 “It’s so weird, VIP thinks they’re so way too cool to do this! You’re no fun!” Chappell Roan screeches on the stage at Outside Lands.Â
Just a few days before, she enraptured the enormous crowd at Lollapalooza’s T-Mobile Stadium, dressed in a Barbie-pink and Gatorade-blue wrestling outfit, as the bouncy arcade beats of “HOT TO GO!” play behind her. It is like 199 degrees: hot, sticky, and humid, like a packed fraternity house. People are fainting left and right, as “X” symbols soar over the crowd, and giant screens showcase the artist gallivanting on stage.Â
My friend and I couldn’t actually see Chappell Roan. The artist was engulfed by the chaos as my friend and I were squeezed out of the crowd after a quick run for water. The atmosphere was terrifying yet electric, her voice booming above us, her performance unable to be captured by words. The slow build-up to “Pink Pony Club” is underlaid with soft cascading piano chords giving way to silence, pierced by her vocals. Her voice rips away at each chorus, as the crowd answers her, “You’re a pink pony girl!” Everyone echoes her story of overcoming childhood guilt, and the freedom of performance — the freedom that her music brought to every one of us.Â
Lollapalooza is a massive music festival, set in downtown Chicago’s Grant Park. It was first conceived as a farewell tour for the band Jane’s Addiction in 1991. They hosted acts such as Siouxsie and the Banshees, Nine Inch Nails, and Body Count – musicians who existed outside the Top 40s. The event was also a site for freak-shows, Shaolin monks as well as political rallies. It pushed a new generation of alternative rock artists in the mid 90s to enter the mainstream.Â
With its rebrand in 2005, Lollapalooza transformed from a traditional music tour to a destination festival. The event racked up on brand sponsorships, apparent in even the stage names all throughout the venue: Perry’s, Tito’s, Bacardi, Bud Light, T-Mobile, and IHG Hotels & Resorts. They also serve food from a diverse set of chains: Wow Bao, Dark Matter Coffee, Shawarma Point, and Bacci Pizzeria– only to name a few. They also sell the infamously expensive Liquid Death Water, characterized by its campy parody of a typical Monster bottle.
Despite the capitalistic undercurrent of the event, Lollapalooza still remains a place for a variety of artists to thrive, whether they be tiny indie bands such as The Japanese House, or mega pop acts like Tyla.
WORRY CLUB
The band was stationed at the Bacardi stage at 1 p.m., a cool venue shaded by shaggy oak trees. The crowd was clusters of groups, free from worry of being squashed by the barricade. They had a mixed bag of calm and eclectic songs, each of them drowned in a haze of soft rock guitars and silvery reverb. Their music reflected the Gen-Z high school experience, with lyrics such as “I drank all the oat milk / and slayed all the demons,” coursing through the crowd like slightly blurred pictures taken at Walmart at 3 a.m. They weren’t remarkable, but they didn’t have to be. There were a few failed attempts to hype up the crowd, but otherwise their performance was great.Â
6 glasses of oat milk out of 10
METTEÂ
Mette was an impeccable performer. Her dance moves were sharp – model-like perfection – and her voice was stunningly stable throughout the entire set. Her energy radiated throughout the T-Mobile setup and she absolutely slayed, despite her being one of the smaller artists on the massive stage. Her thighs also have to be mentioned; they were sculpted like Athena’s, and most likely the result of intense workouts.
It was a gift to see her up close. “Van Gogh” was one of her strongest songs, at once an H&M dance hit and a genderless love ghazal, “I could be Van Gogh, shawty, if you’d be my muse.” The song was infectiously fun and it was finished off in the best way: a nostalgic key change at the end. She also called out one of her muses, Chappell Roan. Truly your favorite artist’s favorite artist.Â
9 insanely rigorous leg days out of 10Â
TYLAÂ
“Make me sweat, make me hotter…” We were so excited to see her on stage! The hype was immeasurable. We waited two hours after Mette’s performance, stealing a front row seat for Tyla’s set as the hot sun blistered upon us and festival staff threw water cartons into the crowd. As the minutes wore on, we saw a tiger slowly being inflated. He was so serious, with his yellow slit-pupiled eyes; it looked like he was mewing in our direction. This only compounded my excitement. Was Tyla going to dance on the Tiger’s head?Â
Tyla emerged on the Tiger’s torso, at first completely covered by the animal’s big, stupid head. Thank God for the massive screens at T-Mobile. Despite the rocky beginning, the rest of the set was so much fun. It was a feast for the eyes and ears as Tyla strutted to the front of the stage, dancing on the left edge of the T-shaped structure where we could clearly see her. We snapped several spellbinding shots.Â
Tyla was so lively on stage, and her energy was unlike any other artist I’ve seen before. Everything seemed so effortless: The dance to “Jump,” her high note in “Art,” her tone in “Water.” I give serious props to the backup dancers as well; they added so much dimension and complexity to the performance, and it felt like they were truly immersed in their roles. One of my favorites would have to be when Tyla rubbed her nose, and yelled, “My nose ring!” and suddenly broke character.Â
Ultimately, Tyla was a powerhouse on the stage. She was a star. “…Make me lose my breath, make me water…”Â
9.7 mewing inflatable tigers out of 10Â
CHAPPELL ROANÂ
I have already touched on her set, and I’m sure it will make Lollapalooza history, but I wish my friend Saumya and I didn’t get squished out of the crowd. When I look back at my other friend’s videos… from the spot where we saw Mette and Tyla, I am filled with an incomprehensible rage. I guess it’s natural to feel this way.
9.5 pink ponies out of 10Â
THE JAPANESE HOUSE
This was one of my favorite acts out of the entire lineup. The Japanese House is a pop-indie band based from the UK performing on the Tito’s stage. People were quite chill, but lots of them crowded towards the front for the hot, genderless lead singer Amber Bain. I was under their spell, entranced by their tomboyish, dreamy yet full-bodied voice – a different shade to the ethereal, androgynous, Imogen Heap-like vocals I first heard on Spotify with “Saw You in A Dream.” Live, the song was doused in layers of breathy, ghostly reverb, lyrics like “the sweetest apparition, such a pretty vision” a reflection of how “everything is cyclical.”
The buttery sax and warm 80s synths of “Sunshine Baby” cascaded over the crowd, the soft snares and clicks, the blooms of the electric piano and guitar, delicate and deliberate. Driving through a wheatfield during golden hour, windows open, the copper sun on your elbows after an argument with your lover, the moment when you know it’s all going to end:Â
“I don’t know what’s right anymore / I don’t wanna fight anymore / Sitting in the backseat, driving with my sunshine, Baby / Well, I’ve gone a little crazy / Surely, someone’s going to save me now”
I was weeping to their last song, “Boyhood.” In the studio, their vocals sounded so light, like soft rays of sun. On the Tito’s stage, their voice was boyish, hooking around the syllables, so raw and tender like fistfuls of dirt on a summer afternoon – the pure joy of not knowing what germs are yet, of childhood. “I used to be somebody else / And I’m still out looking for me.” God, I still tear up.Â
 12 cyclical summer days out of 10Â
SAINT LEVANTÂ
Another highlight! St. Levant is a Palestinian-Serbian-French-Algerian rapper who was born during the Second Intifada, and spent his childhood in the Gaza Strip. His family later relocated to Amman, Jordan in 2007 when a civil war broke out between rival factions Hamas and Fatah. I was shocked to see Lollapalooza feature someone from Palestine and speaking out against the genocide, knowing their corporate ties to several companies that support Israel (Coca-Cola, T-Mobile, IHG, just to name a few) and Perry Farell’s past ambitions to host the festival in Tel Aviv.Â
There was a decent sized crowd at Bacardi, but we managed to shimmy towards the front. My friends’ jaws dropped – the man was handsome, had a deep, dark voice and was advocating against a genocide? While hip thrusting? Girl, sign me up. (That was a joke, please don’t do that) We only showed up for the second half of his set (running 0.5 miles from Tito’s to Bacardi was no easy task), but I enjoyed it a lot. He definitely saved his strongest songs for last, bouncing from “Deira,” a rhythmic Middle Eastern anthem about his early years in the Gaza strip, to “From Gaza, With Love,” a ballad about the people suffering in Palestine today, and finally “Allah Yimefiki,” a poetic dance hit about a Palestinian girl Saint Levant once loved. My friends and I danced throughout the entire half-set, screaming the lyrics we half-knew in awful Americanized Arabic.Â
9.9 hip thrusts out of 10Â Â
LIZZY MCALPINEÂ
I’m being honest here. We only listened to Lizzy McAlpine for a single song – the very last song of her set. “But it’s over / Then you’re driving me home / And it kinda comes out as I get up to go / You kiss me in your car / And it feels like the start of a movie I’ve seen before…”
It was “Ceilings,” of course. The song was so emotional, the lush instrumental bursting from the giant Bud Light speakers, the strings, the piano, the lyrics vibrating through our bones. The outro was stunning, as the packed crowd sang along, screaming at the top of their lungs, heaving the weight of hundreds of losses. The only thing I disliked about the performance was how she didn’t take advantage of the space on the stage. I know her main vocation is as a singer-songwriter, but I feel like the cozy stage design trapped her towards the center, too far back for most people to see.Â
7.5 nonexistent ceilings out of 10Â
HOZIERÂ
One of the best artists I’ve seen in my 20 years of existence, Hozier’s voice is somehow better live than in the studio, with so much more dimension, body and emotion.Â
Before going to Lolla, I wasn’t a big fan of Hozier, but this set, this entire five star concert, converted me to a stan. I had listened to his songs before, put them on my homework shuffle, and sang the lyrics of “Too Sweet” incorrectly too many times. People were camped out for Hozier. There were tightly packed mobs near the front of Bud Light, and my friend snagged a front row position. I was a bit apprehensive about the whole idea. Why?Â
1.) The Chappell Roan situation… The crowd could become unsafe at any time, and unlike her, Hozier was a headliner – which meant his performance took up 90 minutes opposed to the traditional 40-60 minutes.
2.) I am vertically challenged. I did not want to play Russian Roulette with my ability to see the artist, strain my hand trying to record videos just to be trampled at the end for all my efforts.Â
3.) I was sweaty. The sun finally stopped his unwavering dedication to burning us alive, and I wasn’t going to waste a few hours in cool Nirvana just to be squashed by stinky bodies.Â
I was ready to accept my fate as a casual fan, wooing in the sidelines, until I found the holy grail: the Med Pole. I swear the angels were singing. It was a red rectangular pole, blocked into the ground with cement, with just enough of the bottom part sticking out for someone to stand. Two moms were standing on it already, and I asked if I could scoot in next to them. They said yes.Â
After a few songs, some of my other friends joined me. We took turns to stand on the pole, to be appointed as the resident videographer. The view was impeccable, akin to the VIP seats in the center that took higher ground. You could see the entire Bud Light stage, totally cleared of people’s heads. We even saw Hozier clutching the mic close to his chest and spinning around. His vocals were clear and stable throughout, only amplified by his backup singers and the live band. The visuals on the screens were spellbinding, you could see every wrinkle between his brows, every strand of his perfect Irish hair flowing with the music. He prefaced the song “Nina Cried Power,” with a small message about Palestine. He told the audience to vote for what’s right, to speak up. Told us that he resonated with the suffering of those subjugated by the genocide, as his home country was once ravaged by colonial powers as well. “We wouldn’t want to see any other human being subject to the kind of violence we’ve seen in Gaza in the last few months,” Hozier said.
 “Take Me to Church” ended his set with a bang. More than bang, a rhapsody – his voice darkened by the thunder under the haze of a light monsoon. “Thank you for the rain,” He said, voice thread-like, “You did that.”Â
“Take Me to Church” was four minutes too short. The soft verses, followed by a prayer, “Amen, amen, amen,” and then the chorus. The lyrics reverberated through the crowd, our hands swaying, some with phone flashlights, some with bottles of whiskey, our voices fusing together as one. We sang:
“Take me to church / I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies / I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife / Offer me that deathless death / Oh, good God, let me give you my life”Â
This was Hozier’s third time attending the event, and anyone could tell. My friend at the front freaked out when he walked towards her edge of the stage, when they were approximately two meters from his shoe.
He ended the show by thanking us and his crew. “Thank you so, so much, Lollapalooza, for having me.”Â
15.5 neat whiskeys out of 10
Ultimately, Lollapalooza was an unforgettable experience, both for our ears and our pockets. The performances and the pop-ups all added to the atmosphere of a massive music festival, bringing people from all over the globe to the Midwest, to buy, buy and buy.
Our friend group traversed along the bridges above the Chicago River with half eaten bagels in our mouths, the solid row of cream cheese in each of them costing at least six dollars. We stopped at the merch store, another $60.00 spent. Ramen-san, about $50.00. Cosmetics, $0.00, but we salivated over the products. (Don’t even mention the cost of the hotel… it was even more than our tickets!) We saw the Bean for free, but we got bubble tea afterwards, $20.00. There was only a single barista behind the counter, while all the other places around were packed like a Kpop album set. After we entered the festival, we stopped at the T-Mobile popup, and were allowed a better view of the stage below simply because one of us had them as a provider. Then we gazed up at the VIP platform– we were so close, yet so far from the optimal spot to see the artists. The breeze through their hair, instead of the sweat, the backstage tickets…
It still sticks with me. Why don’t the VIPs have any fun?Â