BLOG: FILTER Does Lollapalooza & Has A Few Things To Say About It
By Staff on August 10, 2012
Lollapalooza can sometimes feel like a practical joke of a festival. It’s an international gathering in a city that I’ve considered my “home town” for quite some time. It doesn’t have the arrest record of the Gathering of the Juggalos and it doesn’t have the snooty quality of Pitchfork. It’s an interesting change from all the street festivals around Chicago from April through September and I, presumably along with the rest of the world, fell in love with Perry Farrell’s wife Etty Lau Farrell during the too-brief singular season of VH1’s Married to Rock.
It’s both exclusive - where you want to be with golf carts - and totally egalitarian – where you might not want to be with people caked in mud. This year there was an ominous amount of rain and impromptu downtown hotel parties. FILTER became a tent amongst tents in the Media area for bringing in 300 White Castle burgers during afternoon crunch time. Countless people were able to get Jesse Pinkman to pose for Instagram shots with them. Additional countless people lost their minds while “dancing” to “primal beats” at Perry’s Tent.
Here’s a quick run down of one lucky person’s experience of the fest.
Best/most surprising conversation: I was honestly a bit worried about my chat with Bassnectar for Filter and Soterik. EDM is pretty far away from the kind of music I know how to talk about and the anonymity of EDM always makes me think those dudes don’t really want to talk about themselves. Bassnectar was a rad-ass fella. He’s from Santa Cruz, I had a long shot question about Lost Boys assuming he wouldn’t be into it and he said yes. He also anticipated that I wanted to know his first radio listening memory and talked about having to listen to Salt N Pepa in headphones. My new under-ten-minute bestie.
Best food: There was talk about White Castle bringing a couple hundred burgers to the FILTER tent on Friday. I wasn’t sure if I should believe it. But they came and the people were very, very happy.
Best weird set: Everyone knew watching Ozzy would be sort of weird. It was. Worth it to see all the disciples so thrashingly into it.
Best hippie set: Florence and the Machine. Ms. Welch inspired quite a lot of invisible glowing orb juggling. Not that it’s a bad thing. Woman conjures spirits.
Strangest projectile: So many neon raver teddy bears. Ooh-wee, what up with that?
Best alternative to leaving the monsooned fairgrounds: Hotel party. As someone who lives very far away from downtown, having friends staying in the city created a rad excuse to raid hotels and not go change into dry clothes when you’re cab-ride-minutes away from home.
Biggest “Yes!” moment: Jack White’s alternating fella/lady bands. What a talented and dapper visionary. I want to reupholster furniture and bake biscuits with him.
Evacuation!