lollapalooza'd

rain, mud, sun, sweat and a bunch of crazy mfs.

i went to lollapalooza for all 4 days so that you didn’t have to.

being in a field of tens of thousands of people watching billy corgan’s microphone not work reminded me that we’re all not so different. even at the most massive hometown headline show of your life, we’re all susceptible to the same faulty equipment or the error of some front of house engineer. one of the most salient moments of the weekend. what a gift to be a festival concert attendee.

joel magazine LOLLAPALOOZA’D reporting is made possible by readers like you. be sure to buy the physical magazine which i ship out monthly and is awesome. you can also subscribe on substack for the digital weekly song round up, art and lifestyle articles. much love!

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also check out THIS playlist that includes some tunes from these rockers

ok sweet, below are a few more special times i had, with a ton of special musical artists and some small special drawings! enjoy

arriving early to the festival to grab some artist credentials, i also wanted to get a lay of the land and see where all the stages were. the festival grounds was massive, in total this first day i clocked 17 miles on my health app. anyways, i got to the airbnb stage and saw the craziest scene, total electronic craziness and an overflowing valley of people appreciating the glitched and schizo beats coming from a tiny girl onstage with huge led screen angel wings. heavenly and apacolyptic. i had never listened to ninajirachi before and haven’t listened since but the sheer shock from the vibes, you could call me a fan. 3 stars

this was the only set i knew i had to see, so i made a point to get there early next to the front of house to get a good view. my “good spot” instincts proved to be true when lorde and her posse came and stood in front of me as everyone on the other side of the barrier turned around and screamed at us. besides this, the crowd was completely and totally enamored with dev and co’s stunning performance. they make true cinema onstage, actual unbelievable stuff. 5 stars

★★★★

was happy to bump into my friend natalia, the tm for audrey, i thought that i would watch sidestage with her. as i approached the stage i could see that was not happening lol there were like 100 fanatic audrey heads absolutely swarming the stage. i had to leave the festival anyways, so i watched her absolutely destroy lolla as i walked away. these songs don’t lie, audrey fo life. 4 stars

after leaving the fest i rolled to the house of blues for the love spells and suki waterhouse gig. i was tm for the artist love spells who are awesome, real life young rockstar legends in the making. their set won the crowd over and got house of blues cozied up for mr. waterhouse. suki came on stage with full stage production which was a kind of amazing, giant disco ball heart with huge arrows sticking out. and then she was just blasting through her pop hits, real pro sh—. her band was jamming as well. 3 and a half stars

$30,000 of flowers on stage, come on now. hayden and the ethel cain rockers blew the damn doors down. after a ton of rain turned the festival grounds into festival muds, we were brought into the flori-bama ethereal swampiness of the ethel cain-iverse. hard not to love the aesthetic fully realized, and then the songs are as good as t swift. lets go. shout out my friend brandon their new guitar tech, he did a great job lol

i guess the guys had all their gear stuck in customs, so jesse did a karaoke style set. the 10k mfs watching didn’t seem to care and in fact were even more hype than you’d expect. i saw at least 500 people sprinting to the stage singing sweater song, insane. i loved bumping into my friends kev and beef and drinking one of their sugarfree redbulls.

this band is real bad in a real beautiful way. in the modern age this is a weapon against all that ai crap. real salt of the earth jammy jams from the nyc tradition of patty smith and sonic youth. you’re not supposed to just like it. you gotta earn it a little bit. suffer through some noise and strangeness and scratchiness. i don’t get the hype because usually this is a band that just i would like lol i’m happy to share the crowd with thousands of normies and frat boys, all ships rise kinda thing for weirdo music. also shout out their agents carly and greg, amazing work

all in all i’m exhausted, the festival thing is so kooky, i think i’m gonna go to outside lands too though… so i’ll be reporting from there. buy me a corndog by buying joel magazine, much love.

joelcherrytree.com