Lollapalooza 2015 Recap

Another Lollapalooza has come and gone, and another plastic-chipped wristband has been replaced with three solid days of memories/ the dirt-covered Chuck Taylors to show for them.

I’ve made Chicago’s late-summer music festival an annual event for the last several years — but this year was a little different.

Because, yunno, I live here now.

Past Lollapaloozas have been marked with a solid month of preparation.

Online shopping was done weeks in advance, using only the “festival finds” section of every trendy fast fashion website. Outfit after outfit combination was tried on well in advance, with Snapchats swapped back and forth between friends.

Headband? No headband? What color bandeau?

Comprehensive shopping lists were made.

Terrible fruity Smirnoff vodka? Check. A fifth of Skyy? Check. Orange juice? Cheap champagne? Check. Check. Disposable shot glasses?

10-hour-long playlists comprised of the much-anticipated Lolla artists were compiled and loaded onto iPods, iPhones and CD-ROMs. Hotels were booked, suitcases were packed and social media counted down the days until we were all reunited with Grant Park.

This year was much, much different.

Lollapalooza kind of snuck up on me. I had bought my ticket before I even applied for my job here at the Chicago Tribune, and we had booked the hotel before I had even set foot in Tribune Tower. Once I leased an apartment, my friends and I canceled our hotel reservations and prepared to make my apartment our home base for the weekend.

My life has become much more fast-paced since I moved here, and Lollapalooza went from being the omg can’t miss must go complete and total highlight of my entire summer to eh just another possible event I might maybe go to in Chicago.

I had a blast, but the weekend was much less hyped than it was in years past. There were no drunken trips (literally, trips) to Perry’s, no cheesy photoshoots with the Lollapalooza signs, no ambulance rides and emergency room visits and no trying to figure out how to sneak liquor-filled water bottles in.

Regardless, here are the highlights!

Friday: Tove Lo, Cold War Kids, MS MR, alt-J, Paul McCartney, The Weeknd
Saturday: Walk the Moon, Kid Cudi, Brand New, Metallica
Sunday: Twenty One Pilots, Of Monsters and Men, Florence + the Machine

The best shows? Twenty One Pilots and Florence, without a question. I was so bummed that Florence’s set was cut short due to the terrible weather, but what we got was absolutely incredible. She had so much energy, was just as talented in-person as she is on my iPhone, and the crowd was so happy to be there. Emily and I stood in the back and danced the entire time, while lightning threatened the sky behind us and the scent of rain lingered until the end.

Twenty One Pilots is another favorite. This was the fourth time I’ve seen them live and I never, never get sick of it. Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun put on an amazing show! I love their music because it’s incredibly unique, and I hadn’t seen them perform since their new album dropped. My expectations were met, as usual. The boys backflipped off the piano, crowdsurfed with their drum sets, insisted on climbing things and just generally rocked.

I’m disappointed that I missed a few acts. I wanted to see Sheppard, but had to work a Sunday morning shift, and really wanted to see Halsey — but the conflict with Of Monsters and Men eliminated that option.

Other highlights of the event? The lobster corndogs from Elliott Graham (drooling), the somewhat improved cell phone service, very short lines for the bathrooms and the lack of obnoxious signs that ruin your view.

I was pretty disappointed with the wait times for the Camelbak filling stations (an hour-plus), the negligence of the bars to stock enough water (they ran out halfway through Sunday) and the number of festivalgoers that didn’t even attempt to get into the music. (I got really bummed out when I spent most of the Walk the Moon set with a bunch of lame teenagers that were more interested in checking Instagram than dancing along to the music.)

I honestly didn’t take too many photos this year. I’m starting to realize how annoying it is to get to a much-anticipated set and then just have a bunch of iPhones waving in front of your face and blocking your view. I took a few selfies with my friends, snapped a few quick terrible pictures of the artists I was really excited for, took a 10-second Snapchat video for my story (follow me: randimshaffer) and then put my phone away.

I mean, if you want to watch a concert through a small screen, you might as well just YouTube it. And does anyone really ever re-listen to the terrible audio footage they take at a concert? Serious question.

Other weekend highlights?

I gave Emily and Amanda a tour of Tribune Tower Thursday night when they got into town. We grabbed Cheesie’s for dinner, and spent Friday morning eating RumChata French toast and drinking mimosas at my apartment. Saturday morning was spent boozing on Wicker Park rooftops, playing Cards Against Humanity and brunching at Bongo Room, and Sunday night was spent watching Drive Me Crazy after an eight-hour work day followed by the Grant Park evacuation and then six hours of Lolla.

All in all, it was another classic Lollapalooza experience for the books, but I’m not too eager to repeat it next year. Is this what getting old is like?! I’m already debating whether I should buy a day pass for next year’s festival, suck it up for the three-day tradition or flee to Michigan for the weekend.

Have you ever seen any of this year’s Lolla lineup bands live? What did you think? Let me know in the comments!