Lollapalooza II

When I consulted my timetable this morning I theorised that five was the maximum number of bands you can comfortably see in any one day at a festival. But compared to Friday, Saturday's music intake is halved. I don't have festival stamina. After a failed attempt to see MGMT (they should have played the main stage, it was so packed) and a last-minute decision to miss bands and wait for Okkervil River to sign my Moleskine, the ones I end up seeing are Foals, Okkervil River and Wilco.

F: What do Yeasayer and Foals have in common? Probably not that much apart from being the cool. These boys make me burn with ambition. I want to be the coolest. Foals play well and do some more of the jerky dancing which I guess is what the kids are doing these days. It's a shame that Foals songs all start to sound the same after a while, because they have a good thing going on.

OR: I bought my ticket to Lollapalooza mainly for these guys, although the other bands really sealed the deal. But standing in the crowd I realised that I don't know the Stage Names very well, only know one song pre-Black Sheep Boy, and don't even know all the words to my favourite songs off the latter. I wanted them to play something off the Stand-Ins so I could brag about getting a promo copy last month. Haha. Will Sheff puts in a good effort doing the rock star thing. Drummer Travis really does it for me though - he shakes his hair all over the place and pulls some very entertaining faces.

Next was supposed to be either Lupe Fiasco or Battles but I chose instead to wait by the signing tent to see Okkervil River. I had some half-arsed idea about getting into their sold out show. It was not to be. However, I did get to chat with the bass player for quite some time as we queued. I told him about the promo copy and he grilled me about leaking it online. I said no way, however I am only 90% sure, as I did give a certain gift to a certain hairdressing bassist from a certain band from Montreal... Also got pictures with Travis and Will. Conversation with Travis:
T: So your name is Madeline? That figures.
M: Why?
T: Australians always have cute names... for cute people.
M: (Blush)
I think that was the best part about meeting Okkervil River, who my friend calls Overkill River.

W: These guys were fantastic. They are the best dressed band I have ever seen. They wore these amazing rhinestone-studded suits with different motifs for each band member. Jeff Tweedy was in red with yellow maneki neko design. Other suits as follows: navy blue with sailing ship, killer whales and intertwined ropes, black with skull and bones, green/brown with cricket, white with dragonfly, strange neon yellow/green with owls. God, they were beautiful. Tweedy made lots of cracks about how they had been busy sewing, and no other bands had sewn as much as they had. They churned some butter while they were at it. 'Sewing is fun!' yells someone from the audience. I once embroidered that exact sentiment on a shirt. In the crowd I gravitate towards some nice people, Seth and Heather. He is from Little Rock, Arkansas; she is from Toronto, Ontario. They are blog friends that meet for music festivals. What a great relationship.

At the end of the night I meet up with Dan, Max and Ryan. The third member of the Missouri group, Brook, has somehow managed to meet Bloc Party and have himself invited as a guest to the sideshow with CSS. Damn that kid!

My plans for getting up early to see The Octopus Project may have been foiled by this very blog entry. Double damn.