Lollapalooza 2012: Closing Out Sunday

By Staff in Arts & Entertainment on Aug 6, 2012 6:00PM

Sunday at Lollapalooza got off to a slow start with sparse crowds wandering the festival grounds, providing a stark contrast to the severe human traffic jams that were to come later in the day. The weather was just about perfect and the crowds were largely absent when I got there though so it made for a lovely setting in which to wander around and take in some new music. Personally, the bill early Sunday didn’t hold any clear must-sees for me so I took advantage of this to check out some undercard acts. I’ve seen White Rabbits before and while I’ve found their brand of rock—let’s call it Spoon lite—enjoyable before I’ve never been particularly knocked out by them. Their set early Sunday afternoon was a scorcher though, and they easily won over the large crowd assembled on the lawn of the north side of the park. Singer Stephen Patterson was in particularly fine form, delivering his lines with a passionate urgency, and he was driven on by the band’s muscular attack including the double drumming on many of the songs. - Tankboy / Jim Kopeny

Entering to some of Polica's Sade-esque vocals was a nice calming way to ease into another day of outdoor music. Afterwards we turned around to find more relaxing music from Trampled By Turtles on the main stage. What started out as a side project for these Duluth, Minnesota rockers quickly turned into their main gig. The romantic bluegrass and fiddle was complemented by a nice breeze on a day that wasn’t quite as hot as Friday or Saturday. Navigating Hutchinson Field proved difficult, though, trying to maze through residual mud pits from Saturday's thunderstorm. After a pause with 15 minutes to spare in their set, the band told the audience, "Sorry we didn't write enough songs down on our set list so we had to figure it out, but we got it so don't worry." They then started into “It’s A War,” and at the end of their set, fans cheered when they played “Wait So Long.” - Michelle Meywes

The late afternoon slot is a tough time to hold people's attention. The early arrivals are getting restless, while the late arrivals are getting settled. That's when it's a little tough to hear the music over the chatter. Sigur Ros managed to get the crowd to shut up and pay attention whether they planned to or not. The crowd filled the lawn (except for the big muddy splotches), and the symphonic force of the Icelandic group's strings just soaked over them. The song choice skewed older, with just one song, "Varud," from their latest album Valtari, heavy on bigger hits like "Hoppipolla." - Samantha Abernethy

Yukimi Nagano, the bouncy Swede frontwoman of Little Dragon, is herself a little thing. Nagano danced wildly as the center of the band, wearing a flowy kimono like top and yellow mini skirt. The group’s popularity has been on the rise in recent years, collaborating with other artists including Gorillaz and Raphael Saadiq, and Nagano has been contributing vocals to dance singles for years. The four piece kicked off their Sunday set with two immediately recognizable tunes, "Looking Glass" and "Ritual Union," that had the kids at Perry's running for the stage. Many opted for the shade of the trees along the perimeter of Perry’s, though, as did we after a few songs of overheating in the blaring sun. - Michelle Meywes

"We're Of Monsters & Men, and we're here to play songs." And what songs they are. When I first heard this band's album My Head Is An Animal, I joked that the band is a poor man's Arcade Fire. The Icelandic group set themselves apart Sunday, though. I still think their sound is very similar to Arcade Fire, but in the manner that they both do complex arrangements, and they do them well. Of Monsters & Men is decidedly less cerebral and more danceable than Arcade Fire. Their one-two punch closer of "Little Talks" and "Dirty Paws," had the crowd singing along.

However, this was the third time this weekend I tried to watch a band at the Google Play stage when the hassle of maneuvering people, picnic tables and trees made the music just barely worth the trouble. Planners made at least one of the following mistakes here: Either placing Chow Town North too close to a stage, or booking bands on a smaller stage that have blown up in a matter of months. Of Monsters & Men, Fun. and others seemingly outgrew this stage between booking and performing, but it may not have been a problem if not for the adjacent traffic jam at Chowtown. - Samantha Abernethy

At The Drive-In is arguably more popular now than they were when the band broke up over ten years ago. So the kids were set up to love them no matter what they did. And what they did was deliver a ferocious set that was tight as a tourniquet. It was pretty much exactly what everyone expected from the group that energetically tied hardcore and prog rock into a knot and added a bit of melodic screamo to the mix. What the kids did not expect, and we were extremely excited to see was still intact, was the band’s—in particular frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala’s quick witted sense of humor. The band came out to Danzig’s “Mother” and started cracking jokes with each other right off the bat. This approach kept the band from coming across as too serious or self-absorbed, and that brought just the right amount of levity to allow the songs themselves to bristle and snarl more clearly. - Tankboy / Jim Kopeny

While Miike Snow certainly benefited from the large crowd assembling for Jack White, they already had a sizable group assembled just to see them. When last we saw the group they were playing The Empty Bottle and hiding behind masks for most of their set, but the band we saw Sunday strode onto the stage like conquering heroes and put on a show that has benefited from a couple years of touring under their belt. We saw more dancing during the length of their set than we had witnessed for most of the fest, and that includes long swathes of time at Perry’s stage. An astounding number of people in the crowd were singing along to every song, and when the band launched into their first hit, “Animal,” near the tail end of their set the crowd went absolutely bonkers. In was during this tune that we saw what became our favorite image of the whole weekend as a dad threw his boy up on his shoulders and the two danced around with matching huge smiles that bordered on wonder plastered across their faces. - Tankboy / Jim Kopeny

I decided to split my time between the two main stage headliners Jack White and Justice but I’ll be honest that while both acts brought their best attributes to the fore, neither one proved particularly enthralling. White did a great job of being Jack White and no one can doubt the man’s deep talents and ability to bring thrills to each and every song. But we realize that after seeing him onstage with so many creative foils in the past—with The White Stripes, Raconteurs and Dead Weather—that when he’s the sole focus of the show I felt slightly underwhelmed. At the other end of the field Justice did their best to inject metal into their Daft Punk impersonation and while this is a formula we actually do really enjoy, they just didn’t feel massive enough to fill a headlining spot. Luckily for me the experience with these two acts would set me up for my biggest surprise of the evening when I walked over to check out a side-stage set by Childish Gambino a.k.a. Donald Glover. - Tankboy / Jim Kopeny

I stayed put for Jack White's set, beginning to end. Justice Schmustice, this was the act I'd most anticipated for the weekend. The biggest question was how much of his material was going to come from his solo work, Dead Weather, White Stripes, Raconteurs or wherever the hell he felt like pulling from. He kicked it off with "Sixteen Saltines" from his latest solo Blunderbuss with an all-male band, and he ended the show with "Seven Nation Army" from The White Stripes' 2003 album Elephant with an all-female band. There were a lot of stops in between.

While he brought in a fair number of White Stripes tunes, they were completely re-imagined, usually with the addition of a Nashville country twang complete with steel guitar, standup bass and mandolin. There were more elaborate arrangements and extended jam sessions. The crowd seemed a little reluctant to get into White's show, but when he did a country version of "Hotel Yorba," square dance-style with a fiddle, the mood changed substantially.

For the encore, White gave the crowd the straightforward versions of big hits they wanted. He came out and launched into the Raconteurs' "Steady as she goes," and he encouraged a crowd participation singalong, which isn't the kind of thing I'd expect from him. He threw in White Stripes' "The Hardest Button to Button," new solo tune "Freedom at 21," and finished with "Seven Nation Army," which the crowd was still singing as they filed out. - Samantha Abernethy

“Thassim talkin’ bout Lolla!" yelled Donald Glover as we approached the Google Play stage for his closing set. The actor/writer/musician had a commanding stage presence, and we would have said we were surprised since he’s more known for his television roles, but we were too busy having a good time. Strobe lights and a full band colored the stage with Glover as he looked as though he might have just rolled out of bed onto the stage wearing semi-short athletic shorts and a t-shirt. At least he was comfortable as he delivered rapid-fire lyric lines like the ones over a cover of Adele’s “Rolling In The Deep” with recorded vocals courtesy of John Legend (we know this because it was displayed on the led screen at the back of the stage). Childish Gambino (a name he found using an online Wu-Tang Clan name generator) didn’t save his biggest hit, “Heartbeat” for last though, playing it with about 20 minutes still to go. He may have lost a portion of his crowd after that point, especially since you could hear Justice hitting a peak in the lull after the song, but what we got was a solid performance and an enjoyable ending to another marathon Lollapalooza weekend. - Michelle Meywes