Day 1- Friday, August 3

Friday was a gorgeous day with not a single cloud in the sky and temperatures in the lower 80s. We entered the park around 1:30 pm, after thinking I would help pass out copies of Chicago Innerview magazine (I had contributed to the festival guide issue). I walked directly to the MySpace stage to see Ted Leo and the Pharmacists.

Leo had fallen on stage and cut himself just before we got there, and, although I couldn’t see it, he was bleeding. Regardless, his guitar playing and distinctive voice matched the album quality. It’s nice to see a band like this on a big festival stage, knowing they’ve been consistently releasing albums for years, and are finally known outside of secretive indie circles.

The band played at Hipster Haven Pitchfork Music Festival in 2006, but was aided here by Lolla’s charisma and better sound system. Unfortunately, his fall prompted him to leave the stage at 2:10, even though he still had 20 minutes left in his set.

Next, I ran to the north end of the park, where the Polyphonic Spree would take over the Bud Light stage at 2:30 pm. I heard certain tracks from the Spree’s first album and knew they were a sort-of musical cult devoted to the sun. The dozen or so members started in black jump suits and attempted to start a strange psychedelic sing-along.

But the vocalist was screaming a lot, and the other musicians weren’t remarkable. They didn’t have the same power as their apparent idols, The Flaming Lips. They even made the mistake of playing a cover of Nirvana’s “Lithium,” which wasn’t a very close match for the original.

However, I consider Nirvana to be responsible for most of the crappy music that came out in the ‘90s, and I would have preferred not to hear one of their songs at all. Lollapalooza, in my mind, has come to stand for the very opposite of what Nirvana (and major labels, MTV, commercial radio, etc) produced. Despite having happy instruments like harp, flute, stand-up bass, horns and a vocal choir, this was still a frightening affair and I was glad when it ended.

Electric Six played at the smaller PlayStation stage at 3:30 pm, and I made sure to catch them because they started in Detroit. They were wearing their usual snazzy suits, but the respectable appearance didn’t make their music much stronger. They played old-time Impact favorites like “Danger! High Voltage” and “Synthesizer,” but the set lacked other high points. The lead singer might have the most distinctive voice of the entire festival. He entertained the crowd with witty banter between songs and asked people what drugs they were on.

The first jaw-dropping set of the weekend was M.I.A. on the Bud Light stage at 4:30 pm. I think Maya Arulpragasam caught a lot of people by surprise – people who might have heard a little about her, but had no idea what kind of punch she was packing. She said Jack White had Fed-Ex’ed a throat spray to her hotel room, since touring was doing damage to her vocal chords.

But despite a single DJ error, this set was flawless. M.I.A. ran around the stage with her back-up singer/dancer and dove into the crowd at one point while continuing to sing. She played favorites from her debut album like “Bucky Done Gone,” but suffered none from playing new songs that no one was familiar with. Tracks from the just released Kala CD like “Jimmy” and “XR2” had the crowd going nuts. M.I.A. speaks to the remaining ounce of tribal savagery that was never weeded out when civilization enveloped the globe.

The party didn’t stop there; The Rapture played at 5 pm on the PlayStation stage. This is one of the only Brooklyn bands lately that can deliver incredible indie rock without getting caught up in pretentious meddling. My favorite element is the member who plays keyboard and synth, but sometimes switches to saxophone to mix it up. They even manage to employ a cowbell without it sounding extremely over-played.

It was amazing to hear songs from their first album (like “Olio,” which sounds like the Talking Heads’ David Byrne singing for a techno producer) right up next to newer ones (like “Whoo! Alright-Yeah…Uh Huh,” which sounds more like new millennium dance rock – think of an amazing Hot Hot Heat). The sun was near skyscraper level in the western sky behind the stage, so it was difficult to view the stage from anywhere beyond 50 feet.

I watched a song by G. Love & Special Sauce, who played the Adidas stage at 5:30 pm. I liked his approach of funky guitar with a harmonica stand around his neck. They had a certain jam band quality, which makes sense because I’ve heard of them throughout my years in the college music scene.

After that, I went to the small Mindfield stage, hidden in the trees just north of Buckingham Fountain, for Matt Roan’s DJ set at 6 pm. Roan wore a Jordan Team USA jersey to flaunt his Chicago pride and transferred his manic energy to a crowd of happy people.

He asked, “Do you realize, Daft Punk will be playing here in a few hours?!” Then he played some Daft Punk, eventually mixing in Chicago house music. All this came with movie screens playing retro stock video of skiing and aerobic exercise, covered with psychedelic colors and floating brains (get it? MIND-field!). Everyone in attendance was dancing like there was no tomorrow. I wish they had a weekend-long festival that just consisted of this type of performance! Long live the Mindfield stage!

The 7:30 pm performance on the MySpace stage by LCD Soundsystem might have ruined my mood if I didn’t have Daft Punk in the near future. I know that everyone and their mother thinks James Murphy is hot shit, but I just don’t understand.

Maybe it’s because he’s so arrogant (he supposedly got really angry when his new album didn’t break at #1 on the Billboard charts). Maybe I’m just a hater. Some of the songs are pleasant on album, but everything fell apart live. Murphy sings exactly the same on every song, and the band did little more than create a recurring racket.

Many bands take after the Talking Heads lately, but this is an example of how that influence can be used incorrectly. I even felt bad for the crowd, who also seemed to be searching fruitlessly for something to praise LCD about. The one good thing about the set was the inclusion of the song “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House,” which inspired me to cross the softball field early and secure a great spot to watch Daft Punk.

Finally!!! I had been waiting for months, but the minutes building up to Daft Punk’s 8:30-10:00 pm set on Friday were completely unbearable. If you ever listed to their album Alive ’97, their live performance is TOTALLY different now. They don’t play any complete song – instead, they mix samples of all their songs with live synths and vocals. This live “remix” included pieces of “Around The World,” “One More Time” and other hits (pretty much everything except “Digital Love”), and was accompanied by the most psychotic light show ever displayed at a major festival. There are no words to describe the spectacle created by their enormous pyramid and surrounding web of triangles, so go on YouTube and search for “Daft Punk Lollapalooza,” or watch my video!

Unfortunately, the crowd was littered with creeps and weirdos, and people crowded each other too much. I kept backing up until I had enough space to get my groove on, but there were a few moments when my amazement rendered me completely immobile. I can say that Daft Punk definitely lived up to my expectations, leaving me with only one other band that I ABSOLUTELY must see in my lifetime: Radiohead.

And this was just the first day…