Lollapalooza 2006 Day Three

If day one of the festival was littered with star power and day two was packed with it, then day three was Lollapalooza's happy medium. It had the festival's biggest headliner, the two best competing acts and a few superb indie rock groups. What it didn't have, however, was consistency. The early part of the day was, for the most part, a crapshoot. I went early in an attempt to catch Boy Kill Boy, whose new disc is catchy enough to warrant a listen or two, but arrived to discover they'd cancelled their entire U.S. tour. In their place, some terrible band named Office. (Side note: What is it with bands picking bland names like Office and Pedestrian lately? Are you trying to make people not like you before you start playing music?) Appropriately, hearing the group made me feel like I was sitting at a desk, bored out of my skull. Good work, guys! In the middle of their set, it started sprinkling rain and I left the park since Sparta and The Redwalls both suck and there was nothing else worth checking out in the next hour.

The Hold Steady's Craig Finn (Photo By Noah Love)

Once again, 1:30 heralded the beginning of the afternoon, and you couldn't have found a better way to spend the early part of Sunday than with The Hold Steady. Frontman Craig Finn's manic Bruce Springsteen-meets-Mark E. Smith speak-sing hilariously trumpeted the fact that these guys should have a huge year when their new record comes out on Vagrant this fall. I went out of my way to see the band based on the high praise heaped on them by our reviewer in Toronto the week before, and I can say that, after having seen them myself, his orgasmic praise was completely warranted.

Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor (Photo By Will Taylor)

From there, it was over to the PlayStation stage for Hot Chip, whose record I don't really like, but who have a massive wave of hype behind them. Plus, the alternative was basically Ben Kweller, and I've seen more of that guy than any person ever should. Hot Chip are one of those bands who I thought might have the live show to make a fan outta me. I was off base on that one. The sextet sound like New Order and the Pet Shop Boys combined, but without those two bands' energy. This was dance-pop-rock at its most terminally boring.

Andrew Bird (Photo By Noah Love)

Andrew Bird seemed like one of those acts destined to fall into the same trappings that bands like Iron & Wine fell prey to on the Adidas stage. The twee pop violinist/guitarist, however, blasted his bass levels and managed to fill the park with his sound rather than be drowned out by nearby Pepper at the PlayStation stage. Bird's songs have become far more complex since I saw him at Toronto's Trinity Church in July of 2004. For starters, he's expanded his stage lineup to two, and now prominently features a drummer/mixmaster. The additional stagehand helped give Bird's loops and lush melodies far more impact, and he received a very warm reception from a pretty large crowd.

The Bud Light stage played host at 4:30 p.m. to Portland, Oregon indie wunderkinds, The Shins. Though their new LP won't be out until 2007, the band previewed a heap of it in their hour. Most of the new tracks had a "Saint Simon" vibe to them, with only one really rocking out as only these indie popsters know how to. The good thing about The Shins is that their songs are short, or at least don't overstay their welcome. That meant they were also able to play heavily from Oh, Inverted World ("Girl On The Wing," "Pressed In A Book" and Garden State hit "New Slang") and Chutes Too Narrow ("Kissing The Lipless," "Gone For Good" and set closer "So Says I"). It's nice that the band could go out and get equal reception for both their hits and the tracks they debuted. If Editors are a decent version of Interpol, then She Wants Revenge are their shitty twins. They had barely any stage presence and songs so unmemorable I couldn't hum a note from one of them.

Queens Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme (Photo By Noah Love)

Thankfully, the antidote was across the field in the form of Queens Of The Stone Age, who were making one of their few live appearances this summer. The quartet held off on previewing any of the new material they've been working on during their lengthy breaks in 2006, instead doing a hits set highlighted by "If Only," "First It Giveth" and "In My Head." Josh Homme was upbeat throughout, clearly enjoying the pre-Red Hot Chili Peppers enthusiasm that was running rampant through the field as QOTSA performed. Mid-set focus on Lullabies To Paralyze took a little energy away from the band, but "Go With The Flow" and "Song For The Dead" ensured maximum moshing towards the conclusion of the set. The only drawback of seeing QOTSA was missing the equally awesome Wilco, who played a hometown show that featured a pile of new songs.

Broken Social Scene's Feist and Kevin Drew (Photo By Noah Love)

Surprisingly, the best set of the entire festival (and I can't believe most other reviews I've read didn't even mention it) came from a band I've seen more times than I can count: Broken Social Scene. Because the Chili Peppers had a deal to play unopposed at 8:15 p.m., and festival organizers thought for some reason that people still give a shit about Blues Traveler, Social Scene had to squeeze their epic performance into 45 minutes. For the occasion, they brought nearly the whole band, including Emily Haines and James Shaw. Feist and Amy Millan, who also appeared, were already in town to perform at the festival. Sensing the heightened sense of occasion, Kevin Drew forwent meandering jams like "Handjobs For The Holidays" and instead led BSS through a non-stop hit parade. The best were an extremely crisp "7/4 (Shoreline)," "Stars And Sons" and "Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl," which featured Haines, Millan, Feist and Lisa Lobsinger sharing vocals to abate the Drew-dubbed "sausage party." When they ripped into "Ibi Dreams Of Pavement (A Better Day)" just as the sun set on Chicago, you couldn't help feel the band have never been stronger, which is why it's sad they may be finished at the end of their 2006 tour.

Broken Social Scene's Andrew Whiteman, Evan Cranley and Brendan Canning (Photo By Will Taylor) 

Fans stood and loudly cheered BSS for 10 minutes and the band themselves pleaded into the stage cameras to go on for one more song, but the Chili Peppers curfew meant festival organizers took a hard line on keeping the set to its allotted 45 minutes. It's a shame, because allowing them to play one more song would have been one of the spontaneous and interesting moments of the festival, and those are the types of moments that Lollapalooza, on the whole, sorely lacked. And with that, I got the hell out of there. When hyperbolic Perry Farrell got up on stage and introduced the Chili Peppers as the best band in the world (wrong on so many counts), the clock had officially struck midnight and the magic was officially dead and gone. But with nearly 180,000 concert goers passing through the gates over the course of the weekend, Lollpalooza will almost certainly be back bigger and hopefully even better in 2007.

Here are the links to Friday and Saturday of Lollapalooza 2006.