Friday rose on us passed out on the couch we were splitting. Breakfast with fruit, fluids, and vitamin C. Plenty of carbs for energy, plus the fact that anything we ate now would end up saving us another $150 of concessions later. “Cool Hand Luke” our breakfast near the point of explosion, then roam the 6 football fields worth of The Park for 9 hours.
After a near hour of death-defying traffic jammery, we pick up where I left off for you a fort-night ago: Friday afternoon, our plastic ticket cuffs, and set loose for the $6-a-beer and $7 pizza hounds and wolves. Tents run by the type of people who regretted missing Woodstock ’69 because of all the vast market that went untapped, and by some sick genetic memory now push such jacked-up prices that starving Ethiopians would have too much pride to buy anything from these 6-foot weasels.
I had arrived fully and mentally prepared to sleep in a different strange room every night. I was looking forward to late night trysts and hippie swings for the next three nights. My compatriot was not so confident in our peers. His opinion would be that too much of a State Fair attitude would be prevalent. An art show in the middle of the field, and tent for video games, and an area where you could try real Gibson guitars, all on the grounds with easy access, all would be like casting pearl to swine, unless you had a strong word for The Men In Charge, “No sir. Nothing will happen, you can trust these kids, or we can show ‘em real quick what happens if they get like anything other than pure red-blooded American listening to their Rock Music.” Everything’s put on an even keel, because there are Strong Interests in keeping the Wrong People out. Hippies and revolutionaries don’t have $300 to throw around, is the rationale.
I was afraid my friend would be right. Our only option would be spreading the freak-word around and seeing who had a working radar.
The first performance I saw was The Eels. I didn’t know a damn thing about them. I‘d only even heard their name two days before we left. Words can near barely express the insane depression I felt from the 25 feet back that I was. A crowd, people of hundreds, in calm audience for a goddamn rock show! I’m set and used to being the most manic person in a crowd, but when you’re the only person even trying to lose their mind at a rock show, something scientifically studied and designed to be socially condoned insanity…few things match the anger I felt, and I countered by attempting to channel the speed that 900 people rightfully should be clipping at.
“Those rat FUCKS!” I thought. “What are you holding your energy for? If Lollapalooza is not the most amazing thing you could be doing with your time right now, what exactly are you doing here? Get the hell out of my way instead of standing in MY front row with your hands in your pockets. It’ll just be and 150 bands and they’ll finally get a crowd who appreciates them.”
Afterward I met up with Bishara again, since my size allows me considerable better weaving to the front. I don’t really go to concerts “with” people. We ride to together and enter at the same time, but pit rules decree every man, woman, child, and geriatric for themselves, short of planting contraband on someone so they become forcibly removed. But that’s just my opinion, and I have been called too nice for my own good.
The midpoint of our day was the band My Morning Jacket. What can I say that a blinding light from God revealing the mysteries of the universe wouldn’t do better? Few things can match the feeling I got when the band hit me head-on, a fair 4 feet away from speakers the size of a semi cab.
If you know a band, no matter how well, there is a difference from what I experienced. In fact, it’s the very trick of knowing a band so well that usually prevents this feeling. The My Morning Jacket experience was zero-to-brilliance in nine seconds. You suddenly realize you’re looking at one of the greatest bands of your life, and the speed that the amazement strikes you causes auditory and beauty vertigo.
The last show of the night was Ween. It was pure drugged-up mushroom and acid joy put to music. That’s a fact. They rightfully admit to being spun-out freaks, and the crowd was promptly in tune with them. I didn’t have much to worry about as far as dangerous tension or a disappointing audience. The only off-note came when a bouncer slammed a jumper’s head into the short steel wall I was leaning against. I found myself weighing the urge to jump the divide and even the fight until I saw the bouncer-rats crowd the guy like rotten cheese and carry him out.
I stood and shook hard through about an hour of these musical freaks until they closed set, and I couldn’t move. Lucky to still have the strength to stand, I was leaning against the now bloodstained steel wall and overheard a conversation with a man and woman, the latter of which couldn’t quite figure out the mechanics of being upright. At least for the time being:
“We dropped X (that’s ecstasy, kids) at 2, and again at 6.”
“I don’t want to stay up all night doing X.”
“We’ve got the whole weekend. We should do X on Sunday.”
After 3 shows at the rate of the best 100% I could muster, that’s 300% of everything I’ve got, over 9 hours on no food or water beyond occasional park fountains. Being collapsed on my hand and knees through the sand of the baseball diamond we were standing in, I didn’t have the strength to hitch on with these fine folk onto the Craziness they apparently had waiting for them back at their hotel room. I thought a quick thank-you to them for renewing my faith in the Random, Reckless, and Excessive credo, and waited for my lungs to evolve to a higher organ.
The first thing I learned from Lollapalooza was the most haunting: I knew I deserved my sleep more that night than I ever had in my life, and as a result the idea of ever going to bed anytime earlier than absolute ear-bleeding exhaustion has been destroyed. I feel like I deserve to be punished if I do otherwise. Responsibility in a sleep-sense has been forever cursed.
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