Lollapalooza 2006, Live!

It???s been 15 years since the first version of the festival ??? once described as a ???bizarre bazaar??? of music, politics and artwork ??? toured cities nationwide for daylong events with multiple acts. And been 10 years since the choice of metal band Metallica as a headliner upset the festival???s traditional alternative music base. Among the most noteworthy performances at Lollapalooza 2006, double in size and featuring 130 musical acts on nine stages, were the biggest hometown shows ever performed by the two most successful rappers Chicago has produced — Common and Kanye West — and the first appearance here by French-Latin giant Manu Chao, a heroic figure in the Latin music community.

According to Billboard, the Lollapalooza event grossed nearly $8 million in ticket sales, with total paid attendance of more than 166,000. Last year’s Lolla, its first as a one-off festival, had a total paid attendance 60,000 from a two-day event. The incredible lineup of 100+ bands is enough to make someone’s head spin and it was so complelety overcrowded which reminds me of some kickass band in a tiny club. And still, it was incredibly organized and perfectly timed with very little sound trouble, no overlap. Bands were absolutely forbidden to go past their allotted time (much to fans disappointment), but it ended up making the whole thing flow surprisngly well.
The crowd of about 50,000 that watched West perform was almost exclusively white, and hardly a mirror image of his hometown or his fan base. And many Latin music fans felt excluded from Chao’s show and hurt by a contract that prohibited him from performing elsewhere in the city during his rare visit to the United States.

Jim Derogatis, Pop Music Critic give some suggestion on How to improve Lollapalooza, fix the sound problems, make it easier to catch back-to-back sets on far-flung stages, consider fewer stages, place some limits on the corporate sponsors, and Lollapalooza needs to become part of the Chicago community.
But, they had a great lineup and a great setup. I can’t think of a single thing I can complain about from the entire weekend, except maybe that I had to choose between seeing the Frames and the Hold Steady.

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Posted by woman on Aug 15 2006. Filed under Women Gossip, Women Lifestyle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry