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<\/p>\nBy Peter Thomas Ricci<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the grass that gives it away. In the many years since Lollapalooza was resurrected in Chicago\u2019s Grant Park, I had read stories of how damaging the festival was to the park\u2019s grass, and in covering the festival these past four days, I saw that gradual destruction firsthand \u2013 how the park\u2019s once green, lush spaces were slowly trampled by thousands upon thousands of walking, dancing, standing feet, the green morphing first into a yellow hue consistent with hay, then a brown that recalled a \u201850s western. While I could point to many other details that suggest the toll of the festival \u2013 the achy feet and joints, the sunburned skin \u2013 it\u2019s the grass that is the most telling sign.<\/p>\n
Amidst that transformation, though, was some truly spectacular music, and Lolla\u2019s fourth day spotlighted three artists who have all put their unique stamp on the pop landscape.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sharon Van Etten<\/strong><\/p>\n The career of Sharon Van Etten has been among the more interesting in recent American music. Initially a folk singer, Van Etten\u2019s sound has grown progressively darker and denser over her decade-long recording career, and those facets were on display during her remarkable Lolla set. Although Van Etten was exceedingly polite with the crowd \u2013 she even apologized, at one point, if her voice was not \u201c100 percent,\u201d given she had performed at Lincoln Hall the night before \u2013 she nonetheless dominated the stage with a force and charisma that was astonishing. Walking the stage\u2019s length, singing her material with clarity and force, clapping and gesturing in rhythm \u2013 Van Etten did not so much command respect as expect it, and her ethos matched her muscular compositions perfectly.<\/p>\n An interesting connection: before Van Etten and her band took the stage, a sample of Portishead\u2019s classic \u201cBiscuit\u201d began playing \u2013 it\u2019s obvious in retrospect, but I had not previously connected Van Etten\u2019s newer, darker material with Portishead; at the very least, I now have a dynamic pairing for my next playlist.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kacey Musgraves<\/strong><\/p>\n Things transitioned to a decidedly more optimistic terrain with the evening\u2019s next pop performer, country star Kacey Musgraves. With her beautiful voice and bright, open compositions that were utterly perfect for the hour \u2013 Musgraves took the stage shortly before the sun was obscured by Chicago\u2019s skyline, painting Grant Park in a warm, dreamy gold \u2013 there was a sweetness and loveliness to Musgraves set that was a terrific contrast to Van Etten (whose greatest song, for comparison\u2019s sake is titled \u201cYour Love is Killing Me\u201d).<\/p>\n I attended Musgraves set having never heard her songs \u2013 I largely live off the grid, and tend to mine the past for musical sounds more than explore the present \u2013 yet even with all that ignorance, I found Musgraves voice, bright sound, and engaging stage presence irresistible, and she made a fan out me.<\/p>\n Mitski<\/strong><\/p>\n Sunday\u2019s pop trifecta ended on its boldest and most daring note with a triumphant set from Mitski, the rising star whose 2018 album, \u201cBe the Cowboy,\u201d was one of the year\u2019s most acclaimed releases. A craftsman par excellence \u2013 most of her tracks barely scratch the two-minute mark \u2013 Mitski surged through 14 of her compositions, with her outstanding band adding more muscular foundation to such tracks as \u201cGeyser,\u201d \u201cA Pearl,\u201d and \u201cNobody.\u201d<\/p>\n But if there was any aspect that defined the performance, it was Mitski\u2019s movements and dance sequences. As detailed in a recent New Yorker<\/em> profile, Mitski had grown tired of her existing stage persona, and \u2013 being the meticulous craftsman that she is \u2013 tossed that persona in favor of a new one built around a repetitive series of movements that are more performance art than dance. Using a table and chairs as props, Mitski often followed a two-step sequence when performing her songs: sitting or laying on the table while singing the song\u2019s opening verse and chorus; and then, when the band would work through an instrumental passage, she would break into movement, whether it be kicking her legs in the air, swaying seductively, or moving her arms. It was an effect unlike anything I have ever seen at a pop concert, and the movements \u2013 coupled with the relative stillness of her other moments \u2013 drove the audience wild<\/em>.<\/p>\n The Revivalists & Perry Farrell\u2019s Kind Heaven Orchestra<\/strong><\/p>\n This being Lollapalooza, there was still plenty of rock, and the genre was well represented by the efforts of The Revivalists and Lolla godfather Perry Farrell.<\/p>\n Beginning with the Revivalists, the New Orleans band\u2019s set was exactly what one would have expected from a group of their caliber: musically adventurous, fluid in genre, and a flat-out good time. With its eight(!) members \u2013 including phenomenal pedal steel guitarist Ed Williams, wailing saxophonist Rob Ingraham, and Andrew Campanelli and <\/em>PJ Howard on drums (the two-drum sound producing a dense percussive sound reminiscent of the original Allman Brothers Band) \u2013 the band put 110-percent into each of their songs, livening up the festival\u2019s midday slog and getting everyone ready for more music.<\/p>\n But it was Perry Farrell, and his band Kind Heaven Orchestra, who closed out the festival, and the show proved to be as apt a closing act as there could possibly be \u2013 but not in the conventional sense. While the eternally youthful Farrell was as energetic and engaged as one would expect, and the Kind Heaven Orchestra \u2013 which includes Chris Chaney of Jane\u2019s Addiction, Matt Chamberlain, Nick Maybury, and Farrell\u2019s wife, Etty Lau Farrell \u2013 was professional and precise, it was actually the crowd at the show that provided the perfect sendoff. Lollapalooza is a diverse festival in its audience demographics, yet the audience trends younger; at Farrell\u2019s concert, however, the vast majority of the fans were Baby Boomers like Farrell \u2013 folks who came of age in the late \u201880s\/early \u201890s and thrived to the sounds of Jane\u2019s Addiction and Porno for Pyros. So while Farrell\u2019s band is called the Kind of Heaven Orchestra, the band\u2019s set, for those fans, represented a musical heaven, and I delighted in watching the fans enthusiastically respond to Farrell\u2019s renditions of \u201cPets,\u201d \u201cSnakes Have Many Hips,\u201d and \u201cUp the Beach.\u201d And that, ultimately, is the community that only music can create, right?<\/p>\n By Peter Thomas Ricci It\u2019s the grass that gives it away. In the many years since Lollapalooza was resurrected in Chicago\u2019s Grant Park, I had read stories of how damaging […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,41,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music-news","category-features","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/beintheloopchicago.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lollapaooza-Chicago-2019-Day-4-Highlights-photo-Grant-park-94-1024x711.jpg\")
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