Festival pace picks up as Day 2 rolls in, and we’d already been rolling on grueling pace and meager rations. I check in at the Hard Rock’s press area for a much-needed bite, and find myself to be just the right amount of exhausted to justify a $4, 3-minute cab ride from the hotel to the festival grounds. The concierge and cab driver both look at me like I’m crazy—as if the growing rainbow of wristbands on my right arm (currently sitting at 7) wasn’t already a dead giveaway.
Oh, hey. There’s Foxy Shazam in the hotel lobby as I’m walking out. Awesome.
Arrival at the festival main gate provides another unexpected pleasure: A swarm of Christian advocates have camped out to protest, well…arguably, any number of the problems a traditional view of the Bible might find with Lollapalooza and its patrons. It’s a field day for many outspoken festival patrons (one heckler jeers “try butt sex!”); I have a go at convincing one sign-bearer that a fire in hell might actually make partying there more alluring before deciding to simply prove her wrong by heading into the belly of the beast in festival grounds. Maybe someone at a church just read all of my Christmas citations in yesterday’s update. One can hope.
On our way to the Grizzly Bear set, we cut through the Kidz stage—apparently, here, it’s always beer o’clock. I guess it’s for all the parents who got suckered into paying $90 for the divine pleasure of babysitting their kids all day in the blistering sun while they’re surrounded by the masses of drunk and high 20- and 30-somethings. What’s $6 per Hoegaarden on top of that?
As I navigate the maze of afternoon shows and different social groups (and really, fuck whoever managed to line up The XX, Dawes, Dan Black, Gogol Bordello, and Grizzly Bear right next to eachother), something dawns on me: Foursquare. It’s a simple service that allows you to “check in” at different restaurants, venues, and establishments and essentially facilitates announcing to your friends and predators what your pinpoint location is at a given time. While Foursquare is normally reserved for the hypercompetitive, hypersocial, or hyperpsychotic among us, wouldn’t it be insanely useful at a gigantic music festival to know where your friends are, down to the blade of grass, in real time? Why the hell should I have to attend Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and make small talk with strangers about how their lips are chapped and they should have thought to buy more concession-stand beer before heading over? Screw them. I’ve got enough beer in my system after a tour-de-VIP section to put out a fire in hell. Dear Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, LouFest, SXSW, et al: Get on your game. I’m trademarking FestSquare as soon as I get back to St. Louis on Monday.
