awesome backdrop to the stages, particularly when the sun goes down and the skyscrapers light up. 80-90 degree weather and clear skies all weekend! Boom!

Lolla was super well organised, with the stages and scheduling all mapped out intelligently to give minimal clashes. There’s a free iPhone/Blackberry app available too which was really useful for schedule planning and checking out the map. There were around 30 different food vendors offering meal sized portions for $5-10 – a huge variety of great eats available. Beers weren’t too expensive either, and the festival bogs weren’t nearly as bad as I expected.

Huge props to Phoenix, Soundgarden, Digitalism, The Temper Trap and Frightened Rabbit for being seriously awesome. Phoenix blew everyone else away! Playing Air covers as interludes was the coolest thing ever. They’re touring the US right now – I’d heavily recommend hitting them up.

Huge fails to MGMT and Minus the Bear, 2 bands I love but sucked live – oh and Green Day fail ridiculously hard too.

Would love to hit this up again in 2011! Please drop some comments if you’ve been to Bonaroo or Cochella and can compare too!