So this is a half-assed review and recap of Lollapalooza 2009, but quite honestly this festival is so big with so much to do and see yet there is still so much I missed, words just aren’t really adequate. I will say this for starters, Sunday was the most fun I’ve ever had at any concert. Ever. Not necessarily the “best” show or even legendary show I’ve seen; it was 150% pure joy and adrenaline. I’ve never experienced anything quite like how happy Jane’s Addiction made me.

Other highlights: sitting next to Tom Gray from Gomez at Breakfast. Seeing Kings of Leon at the Pub Friday night. A fat guy passed out but still managing to roll in the mud and his own vomit. White Lies. No Security. Good friends. Old friends. New friends. Cheap food. Free Water. Friendly people. Yeah Yeah Yeahs playing just a brief bit of “What ya Want” by The Beastie Boys. Museum of Contemporary Art. New Belt Buckle (pictured below). Striking a good deal with the art dealer. Trees.

So here’s a recap of my personal weekend mostly told through images and photos that I managed to shoot while partying my ass off…

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One of the newer bands that I have little experience with prior to this weekend is White Lies. Like M83, this band is capitalizing on the distinct, retro sound of the mid-1980′s. I’ve been listening to their latest album “To Lose My Life” almost non-stop this week and gotta say I’m digging it more and more each time I listen through. They’re sort of a cross between The Killers and Depeche Mode; except, ya know… suicidal.

The native U.K. band will be playing on Friday afternoon over at the Budweiser stage (my favorite stage of the big ones). If the below videos from late night TV show performances are any indication, should be a sweaty, dancin’ good time. See you there?

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All Points West Festival got a bit muddy on Saturday and Sunday. But that didn’t stop Coldplay from going on and rocking an incredibly long set with two encores. That’s right, I like Coldplay – a lot actually. But here is some footage of some unconventional (though given recent circumstances, apropos) covers. Probably would’ve been more impressive to see these in person, but hey. For what it’s worth YouTube gives us the heads up…

full setlist show

As hard as it will be, I’ll be missing out on seeing Band of Horses (possibly my favorite band overall of the last two years) in at Lolla this year in favor of seeing a band I’ve not yet seen: Silversun Pickups. One of the first recommendations in the Lolla handbook is to definitely skip out on bands you’ve already seen (even if you really really like them) in lieu of trying something new or something you might not be able to ever see again. Since I’ve seen BoH twice, I’m going to be checking out this slightly more bubble-gum version of Smashing Pumpkins (circa 1999).

Last night Silversun Pickups played a private short set at PC Richard and Son Theater in the Tribeca neighborhood of NYC after their performance at All Points West Fesitval. Looking at the set list, it appears they sort of went back and forth from playing tunes from the new album, “Swoon” and from the previous record, “Carnavas.” Perfect. They ended the show with their most popular song to date, “Lazy Eye”, which you can hear below along with the full set list from last night’s show.

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SETLIST:
Growing Old is Getting Old
Well Thought Out Twinkles
Substitution
Panic Switch
Creation Lake (cover)
Lazy Eye

So over the next few days I thought I’d post some videos/.mp3 of some of the bands taking the stage(s) in Grant Park, Chicago this coming weekend. We’ll be sure to be covering as much of the festival as possible while there; though don’t count on too much because we’ll be too busy spacing out, rocking out and passing out to get much writing done. Still, check back over the next week for lots of Lollapalooza love.

If you’ve got something you think should be seen, please don’t hesitate to send it my way.

Today: Bat for Lashes “Sleep Alone”

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Sunday was a gorgeous day in Minneapolis. What did I do? I got sucked into listening to live webcasts from two different amazing festivals going on over the weekend: Newport Folk Festival and All Points West 2009.

Sunday got pretty wet at APW in New York. Actually that’s an understatement. Much of Sunday’s lineup unfortunately was cancelled due to severe weather and all of the rain from Friday and Saturday turned the venue into a giant mudpit. But as I type this, I’m listening to a fantastically beautiful performance by Elbow. I’m a big fan but have never had the opportunity to see them live – which as I realize now is a major oversight and a real shame. I hereby pledge to see them soon. The live shows were airing on the iClips Network – the shows may be archived when the festival ends. If not I’ll be seeking out the shows and will post them here if I can find them.

Just a few miles away in our smallest state, The Newport Folk Festival raged on without a hitch on a gorgeous day. I listened to a little bit of Arlo Guthrie and almost all of Neko Case’s set (who I’m pretty stoked to see next weekend in Chicago). Other guests included Joan Baez, The Decemberists, Iron & Wine and Fleet Foxes among others. The good news is if you missed any of it NPR has all of the shows (most in their entirety) available for free download.

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My big vacation this year that I’m really looking forward to is a headfirst dive into the whirlwind of cinema known as The Toronto International Film Festival. Several titles have already been announced and I’ve already started the “weeding out” process. Out of hundreds (thousands?) of films being shown, I’ll only be seeing thirty, so choosing carefully will be obviously important and difficult.

Right off the bat I usually discount documentaries as a style of film making that isn’t really my cup of tea (in general – Anvil! fucking rocked!). But one film I keep teetering back and forth on whether I want to see or not is called Under Great White Northern Lights, which documents “The White Stripes” tour across Canada. Unfortunately this trailer doesn’t help my decision at all. I like the look of the all black and white seascape, but it doesn’t give me much to go on in terms of “plot” – for lack of a better word.

Thanks to The Documentary Blog for the heads up on the trailer, but dammit, I need more information before I decide to spend 2 of my precious 60 hours of viewing time on Jack White.

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this week only!

Well, okay I can live with this. Afterall, I have seen the Beastie Boys twice previously and when the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were in town a few weeks ago I got sick and couldn’t make the show. So while I’m pretty bummed about not being able to see the B-Boys and even more bummed about the news we all received yesterday that one of the members of the only rap group/artist that I really REALLY like get cancer (get better soon Adam!), I have to admit this newest addition to the Lolla ’09 lineup has got me pretty damn excited. Sorry Tool, I’ll be seeing Karen, Brian and Nick rock your socks off.

Pitchfork:TV is showcasing this little mini-trilogy of shorts. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Barney Clay went to Texas with a camera and came back with this neat little short to help promote for the new album “It’s Blitz.” One commenter says that Snakesweat is like “Simon of the Desert meets Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill via Jodorowsky and Bob Rafelson.” Well said sir! Check out this seven minute short below. Apparently this will only be available for this week. So see it now.

The damn thing insists on auto-playing, so I’ve stuck it under the cut. Enjoy.
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What a lineup this year and the official schedule was just released today! From “Band of Horses” to “Lou Reed” to “Neko Case” to “Gomez.” Or if you prefer to be more obscure, why not check out “Zap! Mama” or “The Low Anthem”? However you decide, the Lollapaloza official site makes it super easy to make your custom schedule with the bands you want to see. Then share the schedule on Facebook, Twitter and even check your schedule with your mobile phone. Everything is slick and ticks nicely.

Now I consider myself fairly up to the minute with popular music, but I’ve gotta admit that there are a ton of bands on here I’ve never heard of. Again, Perry Farrel and his gang of techies to the rescue. The main site does an excellent job showcasing (nearly) each band with a bio, description and usually a couple of streaming files of some of their tracks.

At any rate, I haven’t got time to write right now. I’ve got to get over there and put together my schedule. Looks like the Sunday lineup has a lot of conflicts. “Band of Horses” or “Silversun Pickups”? Decisions decisions. Sheesh!

Last year’s Lollapalooza Music Festival in Chicago was certainly a highlight of the year – maybe THE highlight of the year. The logistics of how the entire thing was pulled off was nothing short of spectacular. If you missed it, never miss is again!

The official Lolla web site is pretty intuitive and as the concert(s) scheduled date approaches ever closer, the site will become even more interactive with band bios and streaming listening posts. Added this year is the social networking tool with which you can share your lineup and schedule with friends, post everything to your Facebook profile, get editable mobile schedule and of course a Twitter feed.

And now for the good news: today the full lineup was announced. Umm… holy shit?

Depeche Mode, Beastie Boys, Jane’s Addiction (a band I would cut off my pinky finger to see), Band of Horses, Neko Case, Kings of Leon, Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, SNOOP DOGG!, Gomez, Silversun Pickups, TV on the Radio, Santigold, Crystal Castles, Of Montreal, Raveonettes, Portugal. The Man, Thievery Corp, Atmosphere, The Killers and Lou fuckin Reed along with a shit ton more.

See the full lineup over at the official web site. Barring death, I’ll see you in Chicago on August 7th!

SxSW is like pop culture overload skydiving in a blender at 78rpm. There is so much to take in that aside from a few choice acts, you’re probably better off not planning anything and just stumbling from to bar to catch some random act. Chances are you’ll be surprised with something new. And if not, the next stage is 100 feet away. Not that I’ve ever been there.

There’s so much that I’m not even going to pretend that RowThree is able to even come close to covering it. Probably the best site to do so however has been NPR.org/sxsw. They have all the usual blogggy type stuff (interviews, reviews, news, op/eds, etc…), plus up to the minute Twittering and a huge list of live streaming sites from the festival. But probably best of all: loads of full live concerts from SxSW on .mp3 for free download.

While I claim to know very little about 99% of the 1800 bands from around the country/world performing at SxSW, I did discover a couple of choice cuts while lurking around the site. So here are a few key locations that should definitely be checked out by your casual (good) music fanatic:

Up to the minute Twitter
10 Free-song download of various SxSW performers (iTunes)
Live Webcasts of about 30 different bands
List of online radio stations streaming live from SxSW

Enjoy!

In Friday’s edition of the Chicago Tribune, it was reported that three of the headliners for this summer’s annual Lollapalooza festival had been chosen. Reps for the festival wouldn’t confirm, but journalist Greg Kot claims that Jane’s Addiction, Depeche Mode and The Beastie Boys will be three of the major acts performing. These actually sound like plausible choices and I guess we’ll see if Kot’s connections serve him well when the official lineup is announced on April 21.

I was one of the lucky thousands who made it to Chicago last year for the big show and I’ve got to say I will be there again this Aug (7th-9th) even if it kills me (and the heat almost did last year). To be honest, the headliners aren’t the most exciting part of the show to me. I much prefer the smaller and smaller smaller acts much more (The Ting Tings, The National, Nicole Atkins, Explosions in the Sky, MGMT, Black Keys and on and on and on…). So I super look forward to seeing who is on the bill of hundreds of bands for this year’s fest.

Still, Jane’s Addiction (if it’s the original crew – and that’s a big IF) would be a dream come true to see. They’ve been one of my favorite bands for nearly 15 years now. Depeche Mode would be quite the blast frm the past – a little shoegazing meets 80′s pop never hurt anyone. And though I’ve seen The Beasties once or twice already and I’ve sort of lost touch with them over the past few years, I’m sure they still put on a hell of a show.

Long story short. I’m going to see Jane’s Addiction this summer! That’s worth the hundred bucks right there.