It’s music festival season again, and of course we’re still in the middle of a pandemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 222.3 million U.S. residents are fully vaccinated against COVID-19—roughly 67 percent of the population. Vaccination is a great safeguard against serious illness or death, but it’s less effective against infection […]
Tag: Lollapalooza
Posted inMusic
How do you explain Limp Bizkit to the world?
At the beginning of the pandemic, I became mildly obsessed with a video of Limp Bizkit playing a Moscow venue in February 2020. I wasn’t drawn to the performance so much as to the sight of front man Fred Durst, who’d been an emblem of white male millennials’ bottomless teenage angst at the turn of […]
Posted inMusic
A brighter shade of optimism gilds Modest Mouse’s The Golden Casket
Modest Mouse front man Isaac Brock can perform a breezy, carefree song in a way that suggests you should be concerned for his well-being. And his recent public comments haven’t exactly quieted those worries; in interviews for the band’s new seventh album, The Golden Casket (Epic/Sony), Brock has dabbled in worrisome tinfoil-hat theories (he made […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago dance-pop duo Drama return to the stage to showcase their pre-pandemic album
We’ll never know what might have been for any of us had 2020 turned out a little less soul crushing. But it feels extra bittersweet to imagine the possibilities for Chicago duo Drama, who released their debut album, Dance Without Me (Ghostly International), just before lockdown. Since joining forces in 2014, vocalist Via Rosa and […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago rap star Polo G takes a long victory lap on Hall of Fame
In a self-aggrandizing public announcement last month about the return of Lollapalooza, Mayor Lori Lightfoot tweeted a cringey promotional video where she played music for Department of Public Health commissioner Allison Arwady onstage at the Petrillo Music Shell in Grant Park. Early in the clip, Lightfoot changes the soundtrack from a Foo Fighters tune to […]
Posted inMusic
Lightfoot hijacks Lollapalooza
Did Chicago musicians booked for Lollapalooza know their sets might look like an endorsement of Mayor Lightfoot?
Posted inMusic
Beach Bunny jump straight to the championship round
Lili Trifilio and her indie-punk band have climbed from Chicago’s DIY scene to stages most musicians never reach, and their first studio album, Honeymoon, comes out just this week.
Posted inMusic
Bloc Party almost slept through Silent Alarm at Riot Fest
Bloc Party seemed oddly immune to the edgy, propulsive energy of Silent Alarm at Riot Fest—but their fans didn’t seem to care.
Posted inArts & Culture
Changing spaces
Douglas, Union, and Grant Parks have served as valued community centers for Chicago since the mid-1800s. Today, all three parks host thousands of attendees for popular private music festivals—Lyrical Lemonade Summer Smash, Pitchfork Music Festival, and Lollapalooza, respectively—taking on a different personality for one weekend each summer before returning to their treasured role as neighborly […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A seat at the table with Janelle Monaé
What happens when you bring 80 Chicago creatives, artists, change makers—and a Reader reporter—to late-night brunch at the MCA.
Posted inMusic
Who is Lollapalooza for?
Lollapalooza brought the big names on its 2019 lineup, but could it do more to engage the Chicago fans and artists who make this such a great city for music?
Posted inMusic
Lollapalooza announces its 2019 lineup
This year’s headliners include Ariana Grande, Childish Gambino, and Twenty One Pilots—but to get tickets, you have to pay a company owned by Live Nation, which remains an undefined part of the Lincoln Yards development.
Posted inMusic
Can Riot Fest turn nostalgia into a renewable resource?
Maybe Riot Fest can book amazing reunions forever—but only by building current bands into tomorrow’s back-from-the-dead headliners.
Posted inBlogs
Lollapalooza beyond the stage [PHOTOS]
You’ve seen the artists: Taylor Bennett’s pyrotechnics, LL Cool J’s dancers, St. Vincent’s avant-garde stage presence. But away from the stage, there’s another show that photographer Alison Green worked to capture, one of people looking after other people—in quiet moments and in moments of exhaustion—and even an inflatable whale. People of Lollapalooza
Posted inBlogs
Too bad there’s no band called ‘Lockheed Constellation’ on the gig poster of the week
This week’s featured gig poster was designed by Daneil MacAdam of Crosshair Silkscreen Design.