Festival Review: Lollapalooza 2018

Another Lollapalooza has come and go in the blink of an eye. This year brought even more 14-year-olds, a ridiculous amount of body glitter and a whole lot of chaos. While it’s easy to argue that the demographic has absolutely shifted into the more annoying direction (in my humble opinion), I also think it’s important to note that C3 did a great job nabbing some of the most interesting rising acts (if you dig deep into the lineup enough – not many people do) – and managed to get some of the biggest names in alternative/indie music to help balance out the Top 40 mania that swept through Grant Park over the weekend. Was it an even split? Probably not.

I’ll start with a disclaimer that after attending Lollapalooza every year since 2013, I have to say that this year had the deepest undercard for my own music tastes. I had heard of artists down to the second or third line of booking this year before I even took the time to explore the artists who I hadn’t heard of before. For the music fans that attend the festival for 8-10 hours a day like myself, this was a major score. However, I had to end up picking seeing just a handful of artists I was interested in each day – if I could clone myself and see 3 performances happening at once, you bet I would have done it this year. For example – Sunday’s lineup on the BMI Stage. I would have stayed for every single performance from start to finish if I could have – I enjoyed that many musicians on the lineup this year. But it’s just not physically possible! Below are the artists I ended up seeing – whether or not that was 15 minutes of a set or an hour.

Some of the photos were taken by the wonderful & talented Callie Craig – who agreed to do a collaboration of sorts with me for this post. You can check out her website here and her Instagram here!

 

Courtesy of Callie Craig

4pm – After a 30-minute stint in line to get through security, I made my way to the Tito’s Stage to check out a throwback set from pop-punk band All Time Low. I worked half a day so there were a lot of artists I would have liked to see that I missed this day, but it was probably for the best that I was conserving my energy.

All Time Low was at their peak popularity when I was in middle school and early high school, although they show no signs of slowing down as they continue to release new music and have recently announced a headlining tour. I haven’t kept up with their music since their 2011 release, Dirty Work, so I was hoping that the set would be primarily older songs and their big ones. Unfortunately this was not the case.

I did get to hear a lot of the oldies like “Damned If I Do Ya” and “Stella,” but the hour-long set (they really didn’t need to be playing for an hour) focused around their newer releases and their current single, “Everything Is Fine” (which was not my cup of tea). I enjoyed hearing the songs I do know, but I left feeling a little unsatisfied, especially since they had such a long time slot.

Courtesy of Callie Craig

6pm – I grudgingly made my way back to the Tito’s stage (I dislike this stage almost as much as I hate Perry’s) to catch one of the most quickly rising artists booked at the fest: Billie Eilish. Why they put her on a side stage with compact viewing space? I will never know. Billie’s 300 million+ streams on Spotify and 4.4 million Instagram followers boast her ability to pull a crowd – which was absolutely the case at her early evening set.

Eilish’s 600-person capacity show in March and sold out North American tour made her rise as an indie pop artist eminent – and though funny, bold and talented as a 16-year-old (Do I see another Lorde in our midst?), Eilish’s overall slow catalog combined with the lousy sound quality of the stage made her performance more underwhelming than expected. You can’t expect perfection from a teenager, and I still think she’s one to keep an eye on, but but her decision to play as many slow songs in a row as she did (I’m counting four with a nice break for her newest release “You Should See Me In A Crown,”) made it hard for the audience to stay invested.

The most exciting moment of the set was the surprise cameo from another rising superstar – Khalid – who happened to be performing on the Bud Light stage next door immediately after Eilish’s set ended. The performance of the pair’s song “Lovely” got festival goers from all angles running to the stage – proving that these two, just 16 and 20-years-old, will have a lot to offer in the coming years.

7pm – Billie’s set ended about five minutes early, which helped me book it out of the north end of the festival to make the mile trek for Chvrches, the Scottish electronic-pop group who was boldly booked on the south main stage, opposing Khalid (I will let you guess who had the bigger crowd).

I missed the opening of the set but still managed to hear just about 40 minutes. Chrvhces has been one of my favorite acts for awhile and despite being immensely disappointed in their recent album release, Love Is Dead, I still had fun dancing solo in the scattered audience – that was probably the smallest population I have ever seen at a subheadlining set in my six years of attending Lollapalooza (going back to my intro about the booking patterns this year – everyone and their moms were watching Khalid). Not sure if it was the band’s multiple year break that made them seem nervous or the fact that they very well knew that their crowd was small, but they seemed to be a little more timid in their performance execution compared to when I have seen them before. And who can blame them? When 70,000+ people decide to see performers other than you during your set, it can get to your head.

My favorite moments were hearing “Clearest Blue” (my favorite song) and The National’s Matt Berninger making a surprise appearance (which seemed to have waken up the crowd a bit) to sing “My Enemy” with Lauren Mayberry. Still a fun time, still am happy that I chose to see their return after not seeing them in over two years rather than seeing Khalid (who’s quickly on his way to becoming overexposed, in my opinion).

7:45pm – Ask me how many times I’ve heard Camila Cabello perform this summer. The answer is three and three is enough for me (and I enjoy her music). After seeing her open for Taylor Swift on the reputation tour twice in Chicago, I had a feeling that I didn’t NEED to see her again – and I was right. I’m still convinced that she was lip-syncing at her sets on the rep tour (she had to take off a show just a couple weeks before due to exhaustion) – and was curious to see if it’d happen again at Lolla. While it seemed like she may had been at the start of “Never Be The Same,” it seemed like the rest of the set was live – which I saw bits and pieces of as I was running to the bathroom, getting water, etc.

She pulled a decent crowd – another one that would have been better suited on a main stage – and did the correct thing (that other artists failed to do) by closing with her biggest song – “Havana.” Did you know that Cabello, only 21, holds the record for the song with the most streams ever on Spotify by a female solo artist? You would have been able to tell based on the dance party commenced during her performance of the song. Many people quickly rushed off in spurts as the song ended, probably to go towards the opposite end of the park to catch Travis Scott.

8:30pm – A set five years in the making: I was finally seeing Arctic Monkeys perform. Their last performance at Lollapalooza was in 2014 – but my group of 10 people preferred seeing Eminem, so 19-year-old Kristin obliged. I definitely would have never agreed to that now. I have seen Alex Turner perform with his other band, The Last Shadow Puppets, at Lolla 2016, but my real love is for AM, and this was one of the sets I was most anticipating.

First off – Alex Turner is still as hunky as ever with a buzzcut, which did not register with me until about three songs in as I realized how ridiculous I was being. Regardless of the fact that I probably only recognized about half of the songs they sang – I was blown away by their stage presence and Turner’s unwavering vocal abilities. It was easily the best set of the day, and their minimal chatter in between songs allowed them to dive deep into their catalog, playing 21 songs. I left after the first encore and missed the last two – which I’m now kicking myself for. The crowd was fairly small, with – you guessed it – the majority of attendees watching Travis Scott perform on the Bud Light stage. I preferred the more lax, intimate crowd settings and saw minimal 16-year-olds in glitter, so I have no complaints.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BmEG7w7FIpL/?taken-by=mattmaeson

12pm – I started the 95 degree day strong with the first set of the day: Matt Maeson. I’ve been a fan for about a year and a half and first saw Maeson perform while he was touring with Jaymes Young (and to be frank, his performance as the opener was better than Young himself). In years prior, I have gotten to Grant Park around 12-1 every day but this was the only set at noon I was dedicated on seeing all weekend. Despite the ridiculous heat, his set was 100% worth the early trek and I was really impressed with the amount of people who showed up early to see him. He has one of the most powerful voices of anyone I saw all weekend and I guarantee he ended his set making a lot of new fans.

His voice is the kind of voice that could deal with the not so great acoustics that the Tito’s stage offers – and his  stature and attitude gave off the impression of a veteran performer. I think it ended up being one of my favorite sets of the weekend!

1:45pm – I knew some of Scottish singer/songwriter Lewis Capaldi’s songs but I wasn’t set on seeing him since I was also debating seeing Clairo at this time (I heard she wasn’t the best). But I’m glad I ended up with Lewis because boy can that dude sing. I got into the small but eager crowd for a couple of songs but it was too hot to stand in the sun for that long – ironic because Capaldi himself was decked out in jeans and a leather jacket but continued to sing, ignoring the fact that he was profusely sweating. Nearly every song he sang was incredibly depressing and a bit of a buzzkill and I think it’s a hard style of music to pull of at a festival, but I think he did a good job. He has vocal chops on par with Adele and I can’t imagine it’ll be much longer until he completely blows up.

4pm – The crowd at the American Eagle stage gathered quickly for 24-year-old Ari Leff, aka Lauv. Lauv has had an incredible run with his music over the last year and a half or so – his biggest song, “I Like Me Better,” is pushing 500 million streams on Spotify. I have been following his work casually for awhile but I haven’t seen someone blow up as quickly as he has – and his massive crowd was to show for it. Competing sets from Lizzo and Bebe Rexha didn’t seem to affect Leff – who has a natural stage presence and boyish charms that are enough to get him on a main stage in a couple years time. His vocals could have been stronger, but his songwriting is what makes him as popular as he is, and it was nice to see so many people singing along to sad (and a couple happy) songs about love.

4:45pm – Let me just say that I was a full-fledged James Bay fan at the beginning of his career. I love his debut album and always will, but I didn’t feel the same way about his sophomore release, out a few months ago. I was indifferent about seeing him perform again – and I enjoyed hearing the hits, but overall I felt like the show was a bit uninspired and sort of a lame booking even though I know he’s about to start touring again. Nonetheless, he has a great voice and is a great guitar player. I think I have just outgrown him.

5:45pm – On my way out of the north side of the festival, I saw about 20 minutes of The Neighborhood’s return to Lolla. They had played at the exact same stage in 2013 at 12pm – which was the very first Lollapalooza set I had ever seen. I really enjoyed their debut album when it came out but they were another band who seemed to take a break just at the peak of their momentum – and I am really not sure what they are up to anymore. I heard a couple songs that I recognized but the majority of the set seemed sleepy and lazy, to be quite honest. Not much stage presence? Maybe just sad boy music. Someone change my mind. Next!

6:30pm – I knew I would rather be anywhere than be on the north end of Grant Park when Post Malone’s performance started, so I went to check out Greta Van Fleet. A traditional rock group straight out of the 70’s, GVF is not my genre of choice, but I was curious to see something different and they were really one of the only rock artists on the bill all weekend long. It was SO nice to be surrounded by people who were truly there for the music and weren’t constantly shouting and bumping into you: aka they were all a lot older people and I enjoyed it. The performance was really a spectacle of sorts and unlike anything else I have ever seen before, and it was interesting to see how they fit into 2018’s current music landscape. They are making their own lane, that is for sure.

7pm – The BMI stage barely had anyone attending and RLUMR (pronounced “are lum are”) deserved to be performing to a bigger crowd. This is what happens when you are scheduled against one of the biggest mainstream musicians of 2018. The group didn’t seem to mind though, as the dedicated, but small crowd was into the set and I even saw some people singing along. It was interesting to go from rock to PR&B and I think I did prefer Greta Van Fleet, but it was nice to take a break from the chaos and see the other musicians and what they have to offer. I love this part of music festivals: roaming is really fun and being able to bounce around sets with ease is something I very much enjoy. Fun fact: Reginald Lamar Williams (lead singer) also plays classical guitar!

Courtesy of Callie Craig

7:45pm – Lollapalooza really likes to do this thing where bands I’m DYING to see are smashed on the Grove Stage (this year it was called The American Eagle Stage) as pre-headliners which means I either see their entire set and have to run to one end of the park to see a headliner or miss the end of said band’s set. Last year it was Sylvan Esso into Chance the Rapper (who ended up coming on late) and this year it was Brockhampton into Bruno (who, surprise surprise, also came on late).

Brockhampton is a surprise like of mine because I hardly listen to rap music and I’m sure many of you know that. But something about them is just so refreshingly cool and fun that I was really looking forward to seeing them perform this year. Dubbing themselves as the “best boy band on earth,” the eight members have been on the rise for the past year or so and garnered themselves a healthy audience piling into the tree-heavy area for the late performance – many who had just come straight from Post Malone’s set.

I ended up seeing about 25 minutes but it only felt like a glimpse into what they could do.

8:30pm – Let’s just talk about how much of a low-key attitude I had about seeing Bruno Mars. I’m not sure how I feel about the debate that he’s just appropriating culture in his music, etc. but that dude is extremely talented. I was going into it knowing it would be a really great performance even though I was being spiteful about it but I left actually super glad that I had got to see his performance.

Bruno Mars has the HITS – and he is probably the biggest pop star I’ve ever seen perform a headlining set at Lollapalooza. He was years ahead of Chance the Rapper’s 2017 performance last year – the only other headliner I can think of that drew just as big of an audience (I read somewhere that The National’s crowd barely went past the first sound booth in the field – and if you don’t know what that means – just know it was a VERY intimate crowd).

I was surprised to discover after the set that I knew 11/14 songs he performed which was pretty decent – you don’t realize how many hits he actually has until he performs them all in 90 minutes for you. It was a lot of fun but I’m still bitter that he didn’t play “Grenade” and that I missed another opportunity to see The National. In due time, I suppose.

1:50pm – Amy Shark first came on my radar when it was announced that she was opening up for Bleachers on their fall tour and I ended up seeing her perform in November. She had fallen off of my radar for awhile until her debut album, Love Monster, was released just a few weeks ago in July and I ended up liking a lot of it. I decided to see her again at Lolla because not only was she given more time to perform but she had obviously more material to work with since November of 2017. I was really impressed with the amount of people who showed up for her set, especially because it was 95+ degrees outside! I managed to stand in the heat (and eventually found a spot in the shade of the stage) for the entire performance and I had a great time.

Shark got through a couple songs before mentioning how excited she was to be in Chicago, saying it was the best day of her life. She got through fan favorites like “Blood Brothers” and “Weekends,” which got the majority of the crowd to sing along – before she closed with her biggest song to date “I Said Hi” – a song about not giving up on your dreams. Cleary it’s working for her – the song is approaching 16 million streams on Spotify.

Courtesy of Callie Craig

2:50pm – Another band I was happy to check off of my list! Pale Waves has been releasing banger after banger this year after their first release “There’s A Honey” in the spring of 2017 – and it’s inevitable they are going to blow up anytime now. After being signed on The 1975’s album label and touring with them, they’ve created a solid fanbase since their sound is so similar to their label mates. Their performance reminded me a lot of The 1975’s early performance days as a buzzing band, complete with goth makeup, guitar solos and silly dance moves.

There was something very endearing about their performance and it was interesting to see them starting to transition as a headlining band instead of just supporting other musicians on tour. Not sure when their debut album is set to come out, but I am certain that they will blow up in a year from now. One of my favorite performances of the weekend for sure!

Courtesy of Callie Craig

4:40pm – Has Catfish & The Bottlemen released any new music since their run in 2014? I honestly have no idea because they were a band I never really got behind. I do know that  they share a TON of fans with The 1975 so they must still be churning out the tunes. It was a nice break to sit on the sidelines and watch their performance (but I was just mentally preparing to see Carly Rae Jepsen perform songs off of EMOTION for the first time immediately afterwards). They sang 2-3 songs that I knew and seemed to pull a decent amount of people – LL Cool J was performing on the north end of the park.

5:30pm – Who do I have to talk to in order for female musicians to stop being slotted onto side stages? Seriously! With Billie Eilish, Camila Cabello, Carly and later Dua Lipa (and other female acts who I did not see perform) all being on side stages, it makes me wonder what the heck Lolla producers are thinking. Carly’s sound was messed up from the beginning and the volume never seemed to improve over her HOUR LONG set, which made it a lot hard to hear (and enjoy) for those of us who were located in the back end of the crowd. It was really unfortunate because it was one of the performances I was most looking forward to and if I knew that the sound was going to be messed up, I totally would have gotten a lot further into the audience.

Carly worked through the sound issues and was able to captivate the front of the audience who seemed to be close enough to hear well – and now it’s just an excuse for me to go see her again when she returns to Chicago. Despite the sound difficulties, being able to hear the songs I have been DYING to hear live for years was a highlight of the weekend.

6:45pm – I made my way across the park to see St. Vincent – another act that I was very excited to see. Annie Clark put out one of my favorite albums of 2017 with Masseduction and I knew her live show was supposed to be incredible – and for the 30 minutes I was there, it absolutely was! Looking back, I regret leaving her set to meet my friends back for Dua Lipa (more on that below) and I know I would have enjoyed seeing her entire performance with plenty of space in the audience to breathe and dance around – which is rare with 100,000 people attending the festival every day.

It was nice to see another woman on a main stage (see rant in above paragraph) and someone as high caliber as St. Vincent absolutely deserved the slot. She had such incredible visuals and plays such a character onstage it was unlike any other performance I saw all weekend. Not to mention her vocals were amazing! She was recently in Chicago at the Chicago Theater but I would absolutely love to see her perform again the next time she’s in town – and for more than 30 minutes.

Courtesy of Callie Craig

7:45pm – Dua Lipa played Lollapalooza 2 years ago on a side stage at 2pm and less than 500 people saw it (I was one of them). Fast forward two years and she’s closing out a side stage and attracted nearly every attendee to her set. It was great to see but also frustrating that they decided to put her on a small stage where she would have been a better fit for a 5pm or 7pm slot on the main stage, considering the pull she had. We left early to get to Vampire Weekend on time so I didn’t see her sing the big ones like “IDGAF” or “New Rules,” but she seemed to have a problem keeping up the momentum of her performance in my opinion, since she played a couple slower songs in a row. I think she would have been better performing “IDGAF” earlier on to hype the crowd up and keep them on board for the rest of the set.

I definitely would have enjoyed this performance more if people weren’t constantly trying to shove past me and get closer to the stage – which could have been a lot better controlled on a bigger stand with a bigger standing area. But now I’m just a broken record.

8:30pm – Let me tell you how ridiculously excited I was to see Vampire Weekend again. SO EXCITED I CAN’T EXPLAIN IT! VW opened their set with “A-Punk” – THREE TIMES. I was so flabbergasted and overwhelmed with excitement I didn’t even care. This 90 minutes was by far the best of the weekend and seeing the band back after an extremely long hiatus was like seeing a best friend again for the first time in years. Vampire Weekend has been putting out good music consistently for so long, it’s very impressive to see them just as strong as ever, especially with one of the band’s founding members, Rostam, no longer in the picture. They seemed to still mesh strongly, with two new additions to the band.

VW was right at home on the Bud Light stage – the same stage where I had seen them perform for the first time FIVE YEARS Prior (to the day!) and I have no idea how big their crowd was because I was very close in the front and never looked back or left the crowd. One can infer that the majority of the crowd was at The Weeknd, but that made the night even more special. It was great to hear them return with all of their hits and made me even more excited for their new music.

1pm – The final stretch! I am not sure how I managed to get to Grant Park by 1pm on the last day of Lollapalooza but I made it for Morgan Saint. Totally worth the extra energy. Morgan Saint’s airy, dreamy pop was a perfect start to the last day of Lollapalooza and she pulled an impressively sized crowd, considering how much slower things to seem to move when everyone is beyond exhausted. Saint’s debut EP, 17 Hero, was released in 2017 and she’s recently released a cover of Cardi B.’s “Through Your Phone” so good – take a listen!

She reminds me a lot of early Halsey and I think if she can gain enough momentum in terms of continuing to perform and hopefully release new music, I think she has the talent to get to that level. Her ability to stay current to what is “in” in 2018 while not conforming to the norm is very interesting and worth watching.

Courtesy of Callie Craig

1:50pm – Rex Orange County is making music different than anyone else I heard at Lollapalooza this year and his crowd was shockingly large – even more so because it was the hottest time of the day and the dust was even dustier than usual in Grant Park. The entire set was like a camp fire singalong and I couldn’t believe how many fans this dude has – and he’s only 20-years-old.

I really enjoy the majority of his music and the set was fun – but it was getting to the point where I was ready for the “I just want you to love me” theme to end. That sounds harsh, but nearly 40 minutes singing about the same topic wasn’t enough for me to praise it more than noting his obvious talent. He’s young, so I’m sure he will have plenty opportunities to grow as an artist and will look forward to seeing what’s next from him.

2:50pm – One of the most overwhelmingly amazing sets of the weekend: Jessie Reyez. I had recently gone deep into her catalog and was really interested in her sound and was curious to see her live performance and was NOT expecting to be as blown away as I was. This was a shocker of a set and she had amazing energy from start to finish. Not only is she a humble and grateful performer, but she is authentic with her storytelling and is not afraid to bare it all onstage, giving anecdotes to a lot of her stories and sharing personal experiences that has inspired her work.

The most noteworthy moment was her performance of her song “Gatekeeper” – a song about being told the only way for her to succeed as a musician was to perform sexual favors for producers. Touching on how “The #MeToo movement is not new,” Reyez encouraged audience members to step closer into the pit and out from under the trees and come together as she climbed up part of the stage screaming into the audience. I will be quite honest, it nearly drove me to tears. I wish everyone could have seen this performance and I’m beyond excited to see what’s next for her. Side note: did you know she helped write the smash hit “One Kiss” by Dua Lipa and Calvin Harris? Now you know!

Courtesy of Callie Craig

3:45pm – 23-year-old Columbian-American singer Kali Uchis’ debut album, Isolation, is already being called one of the best albums of 2018 – which means I had to check out her set at Lollapalooza this year. I got to the set a few minutes late and was a bit disappointed to hear that she may have been having the same sound issue as Carly did nearly 24 hours before. I was also watching from far away so I couldn’t be fully immersed in the performance, but from what I could hear and see, it seemed like she was giving a great performance. I would definitely recommend checking out her album if you haven’t already!

She will be playing in Chicago again this fall (although the show date isn’t currently listed on her website). Click here for the full list of tour dates.

Courtesy of Callie Craig

4:30pm – Probably the most crowded I’ve ever seen the BMI stage at Lollapalooza (besides Halsey in 2015) is The Aces’ afternoon set this year. I’ve said this a million times on this blog but I’ve been following The Aces’ career for a very long time (click here to see the times I have written about them) and had been waiting so long to see them live! The time finally came and I was really excited to see them pull in such a large audience.

Lollapalooza’s lineup was already very male balanced, and it was a refreshing change to see an all-female band perform, especially because they are all very close in age with myself. I think in time they will continue to build their stage presence (although it’s already very promising) but I left the set wondering why they didn’t play their full set time (they were given 40 minutes, they played 30). Especially since their debut album came out just a couple months ago – I was expecting them to take advantage of this set. Regardless, I think they did a great job and will continue to follow their career.

5:30pm – A really cool thing about this year’s Lollapalooza lineup was the amount of artists I was seeing for the first time ever, which is different compared to year’s past. I had seen about 3 minutes of a Manchester Orchestra performance the last time they played the festival (I believe it was 2014) – and that obviously doesn’t count.

The end of my Sunday at Lollapalooza 2018 was nice because I spent my last two sets seeing bands I had never seen before – and both sets had 0 teenagers wandering around in glitter (I will never understand this trend). I didn’t expect Manchester Orchestra to be as rock-heavy as they were, I guess this must be because the majority of the music of theirs I listen to is more of their mellow stuff. It was a nice time to just relax in the grass and listen to the music. They have been performing for over 10 years and it definitely shows as they were one of the most consistently solid performers I had seen all weekend.

6:30pm – Finally! A set I had been wanting to see for over five years! I’ve been a fan of Portugal The Man for a very long time and sadly missed their performance in 2014 at Lollapalooza because my group wanted to see Iggy Azalea (sigh). It was worth the wait because since then, the band has grown immensely and even have a Grammy under their belt now. I was completely blown away with 1) the fact that they had over 10 people onstage with them, including a multitude of background singers and a cello player and 2) their outstanding visuals, including showing their support of gun control and other current political topics (they lean left).

It was cool to see them pen with my personal favorite song, “Purple, Yellow Red and Blue” and they managed to turn in into a jam session, making the intro to their set nearly 10 minutes long. I didn’t realize how many of their songs I actually knew, which was a pleasant surprise, and it was the perfect set to end my Lollapalooza weekend. Very relaxed audience with much of an older, mature crowd – which I very much prefer.

11pm – After leaving the festival early, I headed home to try to recover for a couple hours before I headed back out to see Vampire Weekend’s after show at the Metro. I managed to get tickets to the show and I still don’t know how I got through, but it was seriously one of the best shows of my entire life. I was concerned about my ability to stay awake throughout the show (and let me tell you – I hit a WALL about halfway through) – but Ezra deciding to share new music with the audience by plugging his phone into the aux cord and playing it through the venue’s speaker absolutely woke me UP!

The show was phone free, meaning you were required to lock  your phone in a small pouch to be kept in your bag throughout the night, which I actually ended up enjoying a lot more than I anticipated. I was only getting anxious over not knowing the time, but it made the show a lot more focused on the present and of course, made it impossible for the unreleased music to get leaked. Hence, I have no pictures of the venue inside.

Vampire Weekend played for 2.5 hours – a lot of deep cuts and a lot of fan favorites – and the set was even better after we got to hear 4-5 new songs and even heard a performance of a new one. I could personally hear how Rostam’s influence was not as evident in the music as it has been in the past, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I like it any less. It sounded very Fleetwood Mac meets Jackson 5 meets Vampire Weekend – and I left the venue at 1:30AM even more amped to hear the album (they still haven’t announced a release date). Get it together!

My favorite sets of the weekend go to…(in order by day)

• Arctic Monkeys
• Matt Maeson
• Brockhampton
• Pale Waves
• Carly Rae Jepsen
• St. Vincent
• Vampire Weekend
• Jessie Reyez
• Portugal. The Man

Most disappointing sets of the weekend go to…

• James Bay
• The Neighbourhood

Another Lollapalooza weekend has come and gone in a blink of an eye. I was truly concerned I wouldn’t be able to handle four days and an after show but I got through it a lot easier than I anticipated. Does this mean another 4 day weekend will commence again next year? We shall see.

Thanks so much for reading! Did you attend this year? What were your thoughts? Let me know below!

Click here to read all of my previous posts covering Lollapalooza.

Lollapalooza 2019 predictions coming soon…

– Kristin