Staged Haze Takes Lollapalooza 2024: Our Recap

If you told 18-year-old Kristin, freshly graduated from high school and on her way to Grant Park to experience her first Lollapalooza in 2013, that she would go on to attend Lollapalooza another nine times, with three of them being on assignment for her music blog, she would have laughed in your face.

I definitely just showed my age, but it’s no secret that at Staged Haze, we’ve been covering Lollapalooza for many, many years now. As a Chicago-grown publication, it’d be crazy not to cover our city’s staple music festival, and getting to attend year after year been one of the most exciting things about running a music blog.

As I approach my 30th year, I can’t help but feel a bit of existential dread when it comes to questioning if my opinion on music and popular culture is “cool” and coming to terms with I am no longer apart of the target demographic. That was certainly evident as I walked into my tenth Lollapalooza, seeing kids half my age, some even younger, wandering around Grant Park for (probably) the first time without adult supervision.

But this year, I genuinely didn’t feel too old. Based on the amount of people I saw in the crowds that were my age or older, along with the booking of so many artists whose music shaped my teenage years and even my early 20s, it felt like a perfect combination of celebrating the millennials of the music industry as well as the Gen Z artists that are shaping what’s to come.

If you took a hard look around, there was something for everyone: metal (Deftones, Pierce The Veil), rock (The Killers, Blink 182), soul (Hozier, RAYE,) and the pop princesses of the future (Chappell Roan, Renee Rapp, Tyla, and Tate McRae). Those artists and the genres they live in don’t even begin to scratch the surface of all of the different types of music that were offered on this year’s lineup: a remarkable feat for a festival whose lineup drops will forever be criticized the moment they’re released.

Festivals are what you make of them: and there’s always going to be someone out there complaining that it’s not “good enough” for them—but if you look hard enough, I guarantee you’ll find special moments in places you never thought to take a second look at.

This year, I attended 32 sets, interviewed two artists, and walked 40.31 miles across four days of music. Additionally, Staged Haze photographers covered a whopping ten Lollapalooza after shows.

It goes without saying: we love this festival and how it brings so many strangers together for the love of music and community. Even if you just skim over this year’s recap, we hope you find something new to enjoy.

THURSDAY

Photo Credit: Josh Brasted for FilmMagic

Mette: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Lollapalooza always does an incredible job at booking artists that are on the verge of exploding into mainstream success territory, including (but not limited to) Halsey, Billie Eilish, and Dua Lipa. I’m confident that in a few years, METTE will be included on that list of acts that performed at Lolla before their breakthrough.

If you have read any of our stories before, you probably already know that I’ve referred to METTE a couple times, one for her song “MUSCLE” a couple months ago, and again during our Lolla pre-coverage. On top of releasing several BANGERS over the last nine-ish months, someone else in the industry recognized her talent…METTE was selected by none other than Taylor Swift herself to be one of her special opening acts on one of EIGHT sold-out shows at Wembley Stadium: lamenting that her star potential is obvious.

Opening up the T-Mobile Stage isn’t an easy feat, and it’s certainly not easy to do so when it’s literally the first artist to perform on that stage over the entire weekend, but METTE made the performance completely her own. Donning a simple pair of denim jeans and a white cutoff top, METTE didn’t come to play, showcasing her professional dance skills almost immediately.

Since she doesn’t have a ton of music out just yet, she made a good use of adding back-up dancers to her set, giving the performance an added layer of theatrics that allowed her potential as a successful dance pop act seem very possible (and likely). Warming up the crowd who was filled with a mix of those who knew her music and those who were there for a good time, it was obvious that METTE made her mark on the festival as one of the earliest performers of the weekend.

Photo credit (L to R): Dusana Risovic, Pooneh Ghana, and Dusana Risovic for Lollapalooza

Chappell Roan: What is there to say about Chappell Roan that hasn’t already been said? In less than six months, her rise to becoming a household name has been nothing short of meteoric. According to this chart by Chartmetric, her monthly listeners on DSPs skyrocketed from just under a million in September 2023 to 20 million in June 2023: if you look on Spotify, she’s hovering at 36 million and is currently the 112th most streamed artist in the entire world.

Chappell’s overnight success to a mainstream audience caused many music festivals she was already booked to perform at to move her to a larger stage to meet the demand of the crowd sizes: and they were absolutely right in doing so on Thursday afternoon at Lollapalooza. Taking the T-Mobile Stage at 5pm (she was previously set to perform at IHG Stage at 6pm: a much smaller stage with arguably 1/3 of the room for a crowd), and the entire field was full from top to bottom. I’m no good at math, but folks on the internet are speculating it was around 80,000 people (view the video here) and the biggest daytime set in the history of the festival. After four days of attending this year’s edition, it goes without saying that her crowd pull was the largest I witnessed all weekend: headliners included.

I’ve been following Roan’s career for awhile now: starting in 2018 when I saw her open for Declan McKenna and again in 2022 at The Troubadour in Los Angeles. Her confidence onstage has increased exponentially, likely due to the positive response she’s received as an openly queer performer with such a wide demographic of fans. It’s unbelievably refreshing and positive to see a woman in this position at such a young age (26) embracing her sexuality without fear of alienating audiences: a piece of her identity that is being championed rather than isolating. It also can’t go without saying that Roan has an incredible voice, making her an undeniable force to be reckoned with as an artist on her way to doing incredible things.

Photo credit (L to R): Ashley Osborn, Roger Ho, Ashley Osborn for Lollapalooza

Kesha: After several years of turmoil surrounding legal issues and a 2023 album that didn’t do very well commercially, it seems that we are witnessing a rebirth of 37-year-old pop princess pioneer Kesha, who previously debuted at Lollapalooza back in 2009. Despite her previous singles like the renowned “TikTok,” “Your Love Is My Drug,” and “Timber” hitting their peak in the early 2010s, Kesha, who was initially booked for the main stage at 5pm before being switched with Chappell Roan, still managed to pull one of the largest crowds I experienced all weekend, including the Gen Z attendees that I incorrectly assumed wouldn’t be too familiar with her music.

While it was easy for many of the fans to walk a few thousand feet from the T-Mobile Stage to the IHG Stage (forever known as the Lakeshore stage to many of us Lolla-goers) from Chappell’s set to Kesha’s, it cause a massive traffic jam for the majority of Kesha’s set that was unfortunately very distracting from the performance onstage. My unsolicited opinion? Kesha should have been billed at 7pm on the main stage in place of Labrinth, whose set pulled many less people compared to both Chappell and Kesha.

Kesha pulled out all the stops for her return to Lollapalooza, including multiple costume changes in the one-hour set, backup dancers, fake blood, and a butcher knife that was apparently once a prop, then switched out for a real knife, unbeknownst to Kesha until after the performance. (???) It felt like a showcase of her greatest hits while simultaneously a pivotal moment for the star, who just released a very “brat summer” esque single in “JOYRIDE” last month, to make her return to the pop music space. With edgy pop stars like Chappell Roan, Charli xcx, and Remi Wolf as her peers, I see no signs of Kesha’s return to form slowing down.

Photo Credit: (L to R), Kirby Gladstein, Kirby Gladstein, and Ashley Osborn for Lollapalooza

Hozier: After witnessing a massive last year or so for Irish singer-songwriter Hozier, it was not surprising to see him pull a large crowd for his headlining set on the smaller of the two main stages on Thursday night of Lollapalooza. Initially scheduled to perform at the same time as Tyler. The Creator across the park, Megan Thee Stallion ended up filling the slot after it was announced that Tyler would no longer be playing the festival several weeks earlier. With that being said, it was quite obvious that Hozier’s commercial success ended up garnering the bigger crowd of the two, with Megan just in the early stages of becoming a headlining artist at major festivals.

I find it fascinating to try to unpack the way that artists in this space, typically ones that are male, go from “cool” to for, lack of a better word, “tacky:” artists like Imagine Dragons and OneRepublic come to mind, and how those like Hozier and Noah Kahan continue to stay successful as commercial artists while simultaneously not succumbing to the pressures of being more palatable musicians. The explanation is subjective, but I’d venture to say that those “cool” artists, like Hozier, bring a deeper level of authenticity to their music that connects to people in real ways: despite becoming bigger and bigger over the last ten years of so, I would argue that Hozier’s music has generally sounded the same, giving the effect that he hasn’t had to sacrifice any sort of artistry to appeal to the masses.

Despite Hozier’s debut, self-titled album (which I also consider to be a comfort album of mine), is about to hit its ten year anniversary this October, six of the 16 songs on Hozier’s set were from his debut: lamenting its place in his discography as an important body of work, and likely a fan favorite. Performing classics like “Jackie and Wilson,” “Cherry Wine,” and “Work Song,” as well as newer tracks like “Eat Your Young” and of course, “Too Sweet,” (which is his second highest streamed song ever, despite only being released this past March), Hozier proved that his talents as a singer-songwriter can bring a little something to everyone: a feat that is not easy to accomplish in today’s music landscape.

FRIDAY

Photo Credit: Charles Reagan for Lollapalooza

Tiny Habits: In a twist of events that surprises absolutely nobody, three incredibly talented students studying at the Berklee College of Music create beautiful music together. That’s how singer-songwriter trio Tiny Habits, comprised of Cinya Khan, Maya Rae, Judah Mayowa got their start back in 2021, initially coming together to upload covers of themselves harmonizing to popular songs on social media and later officially forming a group to release original music.

If the name sounds familiar, it’s because they’ve toured with Lizzy McAlpine as her designated backup singers, therefore opening the door to a much larger group of potential fans. Since then, the band has embarked on their own headlining tour and released their debut album earlier this year. I had the chance to catch Tiny Habits perform at the Toyota Music Den on early Friday afternoon: a short, acoustic set that was the pre-show to the group’s main performance.

Despite the members admitting to dealing with nerves ahead of this set, surprised at the amount of people who were in attendance, their performance showed little signs of anxiety. Highlights of the 30-minute performance included a couple of my favorites in “Wishes” and “Mudroom,” as well as a delightful cover of Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know,” Tiny Habits’ acoustic performance left me wanting more: something that musicians should always strive for after a set.

Photo Credit: Ashley Osborn for Lollapalooza

RAYE: As someone who has become obsessed with British singer-songwriter-vocal extraordinaire RAYE over the last year or so, I was so stoked to not only see her on this year’s Lollapalooza lineup, but that the crowd was actually so welcoming and open to hearing more of her music than just the TikTok hits.

RAYE’s mid-afternoon set also happened to be during one of the hottest points of the day on top of an already incredibly hot weekend, making it seem all that more draining for fans to gather around on the blazing hot concrete that engulfs the floor of the Tito’s Stage on the North end of Grant Park. But it didn’t stop the masses from coming and soaking up everything that RAYE has to offer: including moments of full on jazz scatting, orchestral solos, and a seven-minute song that even RAYE mentioned wasn’t usually so well received by audience members in the past.

With an entire big band on stage to back her up, RAYE’s hour-long set showed off her vocal prowess and chameleon-like abilities to twist herself into fitting seamlessly into every genre, switching from neo-soul (“Worth It,”) to pop (“Escapism,”) and EDM (“Prada,”) that all miraculously fit her like a glove. With songwriting credits for major artists including Charli xcx, Ellie Goulding, and most recently, Beyoncé, it’s evident that RAYE’s talent as a vocalist, songwriter, and performer have made her a juggernaut to keep your eye on.

Photo Credit: (L to R), Miranda McDonald, Miranda McDonald, and Roger Ho for Lollapalooza

Reneé Rapp: It was evident that the energy in the air at this year’s Lollapalooza was different (at least to me). There felt like a shift in expectations from each other as attendees, like we were more accepting of each other and what makes us unique. That may sound silly and I am quite sleep deprived, but I’d like to believe that it’s true because of how many women and openly queer people were celebrated on this year’s lineup: including 24-year-old Reneé Rapp.

I was only introduced to Rapp when I first started watching “The Sex Lives of College Girls” back in 2021, but I quickly realized that Rapp’s list of professional accolades had started long before there. It goes without saying that her time on broadway has shaped her vocal abilities immensely: she can belt like Beyoncé and still make a really catchy pop song. Despite the immense heat and the growing crowd that filled the field at The T-Mobile Stage on Friday afternoon, I didn’t notice any sort of break in confidence from Rapp, who clearly was an artist on many people’s schedules to see that weekend.

Standout moments from the set (for me) included the opening performance of “Talk Too Much,” (my personal favorite), “Pretty Girls,” and “Too Well,” – I was disappointed that she left “Colorado” and “I Hate Boston” off the setlist, especially because she didn’t play the entire 60 minutes she was allotted. She also opted to bring out Chicago’s very own Chance The Rapper halfway through the set to perform “No Problem” as an homage to Chance’s album, Coloring Book, being one of her favorite releases from 2016. It was certainly an unexpected pairing, and the crowd ate it up.

Photo Credit: (L to R), Cassidy Meyers, Ashley Osborn, and Cassidy Meyers for Lollapalooza

SZA: As someone who listened to SZA’s 2017 breakout album Ctrl religiously the summer after I graduated college while I was thrusted into the real world, finally getting the opportunity to see her life was a huge deal for me. I vividly remember back in 2017 when SZA, who was still quite successful at the time, was performing at Concord Music Hall—and tickets were far too expensive for me, a 22-year-old nearly broke kid with an entry level job, to pay for.

Nevertheless, I waited patiently for several years at my chance to scream along to “Prom,” “Drew Barrymore,” and “Supermodel,” and it finally happened this past Saturday night in Grant Park. Since I hadn’t seen SZA before and generally stayed away from any content of her live performances on the internet out of pure spite, I went in quite blind and unaware of what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised that the 28-song long set was very much a spectacle that compares to the biggest pop stars in the world – which, shouldn’t have been all that surprising, considering SZA is the 18th most streamed Spotify artist in the world.

Appearing onstage just about five minutes late in a checkered top and matching shorts, along with knee high boots and a fur vest, Sza wasted zero time getting down to business, opening with “Love Galore,” “Go Gina,” and “Broken Clocks” back to back to back, before surprising the crowd with an early performance of “All The Stars,” SZA’s 2018 smash collaboration with Kendrick Lamar from the Black Panther soundtrack (it currently sits at 1.7 billion Spotify plays).

I ended up leaving SZA’s set a bit early with hopes of avoiding the hundreds of thousands of people trying to get on public transit at the same time, so I unfortunately missed a few of SZA’s songs, but I heard most of my favorites, including a super fun and vibrant performance of “F2F,” what can’t be described as anything other than a rock song, the Grammy-winning “Ghost In The Machine,” and of course, the fan favorites “I Hate U” and “Kill Bill.”

I’ve always admired SZA’s vulnerability in her lyricism, and the mash-up of “Supermodel” and “Special” felt like the perfect choice to turn down the vibes towards the end of her set, making sure that those who were wandering around the park or to catch the end of her set could see her versatility as a pop-star. And I definitely think she succeeded.

SATURDAY

Photo Credit: James Richards IV for Brooklyn Vegan

Dora Jar: I had the chance to chat with Dora just about an hour after her set on the main stage, where she performed to an eager group of fans, commenting on how large the stage was as she commanded it with no problems. I noticed how confident she appeared onstage and how comfortable she came across. Going to as many shows as I do, it’s easy to pick up on when artists are overwhelmed when they receive too much space without knowing what to do with it: and this is something that Dora (seemingly) picked up on immediately.

We talked about onstage confidence and more after her set:

SH: So you mentioned onstage that Lollapalooza is your first American festival you’ve had the chance to play. Did it live up to the hype?

Dora Jar: Totally! It felt like everyone in the stage was singing along with me, it felt very welcoming.

SH: I feel like you’re like totally doing your own thing and are so confident onstage, but it’s also very approachable and people can really connect with it. Where do you get that from?

Dora Jar: I just love music so much: like, I feel it so deeply. And I always want to make music that is exciting to me and not something I’ve heard before. That’s my North Star. It’s like, ‘does this sound cool to me?’ Because if it does, then it probably means like I’m doing something [cool] a little bit.

From the early age, my main influences were the Foo Fighters, they were like the ‘wow, I need to play guitar.’ And Gwen Stefani was huge. She’s just like a badass and a weirdo and it’s great. The Foo Fighters were the first concert I ever saw, when I was four-years-old. My parents didn’t know who they were, but they were at this benefit concert for my sister’s school. She went to a school started by Neil Young and he would throw giant benefit concerts. The first one we went to, I was four and my sister was six, and we both fell in love with Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins. We were like, oh.

SH: That’s incredible that it still sticks with you after all this time.

Dora Jar: A hundred percent.

SH: Did your parents have a connection to music? Is that how you were raised?

Dora Jar: That’s a great question. My dad loves the Beatles, so that was always playing. He also loves opera, so that was…very cool. I didn’t like opera when I was young, and now I’m kind of like, ‘whoa, this is so impressive and colorful and dramatic.’ And I feel very dramatic.

SH: Yeah, I feel like you pull from that on stage.

Dora Jar: Yeah, it feels like, cellularly present. And my mom was always playing musicals, Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim was a big part of our background and daily life.

SH: What do you hope your fans get from your debut album? What message are you trying to send?

Dora Jar: It’s okay to not have the answer, whether that question is, ‘who am I?’ It’s okay to not know or identify with anything. It’s okay to just be an amorphous, ever-changing, who knows. What the heck, we’re on a ball in a space. You don’t need to define too much. And along with that is just feeling deeply. I believe that is the answer to healing, and we all need to heal something, and I believe it’s through feeling our experience.

Maybe that’s also back to the question you first asked, ‘how do you be confident onstage?’ I need to just forget who I am and feel my body. I tap into, ‘what is my heartbeat doing right now? Can I feel the tips of my fingers? Are my feet on the floor?’ Yes, cool. We can connect now.

SH: What are you most excited about for this tour?

Dora Jar: It’s been two years, I’ve kind of slowed down after the Billie [Eilish] tours. I was a bit overwhelmed.

SH: I can imagine, yeah.

Dora Jar: My eighth show was in an arena.

SH: Ever?

Dora Jar: Yes! And my first show was for 100 people. Billie was there. That was mind-blowing. And then she asked me to go on tour, and I was like, of course. But it kind of felt like skipping a lot of steps. And I feel I want to be intimate with people. I don’t care about selling out giant venues. I really just want to feel it. And it’s going to be… I have no idea what it’s going to be like, but I’m ready for it.

Dora Jar’s debut album drops in September.

Photo Credit: Kirby Gladstein for Lollapalooza

Ethel Cain: I wholeheartedly believe that there nobody else right now doing it like Ethel Cain is. After seeing her perform live twice, I’ve come to the conclusion that she is an enigma: equally parts charming and intimidating, open yet mysterious. I felt a similar way to an indie artist known as Clairo back in the day, right around the time in her career where Ethel is right now—and I don’t think that’s an accident. Both artists, and I’m sure you can also name others in the same space, have an electric relationship with their fans: a chemistry that is palpable once you experience it in person: almost in a way that is trance-like and other-worldly. I don’t think I’ve ever met a casual Ethel Cain fan, and I mean that endearingly. She’s in a league of her own, and her only competitor is herself.

As we continue progressing (for the most part, and at least, in the current pop culture climate that I reside in) and become more inclusive of artists that don’t fit the cookie cutter aesthetic of “popular,” artists like Ethel Cain will continue to blossom, which I find super inspiring. Opening her hour-long performance slot with “Dust Bowl,” performing a cover of “Bette Davis Eyes,” and closing with “American Teenager,” three songs that I’d argue, sound quite different from each other, gave Cain the opportunity to showcase her layers as an artist that may not be as easy to understand while listening to her albums on streaming or vinyl.

Photo Credit: Dusana Risovic for Lollapalooza

Tate McRae: Despite Tate McRae seriously making moves in her career over the past year or so, I still haven’t fully connected with her music. I certainly can admire her talent as a performer, but it’s never really grown past that. With that being said, I knew it would be a mistake to not see even just a few minutes of her set at Lollapalooza. I unfortunately made my way to the stage about 15 minutes into the start of her one hour set, which not only made it difficult to navigate the extremely large crowd, but it also meant I walked into the break in her set where she performed multiple slow songs in a row (“calgary,” “stay done,” “cut my hair,” and rubberband”).

This didn’t really improve my chances of becoming more invested in Tate as an artist, but I did get to see a glimpse of that star power during her performance of “Exes,” one of her biggest songs from the 2023 album, THINK LATER. At just 21-years-old, it’s obvious that McRae, who is originally from Canada and was the first Canadian finalist on “So You Think You Can Dance” back in 2016, is in the very early stages of her career as a pop star—and with several comparisons to Britney Spears already, I think it’s time for her team to invest in a headset mic. We haven’t seen a superstar in the making gain this much traction since Spears herself..who said the next one can’t be Tate?

Photo Credit: Chris Phelps for Lollapalooza

The Killers: As someone who has had the chance to see The Killers live before, ironically, when they were last at Lollapalooza, I still wanted to see them again this year. I think I have written about this concept at length before, but there are certain types of music that I associate with pivotal moments in my life that are incredibly meaningful to me: and I definitely feel that way towards The Killers.

Despite Nevada natives The Killers not releasing a new album since 2021, it’s evident that the demand for them is still there. Pulling one of the largest crowds I experienced all weekend on Saturday night, they were a clear favorite to the opposite end of the Park, where Future x Metro Boomin’s joint-headlining set unfolded in disaster, including an alleged onstage brawl between two stage hands, a 30 minute delay in start time, and a shortened set from the two rappers than what they were booked for.

Clocking in at the 205th most streamed artist on Spotify around the world, it was clear that The Killers will continue to pull audiences as long as festivals keep booking them. Their catalog of hits made up the majority of the 1 hr. 35 minute set: opening with the punchy “Somebody Told Me” into “When You Were Young,” a cover of Erasure’s “A Little Respect,” and giving a young fan named Oscar the chance to perform “For Reasons Unknown” on drums: and he absolutely nailed it.

But there’s certainly no way to cover a show by The Killers without acknowledging the rush that comes from hearing “Mr. Brightside” live: closing out a performance that audience members will undoubtedly remember for the rest of their lives.

SUNDAY

Photo Credit: Nathan Zucker for Lollapalooza

Medium Build: I pulled up on Sunday afternoon at 12:30pm by the grace of God—just kidding, it was easy to get to Grant Park knowing it was so I could chat with Nick Carpenter, better known as his stage name, Medium Build. We had a nice conversation before his early evening set about burnout, touring, and his new song with Winnetka Bowling League and Dawes.

SH: So I know this is your Lollapalooza debut, have you been here all weekend?

Medium Build: We got here Thursday, I went in [to the festival] on Friday. And last night, we did an after show at the Subterranean. That place is a good venue: so intimate, you can hear everyone singing.

SH: Have you seen anyone here this weekend that you like, or that you didn’t know you liked?

We went to see Lola Young when we got in [on Friday], I was mind blown.

SH: I was at that set, too. She’s incredible.

Medium Build: I was mind blown. But then I got overwhelmed with how many people there were, so I just wandered around.

SH: Do you get nervous on stage? Because when I see you [perform], I feel like you’re so authentic. Does that come naturally to you?

Medium Build: I get nervous before I go on stage, but as soon as we’re out there, I’m like, oh, I’ve done this a million times. It’s where I feel the most comfortable. My parents were theater people and church people, so I was always on stage doing something. You realize that everyone’s trying to have fun. It’s goofy. Laugh. Don’t take it too seriously.

SH: Everyone’s thinking about themselves more than anyone else.

Medium Build: For sure.

SH: Do you get burned out? How do you avoid that?

Medium Build: Yeah, well, burned out currently. Like, tired. I love touring. But in the past year, I’ve moved from Alaska down to the States, recorded an album, put out an album, promoted that album. Toured Europe twice. Done pretty much the country almost twice. I just feel like I need some normal. Often times at these things, I’m like, ‘this isn’t normal.’ Now that I’ve been behind the scenes and seen that these artists are my peers, all of us are like, ‘we put on fancy clothes and we do the thing.’ We kind of get worshipped and you get pictures taken and then you go back to your house and you rot. Sometimes, the mania of this life is taxing. So right now, I’m tired. How do I prevent that? I don’t know.

SH: Totally, I can imagine.

Medium Build: But I don’t want to stop, right? I want to keep going. I’m stoked. We roll right from this into Outside Lands next week. And then from that, we have a couple of weeks off and then it’s like the next three months of tour. So, I mean, yeah, looking forward to Christmas.

SH: Well, you just kind of alluded to ‘this life’ and I’m going to make a pun because that’s basically the same title of your new song. Can you tell me like how that collaboration with Winnetka Bowling League and Dawes came to be?

Medium Build: Yeah, so Matt from Winnetka, like just a sweetheart. We ended up at this hang, and we were just talking about our interests. And I noticed he had a Dawes poster. You know, I went through a lot of [music] phases, but Dawes is one of those phases that was very informative to where I landed. You know, like I had a huge radio phase. I had a huge Manchester Orchestra phase. I had a big John Mayer phase. But I feel like Dawes was one of the last things that kind of like cemented what Medium Build became. Lyric driven, funny, depressing, dad rock jammy stuff. And he was like, ‘oh, I know that guy. I’ll just text him.’ And so he, like, forced a friendship with me and Taylor. He had the first verse chorus of “This Is Life,” and he just was like, ‘I’m going to leave it open for you guys.’ And I was like terrified. I told him that I had written my verse for months and I hadn’t. And I ended up writing it like the day of the recording session. So, yeah, classic fake it ’til you make it.

SH: One of the songs I really connect with on the [new] album is “Can’t Be Cool Forever.” I just feel like I’m 29 and about to be 30. So I’m just like in a weird point in my life. Can you like talk a little bit about how that song came to be?

Medium Build: I think I was I was in London. I’m 33. You know, I think I was 32 at the time. It was Thanksgiving. And I just finished tour. And I think I was kind of really feeling it like that year. The first year of tour, I was like, oh, I am tired. And sad in a new way than I’ve ever been. Like every tour, I kind of get like a little bit busted up and a little bit depressed. But that was like, a new layer. I was like, ‘I don’t feel cool. I feel like out of touch.’ Like, this is a young person’s game. Do I even have any business doing this in the first place? And then I’m like, ‘okay, I can’t go to bed depressed and angry. I must find some sort of value in myself.’

I am as confident maybe as I am like self-hateful. There’s two dogs in me. And the sweet dog was like, no, like, you’re wise. Like, you’ve been through shit. You have something to offer. And I think that’s kind of the intersection of that song. It’s like, I have to find the humanity in it. I have to find something. I may not be cool, but I can be honest.

Photo Credit: (L to R), Kirby Gladstein, Dusana Risovic, and Ismael Quintanilla for Lollapalooza

The Last Dinner Party: After becoming absolutely enthralled with British girl group The Last Dinner Party this past fall, I knew that their debut at Lollapalooza would be a sight to see. The band, comprised of five musicians, has completely skyrocketed in popularity in 2024, despite only having three songs released at the end of the 2023 calendar year before their debut album came out in early 2024.

While I have a love/hate relationship to the Tito’s Stage in Grant Park every year, mainly because of it’s slanted asphalt ground, which makes it difficult (and uncomfortable) to see the stage, unless you’re in the first 50 or so rows. It doesn’t help that this is only one of two stages in the entire park that doesn’t have a screen for spectators (Lolla, do you have a suggestion box)? Making the crowds a bit pushy and eager to get a good spot. Luckily I was able to see most of the performance from my vantage point, and the Last Dinner Party’s set was dreamy, ethereal, and a trip backwards in time to another century.

I heard it through the grapevine that the band, who now writes music together, was originally inspired to create a project focused around being a performance-first band: which totally makes sense, given that they have the stage presence of a group that’s been doing this for decades. All of their music isn’t necessarily super high tempo, and a lot of their songs sound similar (this is not a dig), which means they have to work even harder to keep the audience members’ attention for more than five minutes at a time. And based on their performance, I think they did just that.

Photo Credit: Miranda McDonald for Lollapalooza

Pierce The Veil: While I’ve never been one to be into the genre of ‘screamo’ music, I will say that there are a ton of bands in the emo and punk space that have heavily influenced my taste and passion for music, which was the main reason why I decided to check out the second half of Pierce The Veil’s set on Sunday night. While I only caught about 25 minutes of music, the majority of what I saw wasn’t actually screamo music, and was much more a ‘metalcore’ show: a genre that fuses elements of extreme metal and hardcore punk.

I think a big reason as to why I was drawn to this style of music in my formative years is because of how much community I found in the fanbases of this genre: and that was certainly evident in the crowd on Sunday night as well as in the words that the band members were speaking between songs. The highlight of the performance included a moment of pure joy when lead singer Vic Fuentes brought a fan onstage (seen in the photo above), eventually gifting her his guitar. It’s the moments like these that can bring people together, even if they don’t know the entire backstory of a band’s history or can even name one of their songs, which is something we certainly could use more of nowadays.

Photo Credit: Nathan Zucker for Lollapalooza

Two Door Cinema Club: One of the bands that were truly the “gateway” to me branching out into music other than Taylor Swift as a pre-teen and teenager was Two Door Cinema Club: their 2010 album Tourist History was released when I was fifteen-years-old. While my interest in the group didn’t continue much after their 2016 album Gameshow, I’ve continued to hold the Irish band in my heart for helping me realize my passion for their style of music.

Speeding through 16 songs in just an hour, Two Door Cinema Club did a fantastic job working the crowd ahead of Blink 182’s closing set across the field, touching on tracks from Beacon, Tourist History, Gameshow, and Keep On Smiling.

The band mentioned just after a few minutes on stage that this was their first return to Lollapalooza since 2013: which also happened to be the first year I attended Lolla and the last time I had also seen Two Door Cinema Club live. The nostalgic person in me who likes to romanticize everything, good and bad, in my life felt truly touched by this small revelation, and I could sense that many of the people in the audience also felt a sense of contentment to return to a band that had made such an impact on our younger selves.

LOLLA AFTER SHOWS

d4vd | July 30 | Full gallery here