This BLOGGGG is meant to ENTERTAIN YOU! while you are AT WORK! It probably will NEVER! get more than 10 viewers, but that's ok. I write from the perspective of a young male a few years removed from college who actually enjoys the music of Poison and sees nothing wrong with this.
Introduction and Background: The Jawas are a race of people that reside on the planet Tatooine. The Jawas mostly live together and work together with some exceptions of individuals that stray from their clan. For the purposes of this study, we will only be looking into the Jawas that live together as an extended community, in their large vehicles known as Sandcrawlers. It is necessary to look at the geography of Tatooine, as it uncovers the answers to many questions about Jawa culture, climate and business choices. Tatooine is a planet comprised solely of sweeping sand dunes and areas of rocky formations. There is no indication of any water sources or plant life. You could draw the conclusion from this, that Tatooine would be completely inhabitable due to lack of oxygen, since there are no plants, but you would be incorrect. The planet is, in fact, inhabited by many species, including the oxygen breathing human race. It is not known where the breathable oxygen comes from, but some theories suggest the whogivesashititsamovie molecule could be in the atmosphere.
This is seriously Tatooine. There is seriously no water. Gotta love nerds.
The Jawas primary mode of transportation is the Sandcrawler. It resembles a large brown turd tank and houses up to 300 Jawas and as many robots. It is possible that the Jawas live in this thing.
Business Model: The Jawa people have decided to enter the lucrative business field of vintage robot resale. Their business revolves around obtaining old robots at a very small cost, and then reselling these robots to local inhabitants of Tatooine. In the opinion of our experts, this plan seems a bit foolish. One can not imagine a large number of robots randomly wandering the desert landscape of a remote planet. In fact, you'd assume that the only robots that wander around are robots owned by locals that seem to have wandered off. This can only lead to conflict when selling the robots back. One would imagine the typical dinner time conversation between Jawa mates as such:
Jawa 1; Jawa that stayed at home and cooked dinner: "Hi honey, how was work today?"
Jawa 2; Jawa that surveyed the canyons looking for stray robots: "Oh not so good, we sat there in a crevice whispering to each other, waiting for a stray robot to pass by, but there was no luck. Ootini."
Jawa 1: "Oh that's terrible! What is this, the 10,257th straight day that a random robot hasn't been wandering through a canyon on a remote planet that's comprised entirely of desert yet still has oxygen and life forms?"
Jawa 2: "Yeah, something like that. I'm beginning to think that the Jawa's should go into a different field."
Jawa 1: "Well to cheer you up I knitted you a new brown cloak that looks exactly like the clothing every single other being in our species wear because it would be ridiculous for a science-fiction movie to have unique non-human characters."
Jawa 2: "Do you ever wonder why you can't see Chewbacca's penis? I mean he is 7 feet tall, that thing's gotta be huge."
So as mentioned before, I visited the Portland, Oregon area this weekend, my first time in the state of Oregon. There was much anticipation about what the city of Portland would bring, what kind of people would be there. And it was just as I expected: a cross between the opening scene of Gummi Bears, the South Park homeless people episode, a grateful dead concert circa now and not the 60's, a hip hipster neighborhood, and a lumberjack haven.
Bouncing here AND there AND everywhere
Spare some change?
The following is a 100% true and in no way fabricated story from my trip in Oregon. Seriously, I couldn't make this up. It's true.
I stepped off of the plane into a place I had never been before: Portland, Oregon. It was an overcast, slightly rainy day, like every day that has ever existed in Portland. The sun never shines in Portland, but not because there is no happiness, it's from all the pot smoke that has clouded the atmosphere. My friends, Flava Dave and Idaho met me at the airport. I was surprised that Portland even had an airport, and did not instead have only bicycles, rickshaws, and people-kites for transportation.
Immediately, my friends knew where to take me: a bar. We had a great night of drinking microbrews and watching some guy in a brown sweater with horn rimmed glasses dance to hip music, but it was time to go eventually. As we exited a man approached me. He was in his mid-twenties and wearing a blue t-shirt. He had a scruffy haircut and I could immediately tell that he listened to artsy bands that no one gives a shit about. I tried side stepping him, but he was obviously trying to agitate me, obviously trying to talk to me. No matter where I went he followed, until finally, I made eye contact with him, and then it happened…
"Hi, can I talk to you about joining Greenpeace for a moment?"
Fuck my Douglas Fir! A damned Greenpeace hippie! I knew it! "No I don't want to join Greenpeace."
They are everywhere in Portland
"Don't you care about our Earth, and your children's Earth?"
"Dude…I'm DRUNK, leave me alone."
"You damn republican! The curse of the Sasquatch on you FOR ETERNITY!"
"OK dude I'm not even repub- AIGHHHHHHH WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT YOU'RE THROWING ON ME"
And with that he ran away. I was stunned. What did he throw on me? A local approached me and said: "Ohhhhhhh dude…that's like….uncool…dude…you know….oh uncool…lame…ohhhhhhhh…hey man he just cursed you, if you don't get a lock of bigfoot's hair before you leave, you'll totally turn into Bigfoot…hey can you spare some change man I'm trying to get some money to stay in a hostel…"
But before I could answer him, a local crack addict beat him up and stole his shoes.
Approximation of the Crackhead
The next morning I was a little shaken up but knew that I had to figure out what was going on. Flava Dave, Idaho and myself pondered. Who would know what to do in this situation? I mean, we don't even know what's going to happen to me. We have no sources to figure out what's gonna happen in the future. Now who knows a lot about Bigfoot? Who knows about the wilderness? Lumberjacks!
You knew where this was going
But Lumberjacks are tough and don't know anything about Greenpeace hippies, they mostly just stomp on Greenpeace hippies. Who in Portland has insider knowledge of hippies because they have been forced to assimilate with them? Hipsters!
Hipsters totally got weird shit sprayed on them by Hippies way before anyone else knew about it
Time was of the essence though. Where would we possibly find Lumberjacks anywhere near hipsters? Idaho and Flava had just the place.
Yes, there is a place in Portland that is a hipster log cabin. Sweet Nikki Sixx. We got into Flava's car to get there and AC/DC started blaring. At first I was thinking, BAD ASS, but then I got nautious and vomited...But wait...I love AC/DC...and then I knew what those hippie bastards had done to me...
And now I present to you - the viewer - photographic evidence that Sasquatch, Bigfoot, Yeti, Sasquatch, whatever you refer to the beast as, does in fact exist. Here I have captured the Leviathan in three pictures and present them in Where's Waldo format. Of course you know Where's Waldo?.
Tomorrow I am going on vacation. I will have to miss a few classes of my finishing school but I feel like it will be a worthwhile investment to clear the stress out of my head. And where am I going? The worlds #1 vacation destination of PORTLAND, OREGON! Now your reaction may be something like this:
Hmmmm now what's in Portland that Havok would want to see/do?
Well there's 1. More Brewpubs than any other city in America and more than in Cologne, Germany 2. Wonderful Pinot Noir Wine vineyards 3. The beautiful and scenic Hook River 4. The worlds largest Rose festival 5. The lovely Pacific Coast 6. Nextdoor Eugene, which is home to the Oregon Ducks, who are playing the California Golden Bears this weekend.
And you'd be right I am doing many of those things, but mostly I'm going to visit some friends from college, we'll call them Flava and Idaho to protect their innocence. Portland is an absolute Mecca for the following things: beer, indie rock, roses, lumber, and hippies. Many of you know I have very strong opinions about these things, whether positive or negative (hippies are the ones I have negative feelings for, and yes I have VERY strong positive feelings for trees) so hopefully I'll have some tall tales when I get back.
You've probably noticed that I haven't posted a blog post since August. During this time my readership has become angry with me and dropped from 4 people down to 2 people. As for the 2 people that still do read, sorry for the disappointment the 5 times a day that you check. So as for where I've been: Blackout drunk for 37 straight days. Yep, I drank a bottle of Jack Daniels a day everyday for 37 straight days. And I lost 10 pounds. It's this new fad diet that I've started called the Perpetual Headache Diet. All you have to do is drink a bottle of Jack Daniels everyday so that you get so drunk you can't taste tastes, so you just eat healthy.
It works! You will lose weight!
Of course, if you try this diet, I can not be held liable for the liver damages that it will inevitably cause and perhaps cause you to lose your inhibitions, which may lead to running around naked and screaming "I'M THE PLUM AND YOU'RE THE PRUNES BAHAHAHAHA" in an old folks home or cause you to accidently think that a small 8 year olds skull is in fact a head of lettuce.
This one is the 8 year old
So anyway, because of certain incidences like those that may or may not have happened, I've been sent to Finishing School. That's right, they're trying to make Havok into a proper English gentleman. I'll try to post as much as possible while I'm there, but no guarantees until Tuesday, November 6th, which is the date of my Finishing School exam...
Sooooooo sad but sooooooooo happy was this game. Sad because it was the last Cubs home game of the year. Happy because the Cubs won 8-0 and it's looking like maybe we could be... um... maybe... dare I say... PLAYOFF BOUND? At this point the Cubs sit with a 3 game lead over the Brewers with only one week left of games to play. Things are lookin' pretty good...but it's the Cubs, so I'm not crowning anybody's ass yet. You never know what's gonna happen.
So last home game of the season, we park ourselves in Left Field one last time and watch Soriano milk the crowd. This beautiful, beautiful man has been very, very good as of late. He had some hits, Derrek Lee hit a homer, Ronny Cedeno (?!) of all people went 3-4 with a home run raising his average from -.146 to something positive I think. Geovany Soto continues to look kind of bad ass at the catcher spot and even had some nice throws to pick off base stealing assholes.
File Photograph (read: gross Italian Stereotype) of Geovany Soto
So I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited. The Cubs have had some crazy victories, it's been the most fun season I can remember since 2003 (I know that was soooo long ago). So... Go Cubs Go!
Final Score: Cubs 8 - Pirates 0
Starting Pitchers: Cubs: Carlos Zambrano Pirates: Tom Gorzellany
Singer of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame": The Cubs grounds crew (awwwww!)
Rain delay's are a bitch. This game was supposed to have a 7pm start, but because of the thunderstorm that rolled through, it did not get rolling until 8:35. So what does this mean? I spent a solid 2 hours with 25% of my body covered by an umbrella getting 75% soaked and 100% drunk because there was so much time to get and drink beer. When this game finally got going there was a hilarious line dividing the dry part of my body from the wet part and I was on at least my 5th or 6th beer. But isn't that what makes baseball fun?
With Soriano out and a lefty pitching, the Cubs made an interesting move to start Jake Fox, a lefty who just got called up for this game. Fox was a ho-hum 1-4 for the night, but did manage to win an Oscar for Ray so he's got that going for him.
This was a very high scoring game with the Reds shitty pitcher getting pulled after only 2 innings, but still, there was so much offense that it ended up not mattering, because Druggy McHeroin, Josh Hamilton hit a 2 run homer to beat the Cubs 11-9. Adam Fucking Dunn, Captain Strikeout played left field for the Reds, but was decidedly unperturbed by the Wrigley Crowd as he had a homerun and 3 walks and only 1 strikeout. Ted Lilly looked like balls and kinda blew. But you know who is kind of awesome now? Jason Kendall. I'm not really gonna elaborate.
So it was a fun game, despite the weather and the long ass game which ended at 11:55pm. But the Cubs lost so there's that.
Final Score: Cubs 9 - Reds 11
Cubs Record in 2007 when I am in attendance: 4-5
Starting Pitchers: Cubs - Ted Lilly Reds - Phil Dumatrait and his awesome 7.71 ERA
Singer of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" - Tom Dreesen. Yes THE Tom Dreesen that opened for Frank Sinatra for 13 years. (WTF!)
Sunday. The final day of the 3 day journey. Despite getting little sleep again because of drinkin' the night earlier I felt much better on sunday than I did saturday, probably because I danced significantly less on saturday than friday. Even dancing machines gotta rest the motor once in a while. Sunday was just as ridiculously awesome and fun as friday, but the bands were completely different so it's difficult to compare the two.
First band I saw when I got there was Dax Riggs, who is also the frontman for Deadboy and the Elephantmen. Dax called his backup band the Black Clowns this time and really went with the death circus theme in his music. This made it unfortunate when they were all dressed normally, but then again normal is better than looking like an Insane Clown Posse Rip Off. ICP sucks, unless of course if you're homophobic, misogynistic and a redneck.
Next was a group I was reallllly looking forward to seeing, Rodrigo y Gabriela. If you've never heard of them before, they're an acoustic guitar duo from Mexico that plays a speed flamenco heavily influenced by early 80's thrash metal like Metallica and Slayer. I knew these guys were for real when Rodrigo came out in a Testament shirt. Truly bad ass, and now that I think of it, really the only representative of cock rock the entire weekend. What is this world coming to?
But anyway they literally had my jaw on the ground, Looney Tunes style. The speed at which both of them play is incredible, so insanely fast and still a shitshitshitload of fun. The whole crowd was going crazy clapping and dancing for them. At one point Rodrigo had his fingers so far down the fret he only had an inch to pick! And they played a cover of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" where the crowd sang along and Rodrigo used a beer bottle as a slide for his guitar. \m/ Devil horns to that one my friend.
I caught 5 different Metallica references while they were playing. At certain points of songs or in between songs they played snippets of the following Metallica songs: The intro to One, the intro to Master of Puppets, the end of Ride the Lightning, and the main riff of Enter Sandman. Of course they have a full cover of Orion by Metallica that they played as well. All in all they were by far one of my favorite acts of the whole weekend and I will definitely be going back to see them at the Riviera in October.
Amy Winehouse took the stage next. Amy Winehouse is one of the best animatronic space alien cover artists I've ever seen live, which isn't saying much because she's the only animatronic space alien cover artist I've ever seen. At this point you may be saying, LOLZ Havok you are so wrong she is a tragic hero and I love her for it and I bet she is a good dancer and I think she is pretty. Well you are wrong. Evidence:
She played 4 cover songs in a 45 minute set (don't tell me it was an hour, she started late) including Lauryn Hill, 2 Specials songs, and a Zutons song. While great choices and 3 of them obscure enough for most people not to notice, my friends and I are apparently not most people.
Space Alien:
Guess which one is Amy Winehouse
Animatronics: Let's analyze the amount of movement in this performance
The Country Bear Jamboree even moves more than that. That said, I didn't say she was bad. She is an animatronic space alien karaoke star though. Mad props to her dancers too, who inexplicably did the Hammer dance during 1 song. This was my favorite song obviously, even though I can't even remember what song it was.
Next was Paolo Nutini, or Pablo Nutella as I confusingly called him. Pablo Nutella is essentially the Scottish John Mayer with bad posture. If you have ever thought to yourself, man I really like John Mayer, but kind of wish he was scottish and can't stand upright then Pablo Nutella will probably be your favorite artist of all time. That's really all I have to say about Pablo Nutella and his poor posture.
I just realized how much I hate his shirt too
The next band we saw was the ever so rocking Kings of Leon. Pretty much straight forward rock from these guys, if you're like me you'll enjoy it, if you don't like rock and roll you should probably get the space alien or scottish John Mayer instead. Best part of there show was when they brought Eddie Vedder out on stage for the final song, a barnburner where Eddie Vedder played two tambourines and absolutely destroyed them within 30 seconds. That's literally the fiercest tambourine playing I've ever seen. The video of it is completely hilarious:
Eddie Vedder is a bad ass.
!!! is the dumbest band name of all time. It's impossible to google. It's impossible to youtube. It's impossible to pronounce. It's Artist Formerly Known as Prince-like stupid. That said, these guys were one of my favorite acts of all of Lollapalooza. Their front man was a complete menace and force to be reckoned with. His name is Nic Offer and as it stands, I'm pretty sure he's the only person I fear if he challenged me to a dance off.
He was dancing and singing on stage in short shorts, shaking his butt stage left, shaking his toush backstage, shaking his popozuda on the right, sha sha shadooby he was crazy.
Loved the way this band transferred over to live and loved the way he worked the crowd. Heard at least 10 people say "Wow who was that they were AWESOME" as we left them. Nic Offer, the dance-off is on whenever you want buddy. OH IT IS ON.
After the excitement of !!! he headed over to catch the end of the Yo La Tengo set. After the sheer ecstacy and excitement of !!!, Yo La Tengo seemed too tame and boring. But when they played a 15(WTF!) minute closer called "The Story of Yo La Tango", I was slowly converted until my jaw finally hit the floor in awe. The song went from boring ambient noises into a colossal noise freakout by the end where the front man/guitarist started shredding and walloping around so hard that he destroyed a couple guitar strings in the process. It's useless to put up any video of this because of the sheer length of the track, but any group that can send me from uninterested to blown away with one sheer epic piece deserves my attention in the future. I would love to see a whole performance from them.
Next we caught about 40 minutes of the Modest Mouse set. I'm not going to talk about them too much because I'm sure many of you like them, but I was left underwhelmed after the sheer awesomeness of the previous two acts. They might have been better if I had seen just them, so I'm holding off any judgement.
We walked over and saw the end of My Morning Jacket's performance next. These guys were really cool, they had the Chicago Youth Symphony on stage with them and I wish we had seen the whole set rather than the last 20 min. I will check them out in the future as well.
Only 2 more performances left in the entire festival AHHHH. TV On the Radio was the next set and I really really enjoyed them immensely although I have no idea what to say about their set. I'll say this, one of the guitarists having wind chimes attached to his guitar was awesome, and I'm pretty sure that if I knew the drummer I would have a man crush on him in a Corey Brewer kind of way. No one will get that last joke, but that's all I have to say about this band, who kicked it and had a ton of soul live.
And finally, Pearl Jam. The number one band I had to see this weekend. And they delivered like only they can. I will not compare them to Daft Punk because they were two different shows (and because Daft Punk still might have been better) but the word colossal goes to Pearl Jam. There were estimates of between 5 infiniti and 6 infiniti people in Grant Park watching Pearl Jam so we weren't very close but they were still ridiculous from far away. They stormed through a 2 hour and 20 minute set which included a 15 minute version of Even Flow where Mike McCready played a 5 minute guitar solo ENTIRELY BEHIND HIS HEAD. Just shows that true rock and roll bad assery still exists on this planet. Also, this song was made even more bad ass by the fireworks going off at Soldier Field directly behind the stage. Amazingly cool coincidence.
Eddy Vedder has an amazing amount of stage presence, he commands every second of attention even if he never smiles. Pearl Jam played all the hits and some impromptu songs like a "Don't go BP Amoco" song about boycotting BP who is polluting Lake Michigan, albeit unfortunately legally doing it.
Pearl Jam has become (still is?) fiercely political. During the second encore they brought out an Iraqi War Veteran and Ben Harper to sing a song about stopping the war. They closed with a 10 minute Keep On Rockin' in the Free World. In a bizarre ending to an amazing weekend, Pearl Jam brought 10 people on stage and had them play tambourines (again). Dennis Rodman and Lance Armstrong were among these people and during the final seconds of the show hoisted Vedder on to his shoulders. Ah yes, Dennis Rodman, Eddy Vedder on his shoulders and a tambourine. This is what life is all about folks. Lollapalooza 2007 is done. I'm gonna go practice my tambourine now.
On to day 2 of the mighty Lollapalooza. I gotta admit, it was difficult waking up this morning. After the huge high of Day 1 and then going out and partying after, I was a bit exhausted and dead. But still 2 freakin days left so I dragged my ass the heck outta bed and back to Grant Park.
First thing I did when I got there was see a band called Tokyo Police Club that my friends and I talked about checking out. Tokyo Police Club is from Toronto, Ontario and have absolutely no connection or relation to the Japanese law enforcement community. This directly resulted in me not liking them. Perry Farell introduced them and said they would "light the place on fire" or something. How is that representative of protecting and serving the people? Unless if the motto of Japan's police is "to start peoples shit on fire" in which case I would think that no one lives in the apocolyptic anarchy of Tokyo. Fuck this band I left.
And who did I see next? Why another Swedish band with 4 million people in it called I'm From Barcelona. And initially I liked them! They were lots of fun and happy and even though I am not a fan of yiffing they had a sweet dude in a Teddy Bear Outfit!
I dare you to google image search "Yiffing"
But I kept looking at the Ronald McDonald on acid front man that they had. He was a major ginger and something threw me off about him. So I kept looking at him.
Who does this guy look like? Carrot Top? Well that's too easy, and Carrot Top is way more buff than this guy. Wait a second... OH SHIT I KNOW WHO THIS ASSHOLE IS
It's the Chicken Fucker from South Park! The guy that owns the Book Mobile and has sex with chickens in order to get Officer Barbrady to learn how to read! And you know, the more I listened to this band, the more I realized that this guy LITERALLY WAS THE CHICKENFUCKER. Guhhhhh done with this band.
In stark contrast to the happy and light sounds of I'm From Barcelona was the harsh consolidated tones of Tapes 'n Tapes. This band was harder and more rigid than I was expecting. A pretty good show for sure and perfect for me to sit down and rest my legs while enjoying them.
Oh man THROWBACK TIME! It seems like every year Lollapalooza has a band that was completely awesome in the early/mid 90's but if you heard them now you'd be like what the hell these guys are still around? In 2005 it was Primus, last year it was Nada Surf (of course they played Popular!), and this year it was Silverchair. When these guys were huge they were 15 years old. My how things have changed. Since then, the lead singer has gone to Vietnam to fight in the Vietnam War and has lost a lot of men out there.
You don't know what it's like to fight Charlie in 'Nam
But despite the random flashbacks to Ho Chi Minh City and fighting Charlie in the jungle, they weren't half bad. Another great "let's sit down and watch these guys" band. Complete with the WTF moment of the day when the lead singer said, "I once had a dream that I vomited dolphins." Heroin was huge in the 70's I guess (actually I have no idea). Also, every time the crowd would start singing along, he would yell "You guys are gonna make me cry!" Um...people like your music dude, own it. Unless if its because every time you hear people singing it reminds you of the innocent screaming Vietnamese citizens that you killed in the war. Then I understand.
MOVING ON next I checked out the Cold War Kids on a smaller stage. These guys should NOT have been on this stage as a crapload of people were there to see them, so many that it was blocking traffic. However, it could have just been that this stage was right by the beer tent because by the end of their performance we had moved closer a good 150 feet or so. I really enjoyed them live, nice and chill, but new thing I learned this day: the lead singer is a guy. Who knew?!
Probably has a penis
Only bad news of the weekend was that CSS was supposed to be next on my list of bands to see, but they are from Brazil and I guess one of their connecting flights got cancelled. A shame, my friend who's given first name I have changed to Rocky to disguise who he is, and I both really wanted to see them because they are supposedly a ton of fun live.
Instead we saw Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah! on the mainstage. I've seen these guys before so it was more leg resting time. They are also chill, so chill that I'm not sure they're really a mainstage kind of band. Also they did make me clap my hands a few times, but I never really said "yeah" after clapping so take what you will out of that.
Next up was the Hold Steady who were my favorite act of the day. You can just tell that they have SO MUCH FUN playing live shows. Even though they've been nonstop touring it really felt like this was the first time they'd ever played those songs. They were that much into it. And any band that has a guy in a tuxedo with a curled mustache gets my respect immediately.
Winners of the most bizarre stage show of the day go to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Let's start with this outfit.
Whoa. I had always wanted to see Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees before, but then they played all Yeah Yeah Yeah's songs. Weird.
Siouxsie Sioux. Know your 80's Pop Music.
Things took a turn from weird into really fucking weird when she put on her silver stream hat that covered her face. So, is this artsy or fucking retarded? I'll let you be the judge (as long as you don't pick artsy).
After the Yeah Yeah Yeah's was another band I had been looking forward to, Spoon. Spoon was OK but I left unimpressed. In my opinion, they completely had the wrong setlist. No Underdog, no Cherry Bomb, nothing to get the crowd excited and into it. My Mathmatical Mind was the only one that would and they played that first. Rocky said he could write pages of what was good and bad about that performance so I will invite him to do so and I will add it.
Next time I'll take Fork and Knife. I'm sorry that's a terrible joke.
Last of the day was Muse. I don't really know any Muse songs but their show was pretty cool. They had an awesome stage set up as evidenced below.
Everytime this dude played the lit up grand piano onstage was cool. I enjoyed them, but can not remember the melody of one song that they played and probably if you played me any song of theirs I would think, oh yeah they played that one maybe. But a nice opera watched from the sides to finish off by far the most chill day at Lollapalooza. This band also made me decide that you could pretty much play ANY music at all and if you have a kick ass light show people will love it. So my next band is gonna have a sweet light show with fireworks and shit. I got it copyrighted or something.
This past weekend I shelled out the $195 to get a 3 day pass to Lollapalooza in Grant Park in Chicago. I couldn't resist for a number of reason, mostly because of the ridiculous lineup and how it was spread so evenly over the 3 days that I couldn't decide which day to get a single ticket for so what the hell, let's bring the Havok all 3 days.
I had such an amazing freaking time that I decided that I'm gonna try to write a blog post about each day as I get the time. First up is friday.
Friday was the day I was most excited for. Out of the extremely strong schedule, this was the one day where I had a lot of favorites going and some high expectations. I'm gonna go through the day band by band giving my sarcastic reactions to the acts that sucked or were lame or deserved making fun of even if they were good or give my utmost praise and hyperbolic overreaction to the bands that I loved.
The Helicopters - This was my friend Scott's coworker's band. I saw them play one song. It was OK. This is the band I have the least to say about.
At 11:45 AM on the myspace stage were everyone's favorite iPod commercial, the Fratellis. These guys were definitely from over the pond but were a lot of fun. They get major props from my neanderthal sex drive for having random chicks in lingerie and stockings passing out free flyers.
At 12:30 AM I went to go eat my only meal of the day. This would become a recurring theme throughout the weekend. Everyone was saying, "Oh lolla was great because it had low food prices." Sure, the prices seemed low but an empanada the size of my cell phone isn't gonna fill me and ain't worth the $5. So What did I do each day? Ate before I got there and didn't eat again for the rest of the day. Hooray healthy living!
While eating I listened to Ghostland Observatory. This band was a complete abomination of sound that I hated. It was some dude/chick with pigtails wailing like a sea otter while some idiot wearing a teal popped collar wizard cape played a keyboard or something. That shit is not entertainment, its tomfoolery. I hated this group, they were the worst band of the weekend.
Only thing worse than popped collars? Popped Wizard Cape Collars
Next was Ted Leo & the Pharmacists. Within one song Ted had fallen down and cut himself which was utterly hilarious. Dude and his band were OK but seriously Teddy, you need a guitar chord longer than 3 feet so that when you jump around and pretend you're at Warped Tour, you don't trip like a clumsy nerd. However, this band had by far the awesomest looking bassist of the tour. Captain 1974 Time Warp was his name.
Captain 1974 Time Warp
After Ted Leo we stopped by a small stage when we heard a gnarly harmonica belting out some classic blues. It was Charlie Musselwhite of course! (who?) we left after 2 songs because they played a boring one next.
We went over to one of the main stages to see the Polyphonic Spree. This band had something like 40 fucking people on stage. There were 9 backup singers, trumpets, harps, oboes, tubas, guitars, floutists, and the Chicago Tap Dance Extravanganza or something like that (not to be confused with the Tony Danza Tap Dance Extravaganza). This performance needed to be nicknamed the Happiest God Awful Clusterfuck on Earth. They had good energy and all, but no joke, they had BY FAR the LOUDEST performance of the weekend. This swedish crap made me deaf immediately when I still had 2 and a half days to go. Assholes. Sweet Lithium by Nirvana cover though.
Quiet down loudypants mcgee.
Next I saw Electric 6. This band was hilariously awesome. They played at the playstation stage. As the drunk ass lead singer put it: "This is the playstation stage...and these are playstation times." They had songs about drugs, giving girls STD's, electric demons, and George Bush having a conversation with Tony Blair in a Gay Bar. Good times, great live show!
Hilariouser than me.
Oooooooo. My girlfriend was next. Miss Maya Arulpragasm aka M.I.A. Ohhhhhhh man I need to find out where this woman shops and need to dress my next girlfriend like that. Sparkley short shorts are HOT. Anyway, I'm fully convinced that her album, Kala, which comes out on August 21st is going to be the album of the year. She's SO original, has SO much to say, and has new stage presence missing the last two times I saw her. I love her. Remember I called Dibs 2 years ago. Also, favorite lyrics of Lollapalooza from the upcoming Paper Planes: "All I wanna do is *BANG BANG BANG BANG!* And *KKKAAAA CHING!* And take your money" Yessss.
Look at this top. So awesome.
Love the shorts and the legs
Sooooo hot
After MIA we ran over to see the Rapture and holy shit am I glad I did. Their albums are always kind of hit and miss for songs, but when they play all the hits rather than the misses live, this band ROCKS. Also, NO one uses more cowbell than these guys. Anyone who sits there and yells or says or wears tshirts that say MORE COWBELL can suck it if they don't own a Rapture album. See: House of Jealous Lovers or WHOO YEAH UH HUH ALRIGHT for proof.
The Black Keys were next and this band is something you kind of have to "get". It's straight up old school blues but done HEAVY. It's not the White Stripes, these guys are way cooler and less weird. I LOVE the sound this dude rolls with on his chicken plucker. And he was sporting a kick ass homeless man beard to boot.
The great LCD Soundsystem was next. I love love love love LCD but we didn't wanna get close so that we could get close for Daft Punk later. We chilled out in the back and I came across some chubby douche in a blue shirt dancing like nuts during Us V Them. Since this is my favorite LCD Soundsystem song, I challenged the freak to dance off and beat his punk ass. I'll put up a video of his performance when I get it.
Here is the jack ass I defeated in a dance off:
What a Tool.
Anyway, to answer your question of HEY DIDNT THEY GO ON RIGHT BEFORE DAFT PUNK LOLZ SO THEY MUST HAVE PLAYED DAFT PUNK IS PLAYING AT MY HOUSE RIGHT? Yeah, they played it second, but didn't really seem to care that they were opening for Daft Punk. Whatever.
Which brings me to Daft Punk. I honestly knew absolutely nothing about Daft Punk live shows going into this performance. My friends, who's names I'll change to Rocky and Jenny were "so excited they could pee their pantses" to see them. But really, how good can two DJ's be right? They could put on a CD and I wouldn't know the difference right?
False. They. Kicked. Ass. I mean jaw dropping ass kicking amounts of SPAM eating kick ass. What a fucking performance. They DJ from a digital LED light pyramid spaceship with massive light setup. They also completely mash their songs with all sorts of crazy stuff to give a unique concert feel. The entire crowd was dancing and completely into the performance. Proof of how bad ass it was; Kanye West watched from 10 feet BEHIND me.
Yes, that is Kanye West to the left of the dude in the black and green shirt
As I get them I'll put up the pictures and youtubes of these guys, but if you ever get the chance, for the love of Nikki Sixx you have to see them. No, I'll change that this one time, for the love of Daft Punk you have to see them. I won't say TOO much because there are some amazing surprises in this show but you have to have to have to have to see these guys.
The space pyramid
Daft Punk from our view
More Daft from our view (Zoomed)
Daft Encore
As of now there are a TON of youtubes up of the lollapalooza performance by Daft Punk. It's impossible for them to do it any justice but at least there are some cool visuals of the pyramid.
Like #1 One More Time:
And #2 Face to Face:
That's it for day 1. As I get more pics and more youtubes I'll constantly update this in the next two weeks.
