Nine Inch Nails
While most of my friends were at Bass Coast this past weekend, I attended Lollapalooza, Chicago’s premiere music festival. With great acts like The Cure, Nine Inch Nails, The Killers, Pheonix, Mumford and Sons, Lana Del Rae, and many others, this was a festival I didn’t want to miss.
While I’ve spent my twenties in BC, I was raised in Chicago and had never been to Lollapalooza. I have been shooting for Beatroute Magazine for the past year and wanted to cover all of the Canadian’s performing at Lolla 2013.
Keys n Krates
It was HOT out when Keys n Krates took the stage, but that didn’t stop the crowd from loving their performance. With arms in the air, beach balls bouncing around, and security spraying the crowd with water, this was a great set to start the weekend.
I had met Keys N Krates last time they played at Fortune so I was able to get in touch with their people and schedule a quick interview with Matise (keys) Adam (Drums) Flow (turn tables).
Beatroute: What were some of the things they were missing from back home while on the road.
KNK: “My bed, My own bed, my cats, my girl, my jerk chicken spot that’s down the street (Darbys, Ghandi Roti, Mother India)”
Beatroute: What’s one thing that you bring with you from home?
Matise: “One love Tshirts(1loveto.com), homies from Toronto. I try to always bring those on tour with me.”
Beatroute: So you are in Chicago today, tomorrow you are in LA for HardFest; when is the next time you’ll be back in Canada?
KNK: We are back in Canada at Center of Gravity on Sunday in Kelowna.
After meeting Keys n Krates it started to rain. The rain died down shortly before Crystal Castles came on. I’ve seen them perform and this was by far their best performance. The field in front of the RedBull stage was soaked and muddy, but that didn’t seem to phase the die-hard fans who rushed the stage when Alice Glass walked into the crowd.
Crystal Castles
Reignwolf
Day 2 of Lollapalooza started with Canadian guitar virtuoso, Jordan Cook aka Reignwolf and wow, this dude can shred. Most of the Canadians were using electronic instruments, so it was quite exhilarating to watch a raw rock and roll performance. Jordan’s set had so much energy. He finished it off with a crazy guitar solo in the audience, only to have the crowd wanting more, and came back to do a quick 2 minute encore.
Adventure Club
The next Canadian artist on my list was Montreal based electronic producers Adventure Club. This was another sweaty set in the middle of the afternoon at Perry’s. There were a lot of teenagers. It was too hot for furry hats, but there wasn’t a shortage of rainbow bracelets. I remember standing in the crowd waiting for Adventure Club to start and overheard the most disturbing conversation amongst a group of dubstep kids.
“yo where’s karl? Does anyone know where karl is?”
at first I thought they just got separated from their friends, but it all snapped into focus with what I heard next.
“we found molly, but does anyone know where karl is?”
these kids were trying to score ketamine… is this what the kids are doing at festivals? Apart from overhearing that disturbing conversation, I really enjoyed Adventure Club’s performance. Especially when they had the whole crowd singing along to their remix of Flight Facilities Crave You.
Tegan and Sara
Sunday’s show began with a performance from Victoria’s own Tegan and Sara. It was a beautiful day in Chicago and the crowd was full of young couples. It was probably the most civilized and friendly crowd of the weekend. Between songs Tegan told the crowd about the last time they played Lollapalooza in 2005. They were wearing jackets in the summer heat and Sara had to leave the stage halfway through their set because of heat stroke. Fortunately that didn’t happen this year.
Art Department
Shortly after Tegan and Sara started I had to make my way over to Perry’s stage to check out legendary techno/house dj Kenny Glasgow and Jonny White aka Art Department. I have seen Kenny Glasgow perform before and I must say, I wasn’t too impressed with their performance. Maybe it was an outdoor venue, maybe it was too early in the day, but something wasn’t right. The crowd wasn’t really into it, and neither were the Kenny and Jonny. Within the first few minutes of going on stage I noticed them continually talking to other people on stage and making jokes. It didn’t seem like the crowd had their full attention, so I went back to catch the rest of Tegan and Sara.
Half Moon Run
The last Canadian act of the weekend was Half Moon Run performing at the BMI stage. This was the only time I had made my way to this part of the festival grounds, and I wasn’t thrilled when I got there. I didn’t realize that the BMI stage was for new artists that didn’t get the same perks as the other performers. For one, there was no stage lighting; the band had to do their own sound check, and the sound tech wasn’t on top of his game, which caused the set to start 10 minutes late. Once the band started playing all was forgotten. I had never heard them perform before and within the first few minutes I was a fan!
The entire weekend went by way too fast. I had so much fun checking out all of the Canadians at the festival and hope to head back next year.
