Lollapalooza Day 2: Arctic Monkeys & Yeah Yeahs

Ren Reiske © August 2009

Boarding the Metra (Sign: Be Safe … lol)

I was still recovering from my KOL high and hangover, so we decided to just chill and check out various bands at the park. We took the Metra train to the downtown station, which was 11 blocks away from Grant Park. Fortunately, there was a free trolley to LOLLA and we hopped on board and received Rayban goodies (bags, sweatbands). Score! At the park, it was a sunfest — a warm, sunny, very crowded Saturday.

Welcome to LOLLApalooza!

Arctic Monkeys
Matt Reiske © 2009 All Rights Reserved

Our first stop was Arctic Monkeys at the Budweiser stage. The best thing about Lolla is the crisp sound system and the way every stage does not interfere with each other. We walked over to the South side to hear No Age and Glasvegas.
Glasvegas, Scottish indie rockers, were lively and very good. I was distracted by being on the front sidelines by the boys painted in purple.

The ominous elevators on the 5th floor

7 p.m. We decided to take a break from the overcrowded park and walked out to Michigan St. for dinner. We found an interesting restaurant, Artist’s Cafe, to cool off. Since I refuse to use the park’s porta-pottys, I asked about the restroom which turned out to be a little adventure. I was given a piece of paper (pass) which I had to take to the elevators on the first floor. It was an older building with an old-fashioned, wood-glass elevator. The door opens and there is an old man sitting on a stool to work the switches to the floors. The girl next to me says. “I bet you have the BEST job!” He just glared at her and mumbled, “Yeah” (or maybe it was @#%*). He takes our passes and we ride to the 5th floor. It’s starting to feel creepy. The door opens and I see glass cases that look like art studios and a hallway reminiscent of The Shining. The place looked like a mental ward. On the far end was the restroom — an open, tiled room with several white sinks on one side. The toilets were in another room. I had to go through a heavy, dead-bolt door to get to the stalls. This IS a psycho-ward! The bathroom excursion was worth the visit to this cafe. Their burgers are delicious too.

Buckingham Fountain

8:30 p.m. Back at LOLLA to see Tool. The crowd was so overwhelming (above) that we headed to the North side to see Ben Harper (handsome fellow with great vocals) and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. We stayed long enough to see the wild, feathered lead singer, Karen O.

McSparkly

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Our train ride was departing in 30 minutes (so we thought). We walked and ran with Amazing Race speed to the Metra Station. My feet were beginning to blister and hurt. With 6 minutes to spare, we discovered that our train was not arriving for another hour! I was spent.