See our coverage of day one here, day two here
“I don’t give a fuck if it’s raining tonight, this is fun as shit,” some wise words from Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters.
The third day of Lollapalooza held many things: Sliding head first in puddles of mud, lobster corn dogs designed by celebrity chefs, and listening to sunny day music in torrential downpours.
Earlier in the afternoon the weather held up. And with The Cool Kids putting on a hometown show, it seemed like your typical, sunny day end of a festival.
Moods were high but mellow, a pleasant state of mild, loony exhaustion.
The pair of Chicago rappers played last week at Audiotistic, but their performance was much more energetic this time around in the Perry’s tent, which was filled with enough waving hands to signal an airplane.
City and Colour is a stark difference from lead singer Dallas Green’s other, and now defunct band, Alexisisonfire. But other than the amount of tattoos on his body it’s hard to tell. His style of acoustic rock is a little more heavy on the heart.
Portugal. The Man, rocking some almost unrecognizable fresh haircuts, put on a wondrous show. “I’ve never heard them before,” said one concertgoer, a mother from San Diego. “But what a beautiful sound.”
Plenty of long-time fans were also among the group gathered to watch the Alaskan band, their faith evident by the perfectly synced air drumming and lyric crooning.
(Unfortunately for them, and really anyone with a heart, their entire van and trailer were stolen after their show, which held all of their instruments and equipment. The van and trailer were recovered, though empty of all gear.)
This was about the time it started to pour. And all hell broke loose. People started to run for coverage in all directions, while others ran straight for the mud.
“Singing songs about the sunshine in the rain,” laughed Best Coast singer Bethany Cosentino. “I’ll tell my grandkids about this.”
She later joked that her set list washed away, but neither that nor the rain stopped them from putting on a perfectly smile-worthy set that helped warm those extremely squishy shoes and souls.
Over at Modeselektor and the dance tent, things were getting pretty filthy. In a fantastic way. Part of the lawn was now converted into part sludgy slide, part mud stomping session. Headfirst was the preferred method of slipping around, clothing and electronics be damned (A point and shoot camera, cellphone, and whole set of clothes – to be specific).
The Foo Fighters seemed to be humbled by the main stage of the south end of the festival at the nights end.
At one point during their set, Grohl credited the existence of the band to Lollapalooza. The first actually, back in 1991. He went with Kurt Cobain, and said the sheer amount of good music inspired him to create his own.
They rocketed through song after song to an older audience than most of the festival had seen all weekend. Watch their entire performance here.
Perry Farrell sprinted onto stage for second, like an overwhelmed young fan would.
20 years of dirty, sweaty, magnificent rock and roll — and Lollapalooza. Full Circle.
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