Ah, Lollapalooza, the infamous music festival in Chicago that attracts the masses from all of the United States. I have made it my mission to summarize the event as best as I can in order to help those who are debating attending the festival in the future. In order to truly review the event, it should be noted that this diary entry will be focusing on my attendance on Thursday; without further ado, let’s talk Lolla. 

Thursday morning began with a gaggle of teens meeting in the Downers Grove train station. Following a forty-minute train ride, the teens disembarked on their way to find Grant Park. Once in the festival and hopefully avoiding an uncomfortable pat-down, festival attendees made their respective ways to water stations, stages, bathrooms, or safe zones.

My day started with wandering around the park surrounded by thousands of strangers in a relatively unknown place. We waited for the rest of our Brady Bunch to arrive on a train which had debarked three hours after ours, so we had time to kill. We shuffled through the crowds of multiple stages, staying for short periods of time before leaving to see another attraction. After numerous phone calls, locations sent, and text messages, we met up with the rest of the group.

I forced everyone to attend Hobo Johnson’s set with me and during his performance, I was ecstatic, dancing to and yelling the songs with no shame. About thirty minutes and many complaints, I got the idea that the rest of the group seemed unamused by his quirky slam poetry-esque music, so the decision was made to make our way to the Bud Light stage for Fitz and The Tantrums. 

I’m sure you’ve heard the ever-popular songs including Out Of My League, HandClap, The Walker, etc. Surprisingly enough, I was able to enjoy the setlist seeing as every couple songs there was at least one recognizable tune which repeated it’s chorus a minimum of twelve times. Thursday’s events continued at Perry’s stage, and just a forewarning if you are unaware of what Perry’s is, it’s an absolute madhouse.
First off, in front of Perry’s stage is a trampled field, meaning dust and dirt is in 75% of the air you’re breathing in. The attendees of Perry’s? A different breed. You could be fifty feet back from the main crowd and still get shoved into a mosh pit, after that, you’re there for life. “Open it up in the middle!” That’s the signal we were in for a treat. Soon everyone feels a push coming from five rows ahead and we know what’s about to go down: moshing.

Leaving Perry’s stage was an event, I’m not even quite sure how we got out of the groups of moshers, what I do know is we took a pit stop. Time to get food, bathroom breaks, fill up on water, and sit down. After a bit of R&R, we made our way to Hozier, whose performance was an experience. This man bleeds passion and talent, every line sung with perfect pitch and raw passion while being backed by a crowd mesmerized by him. Post Hozier, our last destination was the American Eagle stage.

Some may be aware of who performed Thursday night at American Eagle, for those who don’t, maybe it’s for the better. “Let’s get further up, I can’t see him.” If only I knew what would follow those words, alas we trudged toward Lil Baby’s stage. By now in the day, our group had been split up multiple times already, so we weren’t afraid to make any random decisions. I and two others from the original group started our mission to get as close as possible so we hung onto each others’ backpacks and walked through the crowd. Every single beat drop can be summarized as the three of us hanging onto someone else’s bags while staring into each other’s eyes while seeing them slowly start to fall in a random direction. The night ended being soaked in not only my own sweat but probably over 100 random people in the crowd as well; the sweat was worse than homecoming, to give you an idea.

Maybe it would be unfair of me to give a complete review of the festival, after all, I only went for two days. Instead I’ll give you a summary to aid your decision making process: it was a hot day filled with a lot of walking, sweating, and fun. I would say if you want somewhere to go to have an eventful weekend and $100-400 to burn, go for it; I wasn’t sure how I would feel about attending Lollapalooza and prayed that I didn’t just waste $200 on two nights that I would regret and not care about. Altogether, my experience was amazing, despite the thousands of complaints aforementioned, in my opinion, everyone should at least try out a festival at least once, after all, how will you know you don’t like it if you don’t try?