Lollapalooza 2007: Day 3 Sunday, or Eddy Vedder Owns a lot of Tambourines

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.


Vedder on Rodman's Shoulders. Aaaaand I'm done.