Lollapalooza 2010 Day 3

Grant Park Chicago, IL 

This is the final daily recap from Lollapalooza 2010.

Thefinal day of Lollapalooza got off to a gloomy start as the area wasblanketed with a light rain. A slew of bands early in the day playingslow-moving music didn’t really give Day 3 the wake-up call it needed.By the end of the day the festival came alive, at least at one end ofthe festival grounds, thanks to some hard-hitting grunge nostalgia.Here’s the good and bad from the final day of Lollapalooza 2010.

Soundgarden:The band is back … or at least they were for a couple days. Soundgardenplayed a warm-up gig earlier in the week in Chicago in anticipation fortheir Sunday headlining slot. For the most part during their neartwo-hour performance, the band seemed to be polished. There were acouple duds during the set, including “Black Hole Sun,” when it seemedlike the Seattle quartet just couldn’t get things together. That beingsaid, Soundgarden was able to offer more good than bad Sunday night.Crowd favorites such as “Rusty Cage,” Spoonman” and “Blow Up The OutsideWorld” were all part of the greatest hits set list. No new songs onthis night. Soundgarden let their music do the entertaining. Theheadliners the previous two nights on the same stage, Lady Gaga andGreen Day, relied on showmanship to draw in the crowd. Soundgarden justplayed their music. It was Chris Cornell’s glossy voice that kept fansinto it instead of Lady Gaga’s glossy see-through outfit. It was KimThayil’s blasting guitar that won over the large crowd instead of GreenDay blasting t-shirts out of a cannon. There wasn’t a lot of audienceinteraction save for Cornell leaving the stage to sing part of“Outshined” while in the middle Day 3’s music fans. Sunday night wasabout the music on the south end of the festival grounds – a fitting endto the weekend.

Ike Reilly Assassination:Lollapalooza organizers do a great job putting at least a coupleChicago artists on the bill. Ike Reilly, while not as high profile asother Windy City acts that have performed there, was an excellent choicefor this year’s festival. With an early time slot on a small stage, IRAprovided one of the loudest sets of the day with songs about drugs andfighting. One of Day 3’s greatest surprises was hidden among the GrantPark trees. IRA was certainly a treat for those who were able to findthem.

MGMT:The case of a band that sounds better on tape than on a stage. The samecould be said for their performance one of Lollapalooza’s side stages afew years ago. With two albums now under their belts, MGMT hasn’tgotten any more on stage. Lackluster crowd interaction kind of made for alull between songs “Brian Eno” and “Electric Feel” early in the set.The band never really seemed to recover. They still managed to maintain arather large crowd at one of the festival’s two main stages.

Perry Farrell and thenewno2:The ladder struggled through sound problems during a short performanceon the Kidzapalooza stage on Sunday. The band fronted by GeorgeHarrison’s son was able to recover for a two-song set with Lollapaloozafounder Farrell. The crowd, mostly adults with a few kids in attendance,was treated to Porno For Pyro single “Pets” and a cover of “SweetJane.” Sure, Farrell dropped the f-bomb on stage during the first song,but signing autographs for clueless kids makes up for it, right?

Violent Soho:Yet another great musical find hidden among the trees. The Australianband Violent Soho may have started things out by passing around a hatfor a collection of joints, but these guys weren’t ready to chill thingsout until after their show. Their sped-up Nirvana sound hammered thecrowd with “Jesus Stole My Girlfriend” and even a Refused cover. Gritty,loud and wonderful.

Lollapalooza2010 also features a revamped lineup of food vendors under the adviceof Chicago-chef and “Top Chef” regular Graham Elliot Bowles. Here is thefood sampled on Day 3.

Grilled Cheese Pretzel from Goose Island Brewpub:What a great bit of marketing. The name makes it sound interesting anddelicious. Would it be a pretzel on a sandwich? Would cheese be grilledon the outside of the pretzel? None of the above. Instead it was just apretzel filled with cheese. It tasted good, but I could have gotten thatat the mall.

Chipotle Chicken Burger from Goose Island Brewpub:There’s no time to be picky when it’s 5 p.m. and you need to get a mainstage to see one of the festival’s more popular bands. This is when youfind the shortest line and go there. The Chipotle Chicken Burger wasn’tbad for $5. However workers behind the table couldn’t keep up with thedemand as a line of people waited to get their already-paid-for burgers.Maybe my time waiting could have been spent better somewhere else.

Rob’sfun fact of the day: Within two feet of where I was standing I found alarge glass Jim Beam bottle on the ground in front of me and a guydrinking straight from a bottle of Early Times to my right. It’s best toknow the large glass bottles are on the ground in front of you insteadof in the air behind you.