Pitchfork

Photos by Kirstie Shanley; text by Scott Plagenhoef

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

For Amy Phillips' Lollapalooza coverage: Friday / Saturday / Sunday

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

 

Los Campesinos! [Playstation stage; 2:15 p.m]

Los Campesinos! could be the best new band of 2007, and in indie circles they probably should be the biggest. They have the pedigree (Arts & Crafts is their label, Dave Newfeld their producer), the songs (buy this EP), but not the live chops. Which is great. What they have instead of studied perfection is a contagious, youthful enthusiasm, the spunk and shouts of great old Pac NW punk rock with additional spazz (thx, Joshua) and scuzz.

A young seven-piece from Cardiff (members are 20-21, although some look like schoolkids), LC! look like American indie kids rather than NME starlets. Two-thirds of the band's female members wore floral print dresses, stockings, and flats; the boys could have passed for a skate-punk band, back when that was still a compliment. If there was still any doubt these kids-- here playing their first-ever U.S. show-- worshipped at the altar of U.S. indie rock, the Merge stickers and K tees should have ended it. When lead Campesino Gareth introduced the band's cover of "Frontwards", he called Pavement "probably the best band the U.S. has ever created" and reeled off an anecdote about their heroes and Lollapalooza 95. After spotting an audience member wearing a "Pavement Ist Rad" tee from the Wowee Zowee/Lolla 95 era, he couldn't contain his excitement and paused to point it out.

So LC! are finding their way as a band and are all the better for it. Wide-eyed and charged by their initial brushes with building a fanbase, when they smiled on stage, they did so at each other, barely able to contain their own excitement. Gareth closed the set by walking into the crowd, blending fandom and performer-- you get the feeling these kids, like the ones who attended this performance (and gave them a rapturous ovation at the end), attend shows to have fun in the moment rather than document them on their cellphones or intellectualize them on their blogs. The unbridled enthusiasm and sense of togetherness came to a head on "You! Me! Dancing!", one of the year's best songs and-- along with other Lolla peaks such as LCD Soundsystem's "All My Friends", I'm From Barcelona's "We're From Barcelona", and Daft Punk's "Human/Together" finale-- another wonderful reminder of how badly needed and powerful it is when great music doubles as communion.

P.S. Buy this EP.

Iggy & the Stooges [Bud Light stage; 4:15 p.m.]

"1969", "I Wanna Be Your Dog", "T.V. Eye"-- the first half of the Stooges set was a reminder of when rock was primal and ferocious. A tanned and healthy-looking Iggy Pop screamed, cajoled, and shook a weather-beaten crowd before stalking the photo pit like a caged animal. Ron Asheton practically stole the set with guitar that probably forced fingers into ears as far away as Buckingham Fountain.

Iggy let loose as many F-bombs as the rest of the weekend's performers combined, reminding us inadvertently just how fucking polite rock'n'roll is these days. And in what turned out to be pivotal moment in the day when it should have been the finale, Ig tried his own turn at courtesy by inviting people to rush the stage-- curiously, he did so well before the end of the Stooges' set.

After a back-to-back serving of mixed messages-- "Real Cool Time" and "No Fun", in reverse order of how they appear on the band's debut LP-- he was left trying to ask the assembled crowd to get down off the stage. Instead, a few kids took turns shouting into the mic. The group finally ceded the spotlight once their antics stopped being broadcast on the stage's monitor. By the time the Stooges re-grouped the rest of their set-- heavy on newer songs-- was anti-climatic, more punishment than punishing.

Yo La Tengo [adidas stage; 5:15 p.m.]

I've seen some utterly mesmerizing Yo La Tengo shows, but alas, this was not one of them. They tried, bless 'em, opening with "Sugarcube" and "Autumn Sweater", but even at their most pop the assembled masses did little more than nod politely. When they veered toward extended instrumental workouts, it was a difficult sell on a humid day near the end of a long weekend.

The band is always adventurous and eclectic, and it took a lot of asking for people to follow YLT in this environment, and many didn't, which is a shame: Yo La Tengo are one the great bands of our time, but on this evidence perhaps not a daytime festival act. Ira Kaplan dedicated "Mr. Tough" to Chicago's classic blues/soul labels Chess and Brunswick, a nice touch, but when a fan held up a sign asking for "Danelectro 3 Please!!!" the punctuation just reminded me that I was missing !!! for this.

TV on the Radio [7:15 p.m.]

So after giving an hour to the bands who had played much of the afternoon, TV on the Radio only get 45 minutes? Well, they used them wisely, hopefully turning the heads and (eventually) turning out the pockets of the assembled crowd waiting across Hutchinson Field for Pearl Jam (with special guest Dennis Rodman!!!!).

The textural charms of TVOTR may be lost in this setting, but with Tunde Adebimpe shimmying his hips, twitching his leg, and filling the air with his powerful voice, they weren't missed. TVOTR's sound was huge and galvanizing and for the many who checked out after their set, a near-perfect finale to the weekend. The "Wolf Like Me"-"I Was a Lover" 1-2 got the normally stoic VIP section moving, while the crowd in front had little problem doing that all set.

Adebimpe joked when it was time to pack and go that they might not finish with the song we wanted to hear. They did, of course, and after howling at the moon earlier in the night treated us to "Staring at the Sun". When it was all said and done, the crowd yelled out for "one more song." When the request wasn't granted, it turned its anger across the park: "Fuck Pearl Jam!" I still get letters about this review, so I'll just end it there.