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Photos by Kirstie Shanley unless otherwise noted; text by Amy Phillips

For Scott Plagenhoef's previous Lollapalooza coverage, click here: Friday / Saturday / Sunday

For Amy Phillips' Lollapalooza coverage: Friday / Sunday

For Matthew Solarski's Lollapalooza coverage: Friday / Saturday / Sunday

I'm From Barcelona [Bud Light Stage; 12:30 pm] (last photo by Matthew Solarski)

Swedish indie pop army I'm From Barcelona burst onto the stage like hundreds of pounds of confetti shot out of a cannon. Whooping and hollering, bounding and bouncing, they came bearing gifts: lots and lots of balloons. As crazy-haired IFB captain Emanuel Lundgren lead his gajillion backing musicians into set opener "Treehouse", the balloons bobbed through the ecstatic crowd. But a half-hour later, the balloons were gone, deflated or having floated away. (Side note: Aren't balloons bad for the environment?)

It was an apt metaphor for I'm From Barcelona's set, which also served as their American live debut. It started out fantastically, overwhelming attendees with bright colors, limitless energy, and those jubilant tunes. Lundgren crowd-surfed on a yellow inflatable swimming pool raft, there was a guy dressed in a bear costume, and several band members seemed to only be there for the purpose of dancing and running through the crowd giving high fives. Songs like "Oversleeping", "Collection of Stamps", and, of course, "We're From Barcelona" were built for this environment, where musical enjoyment is a massive communal activity. Like the Polyphonic Spree and the Flaming Lips, I'm From Barcelona are the kind of band that festivals are made for.

However, Lollapalooza is unusual in that it gives most acts hour-long sets. For I'm From Barcelona, that was not a good thing. They blew their "We're From Barcelona" wad at 1 p.m., and everybody went crazy, it was awesome, etc. Festival-going at its best. But then there were still 30 more minutes to fill. So they kept going. And it got really, really, REALLY annoying.

Maybe it's just that it was so early in the day and I was still working off the night before, and it was oppressively humid outside, but man oh man, did I want to go listen to Jesu and commit animal sacrifices by the time the Nintendo music version of "We're From Barcelona" that marked the band's exit rolled around.

The Hold Steady [MySpace Stage; 5:30 pm]

"There is so much joy in what we do up here," Craig Finn told the crowd before the Hold Steady closed their typically excellent set with "Killer Parties". "I want to thank you for sharing that joy with us."

He didn't need to say it. Even the slightest glance at the Hold Steady in action would show that this band loves each and every minute they spend making music, and they love spreading that love to as many people as possible. Finn and mustachioed keyboardist Franz Nicolay couldn't stop smiling and jumping up and down, and neither could the exuberant crowd, which included a very high number of young kids who knew all the words.

The joke about the Hold Steady is that they only appeal to middle-aged critics from the Midwest, but never has that seemed less true than yesterday afternoon. Yeah, we were in the Midwest, but I didn't spot too many rock critics (maybe they were all in the VIP area behind the stage, checking their iPhones?), and most everyone around me looked barely old enough to drink. When a band has tunes this strong, and a live presence this engaging, the appeal is almost universal.

All the Hold Steady trademarks were in full force at Lollapalooza: Finn's MC-like hand gestures and tendency to overflow with language so much that he just shouts words into the air next to the microphone in between lyrics, Nicolay's showboating, Tad Kubler's nonchalant strut. And with the boys and girls in America having such a great time together out in a baseball field on the shore of Lake Michigan, it couldn't have been better.

Patti Smith [Adidas Stage; 7:30 pm]


Photo by Jason Squires/Lollapalooza

It started raining in earnest as Patti Smith took the stage, but I'm not going to write something horribly stupid and clichéd like "but it couldn't dampen the punk godmother's spirits!" The rain certainly heightened the mood of her set, though, for better or for worse. When she played sluggish, dirgey covers of Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?" and Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit", the rain dragged them down even further, making them seem interminable. But when she blasted through classics like "Free Money", "Because the Night", "Gloria", and set closer "Rock'n'Roll Nigger" (which still shocks, 29 years later), the rain upped the drama, giving a sense of impending apocalypse.

Smith's voice continues to be a wonder, as supple and guttural as ever. And her stage presence is still fierce, even though she's 60 years old and her backing band contained her son Jackson. Sure, her past few records haven't been very good, but that back catalog is unassailable. Her unusual sense of the rhythms of words and the ways that they fit into traditional song structures-- not the mention the fact that she talks about race and religion and gender in ways that few rock acts of the past three decades have even attempted-- offered welcome respite from the vague monochrome sentiments of the indie rock happening all around her at Lollapalooza.

Photos: The Crowd