5. FIDLAR
Videos by American Songwriter
A few years back, when FIDLAR frontman Zac Carper was embroiled in a life of partying and drug addiction, a main stage set at Lollapalooza might’ve felt implausible. But Sunday afternoon on the massive Bud Light stage, looking out over a sea of people moshing, crowd-surfing and screaming along to the band’s riotous opening cover of Beastie Boys’ “Sabatoge,” it was impossible to imagine any alternative more appropriate.
For an hour that comprised 18 kick-in-the-teeth tunes, both fans and the band appeared impervious to stifling heat, raging so hard that even a few peeps in the VIP section felt compelled to attempt a crowd-surf during crushing cuts like “Drone,” “Bad Habits,” and “Cocaine.” Carper & Co. are living proof: sobriety isn’t a party killer, it’s a kick-starter.
4. The Last Shadow Puppets
Since recently reuniting for sophomore album Everything That You’ve Come to Expect, the Last Shadow Puppets – helmed by Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner and the Rascals’ Miles Kane – have busted out some stellar covers during their shows, which include a string quartet plus an all-star band featuring members of Mini Mansions.
The group nabs a spot so high on this list for one of their boldest selections yet, a rendition of David Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream” to open their Thursday night set on the Pepsi stage. Turner and Kane split duties emulating the lost master, with the former crooning and careening across the stage donning an outlandish yet sharp Riddler blazer, while the latter ripped riff after riff for a solid 5-6 minutes.
Starting with that cover may seem brash, but it was just yet another example of how these Brit boys’ egos complement, rather than hinder their live show. If performances like these persist, the Last Shadow Puppets could very well become more notorious than either of the songwriters’ mainstay acts.
3. Vic Mensa
Though Lolla didn’t originate in Chicago, it has resided there permanently for 12 years, almost half its life. So it was a nice nod to the local peeps that there was such a massive Chi-Town hip-hop presence: rising star Saba on Friday, Smino (born in St. Louis but relocated) on Sunday and Chance the Rapper, who wasn’t on the bill, but used the fest like his playground, showing up as a guest with the likes of Future and Flosstradamus, even playing a last-minute Sunday after-show at the Metro.
But the award for set of the weekend among Windy City resident rappers – really, among all hip-hop acts on the bill – goes to Vic Mensa, who debuted a production designed specifically for Lolla that included backup dancers dressed ominously in full police riot gear. They added poignance to the visual spectacle on the Pepsi stage as they held down, then pretended to shoot Mensa during “16 Shots,” an ode to Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times and killed in 2014 by Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke.
Whether it was debuting new music with Joey Purp (a fierce cut preceded by calling out the fest for not being “accessible for people where I’m from”), showing support for various cultures and issues (the LBGTQ community on “Free Love,” and the Flint, Mich. water crisis on “Shades of Blue), or turning special guest expectations on their heads (no Kanye, just a powerful imagined conversation with his deceased friend “Killa Cam” on a new untitled track), Mensa solidified his presence as one of the top party-starters, and his voice as one the most potent among any artist who performed.
2. LCD Soundsystem
Among the fests I’ve hit so far this year, it’s been just my luck that I’ve only managed to catch LCD Soundsystem as the Friday night headliner. Not that the time slot ever made those shows less exuberant – each was an all-in dance party, validating both the timelessness of the New York band’s eclectic catalogue and the genuine intention behind their reunion.
So the prospect of a Sunday night fest-closing set on the giant Samsung stage – to round out not three but four days of live music for Lolla’s 25th anniversary bash – was exhilarating even in theory. In practice, it was yet again overwhelmingly brilliant, constantly electrifying from the quirky intro build up of “Us v Them,” to the kinetic punk/noise rock of “Movement,” on through the victory lap of “All My Friends.”
Though the crowd was smaller than most of the weekend’s headliners, it was the most voracious: LCD galvanized every body on the field, and people were singing along so passionately even during the slow croon of “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” that most missed frontman James Murphy’s subtle Trump diss: “Your mild billionaire mayor’s / now convinced he’s a king,” he sang, quickly adding with a glance toward “You guys know something about that.” The takeaway was a set that felt personally and nostalgically invigorating for so many, yet undeniably universal – the ideal final rally for a festival of this magnitude.
1. Radiohead
“Broken hearts make it rain / Broken hearts make it rain,” repeated Thom Yorke more than a dozen times during the crescendo of “Identikit,” which marked the midpoint of Radiohead’s 2-hour Friday night headlining set.
And then of course, as if Yorke was some sort of shaman invoking spirits with his weird warble and kooky cavorting, it did rain.
Only several sprinkles for a few moments, as it had been on-and-off all day. Nevertheless, the uncanny (and truthfully somewhat chilling) coincidence plopped the proverbial cherry on top of a performance that became astounding for the many moments it went above and beyond.
With just a sliver of magic-hour glow left to illuminate them as they strode onstage, the British quintet (made sextet with the assistance of 2nd drummer Clive Deamer) kicked things off how they have at every other show on this tour: with a few (largely ambient) cuts off latest album A Moon Shaped Pool. But instead of running through the album’s first five consecutively, they skipped ahead to “Ful Stop,” then pulled a move that would make any hardcore fan squeal; they deviated from the program and dove right into the Hail to the Thief one-two-punch of “2+2=5” and “Myxomatosis.”
For anyone with an appreciation for larger-than-life rock show, not just the diehards, what ensued afterward would’ve impressed massively. Over the course of 24 tunes, the show illustrated Radiohead’s unparalleled breadth not just as musicians, but as multisensory innovators. They reminded of their capacity for post-grunge shredding (“My Iron Lung,” “Paranoid Android”), hypnotizing slow-burners (“Climbing Up the Walls,” “Nude”) and beautifully introspective balladeering (“No Surprises,” “Let Down,” “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”).
And more than 30 years into their career, they don’t shy from acting like rock stars if it’s called for, “There, there, baby. It’s OK. It’s OK. There, there, baby,” said Yorke in a maniacal tone, cleverly teasing the song of the same name.
Those kinds of quips hardly ever feel pretentious coming from them, because it’s the utterly massive quality of their music live, not their egos, which feels extraordinary. Compared to other acts of similar stature, their lighting and production was minimal – mostly solid colors and the same vignettes-make-a-whole video scenario they’ve been using for years scattered across static screens. The effect is that the mind then, for the most part, has only the carefully calculated cacophony to focus on. It sucks you in, overwhelms and reshapes your brainwaves, changes you.
So when encore closer “Karma Police” ended and, wearing an impish grin, Yorke elected to lead the audience through one last a cappella refrain of “For a minute there, I lost myself,” the lyrics came across more momentously cathartic than ever.
