tonyballinger.com

Between the good points, the bad points, and a quick writeup of what bands I saw, this is going to be a lot of writing. So I’m going to write this over a few days. Bear with me. Let’s get started…

I have been through three truly traumatic things in my life. They are in no particular order:

1. Age 13
   The divorce of my parents and my subsequent suicide attempt.
2. Age 23
   Moving from my hometown to Chicago and being profoundly lonely for the first 6 months.
3. Age 31
   Day two of Lollapalooza.

Yes, day two of Lollapalooza makes that list. And yes, I’m being dramatic for effect, but not by much. It was unbelievably hot. Mythically hot actually, and I’m no amateur. I’ve been to Coachella a few times, and I went to Intonation last weekend when it was in the mid-90s. But that was nothing. Mere weak practice runs for the toughest concert festival day of my life. But let’s not start there. Let’s start on Saturday. Beautiful, overcast Saturday.

As soon as I got in the gates, I checked out the venue layout and amenities. Virgin store? Check. Variety of food vendors? Check. Beer? Check. Water? Check… kinda.

Here’s the thing about these events. They’re hot, they’re long, and you need to drink a lot of water to survive one. This is why water was everywhere at Coachella for $2 a bottle, and was plentiful at Intonation for $1 each.

Lollapalooza had no plain water – but they had SmartWater for $3 each at the beer tent. And no dedicated water vendors. The only place to get a beverage of any kind was at the beer tent. Bad idea.

For the uninitiated, SmartWater is water with added electrolytes and whatnot to replace what you lose through sweat. It’s like Gatorade Fitness Water without the good flavor. SmartWater tastes a bit like someone left a glass of soda on the counter before they went to bed and you mistakenly drank it the next morning. Except that in this case, you were dying of thirst, paid $3, and then drank the armpit water.

But i digress. I was getting to the layout of the venue. It was in Grant Park, with a large stage at all four corners of the park. The good thing about this setup is that you can easily walk between stages, for example if you want to catch half of each of the two bands performing. The bad thing about it is that there’s plenty of crosstalk between the stages. If you’re standing further out, or on the wrong side, you’re going to hear both stages loud and clear.

Next: about the bands…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 27th, 2005 at 8:29 pm and is filed under Concerts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.