larry kubin

As you may have already heard, the Rage Against the Machine crowd was extremely aggressive at Lollapalooza. I loved every minute of it. There’s nothing more exciting than being in the midst of a crowd who is so amped up about being at a concert that they are ready to explode. And that’s just what the audience did as Zach kicked off the show with a traditional “Good evening, we are Rage Against the Machine from Los Angeles, California” before melting your face off with the opening riff of Testify. Check out the video clips:

Radiohead’s performance at Lollapalooza was truly epic. As the first day of the festival came to a close, tens of thousands of fans made their way over to the AT & T stage (many of them hours early) to get a good spot to witness the greatness of their Lord and savior Thom Yorke and his disciples. The people cheered and cried as the holy ones performed miracle after miracle, purifying their bodies with soul-soothing words like “Come on rain down on me, from a great height” and “In an interstellar burst, I’m back to save the universe”. The show’s defining moment was when, in a moment of serendipity, fireworks started going off during “Everything In Its Right Place”. Then, what looked like millions of dollars worth of fireworks began going off at the crescendo of Fake Plastic Trees just before Thom Yorke wailed “But I can’t help this feeling, I could blow through the ceiling”. The crazy thing is, the fireworks weren’t even technically part of the show, but were part of a Chicago Bears event at Soldier Field. Yet the timing and positioning of the fireworks was perfect and coincided with the end of Radiohead’s set before the encores. Amazing.

The Setlist

01. 15 Step
02. Airbag
03. There There
04. All I Need
05. Nude
06. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
07. The Gloaming
08. The National Anthem
09. Faust Arp
10. No Surprises
11. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
12. Reckoner
13. Lucky
14. The Bends
15. Everything In Its Right Place
16. Fake Plastic Trees
17. Bodysnatchers

Encore 1
18. Videotape
19. Paranoid Android
20. Dollars and Cents
21. House of Cards
22. Optimistic

Encore 2
23. 2+2=5
24. Idioteque

I must say, Chicago was even cooler than we expected it to be. This past weekend, I took a trip with Ashley and Josh to check out Lollapalooza and see the great city of Chicago. I loved exploring the various neighborhoods and the food was delicious (with the exception of when we tried the Mexican food. That was a dumb idea). We had a blast seeing Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, and Kanye West put on brilliant performances at Lollapalooza, and we ended each night with some drinks at the various pubs. After obligatory visits to the Magnificent Mile and Navy Pier, we made extensive use of the trains, and made trips to Lincoln Park neighborhood, the Wicker Park area, and Chinatown. Check out the photos below. If you don’t like the slideshow or want full-sized photos, then head over to my Flickr page to browse through them.