I recently spent a week out in Chicago for the 2014 Lollapalooza. Yowza, that was a busy friggin time! My heads still spinnin. Re-live the experience with me won't you!? 

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So after a couple days pre-Lolla and a CRAZY first day; it was time to tackle Day 2 of Lollapalooza! Let's Saturday up!

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Jungle was the first band to hit on the big stage on Saturday. Pretty empty I know, but this was at about 11:45am. That's some early stuff folks. I wanted to catch some of their set cause I would be catching up to talk with them later on. After their set kicked in another 200 or so roamed over this way like cattle. UK dance stuff. They were pretty cool. More on them in a bit though.

Ok, that's the EDM dance stage just after the fest opened on day two at like noon. NOON! Is it legal for that stuff to be played before 10pm? Daaayyyum!

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Lots of ads at Lolla. On the ground and in the sky. Trojan had a lock down on one of the airplanes for most of the fest. "Trojan.. real good sex" is says. This day was a sunny, hot one. Not sure they needed the flying banner to get people thinking about that action!

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Typhoon is an 11 or 12 person band from the Portland that was named after us. They played at the Grove Stage today. Horns, strings, two drummers, percussion, two guitars, keys.. surely one of the biggest bands size wise all Lolla long.

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As I went to the Media tent for my interviews for the day, I noticed someone I hadn't seen in a long, long time. It was former MTV VeeJay Kennedy. Remember when MTV had VeeJay's and was watchable? Take a minute. Go ahead. Remember now? I know, it was a long time ago. Well, Kennedy was a total kook back in the day and one of the original alternative girls the world would know. Just seeing her made me smile. What a happy gal! I had to grab a quick pick with her cause, well, like many of you I really miss those days. I'm sure she does as well.

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The interviews rolled on for the day with some guys that were on our CYY Patio only a couple weeks ago, BEAR HANDS. It was cool to catch back up with the guys. They're busy for sure with their new single "Agora" out now, good times will continue for them. I found out they were playing later on that night in town, after Lolla with Cage the Elephant. I made sure to look into that business!

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For a second day I kept seeing Michael of FITZ AND THE TANTRUMS walking around meeting people, laughing, hanging out, being super cool. I said to him "Michael", cause that's his name - not Fitz, "Michael", I said "you're working the heck out of this media section dude. You're hanging out, meeting everyone, in a great mood, not rushing back to your dressing room. That's really cool of you dude". He said that's what you do. I couldn't agree more and wish more bands had the same attitude. Mike is an ace dude for sure.

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While I was doing my thing at the media tent, I kept looking over to someone that sounded a wicked lot like Tom Petty and/or J.Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. Coulda made sense. Petty had put a new record out the week before. Lolla would be a great opportunity to make some noise. It wasn't TP though or J, it was Phosphorescent and people were diggin' it.

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The catering slipped a bit at the Media tent. When there were cool eats there like Kobe beef sliders or pulled pork sliders or stir fry, it wasn't announced loudly. So I missed about 70% of all meals. I got used to these here you see. All week long, unlimited amounts of Red Bull (sugar free and reg), KIND nature bars (which were really good actually and mineral water. I felt like a diabetic tree.

Ok, back to the peoples...

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You know the songs, "Pumped Up Kicks", "Don't Stop", "Helena Beat" and "Coming of Age". Well, this is Mark Foster of FOSTER THE PEOPLE and he is good people. We talked about all kinds of cool things and he loves Maine Lobster. Of course. We talked about great pop music cause I think he's one of those leading this generation of quality pop rock. He said he wanted to play up here too. Said he thought it actually was being worked on. We shall see! I tried to convince him some more by telling him he could get great shirts like the one he was wearing, but even better at LL BEAN! I'd then go on to refer to Stephen King, blueberries, Bah Hahbah and other Maine typicals people love. Hey whatever works to get them to think and remember Maine. We want all these bands up here to play for you guys!

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JUNGLE is a newer band from the UK. Those cats love dance music. Jungle combines old school sould like Curtis Mayfield and Isaac Hayes and Bill Withers with old school break dancing vibes and of course the Manchester England club scene. They're making a lot of noise overseas and they plan to tour and build things in the US throughout the rest of the year. Cool dudes. Happy to be doing what they're doing.

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Lolla's papa, Perry Farrell was all over the Media tent. He was super busy cause every time I went to go to chat with him or get a pic, he was with someone answering questions. I'd eventually stand next to him while watching Cage the Elephant's set but that's later on business.

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Every now and then some non-participants to Lolla made their way around the backstage areas; Brad Wilk of Rage Against the Machine, one of Obama's daughters and this guy right here. If you've ever seen a sticker or spray paint of Andre the Giant it was because of this guy; artist Shepard Fairey of OBEY. I had a great talk with him. He even dug in his pocket and handed me some OBEY stickers. That's kind of cool in case you don't know. I told him I owned some of his prints and I went to his exhibit in Boston some years back. I didn't tell him it was a bit uneasy seeing so much of his clothing line in stores these days. It used to be a rare find to locate anything OBEY. Now, you go to the mall and any kid can buy a hat or hoodie. Ugh. Oh well. Such is life.

I did remind him that he did the album artwork for some friends of mine back home...

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For most people it was Eminem or Lorde or Arctic Monkeys. I would say for me though, PLASTIC VISIONS were the band I wanted to see most at Lolla. I've never had the chance and they haven't toured much, so this was it for me up to this point!

I've played them a lot this year on Spinout. Kinda Cali punk-ish, but loud and noisy like the Pixies and Fugazi with a bit of a drug itch. Ha. Seems about right. The guy to the far left in the blue shirt and hat is Kane Stewart. Plastic Visions is his band. His cousins are Matt and Brad Shultz of Cage the Elephant. Brad actually produced the Plastic Visions Ep and played guitar on it as well. Kane moved from Cali to Nashville to be closer to his cousin and the recording outlets to allow him to make this music. So it's a family thing! More than you realize. See the guy on the other side of me with the curly blonde hair? That's Daniel Shultz, younger brother of Matt and Brad from Cage. Danny also plays guitar with Plastic Visions.

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Best shirt I saw all week. A lot of cats were rockin' basketball tank tops. I'm a hoop fanatic so I was scouting out the best ones. THIS was it. An old Pistol Pete Maravich shirt. Dude even looked like Pete with the scraggily hair and floppy sneakers.

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I walked from about a block away from the Media tent to the mid section of the fest grounds. This above was about barely a quarter of that journey. I couldn't save the entire walk for some reason. It gives you an idea though of how non-stop it was in every direction. People everywhere. Had to flip the bird to a Lakers jersey too as you can see. Sorry. It's in my Celtics green blood!

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Lots of great building sights around Lolla. Its right in downtown. Another great day it was... but it was not over yet!

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I had found out earlier that day that Bear Hands and Cage the Elephant were playing a sold out show at the legendary Vic Theatre downtown later at night. I contacted the record label rep on the fly and made sure I was able to take part! Glad I did. It was a stupid good show.

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Bear Hands on stage first...

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..then Cage. I was with some radio people. One had never seen them and the other saw them when they were like infants on their first promo tour. Both were blown away. One said well that set makes me think that they're one of the best bands around right? I agreed. Song after song. Their set these days is just un-real. Awesome to get to see this show. I hope you all get to see them soon too. It's a blast.

What a long day!

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Heading home I saw some of Shepard Fairey's Obey handy work. Andre! Nutty that I met the guy who started all that only hours earlier. I'm pretty lucky.

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When I got back to the hotel, I was wired. I didn't want to go to my room just yet. So I sat in the lobby of the hotel, checked email/texts, deleted/edited some pictures and just chilled. Soon, Matt from Cage the Elephant would stroll by with his tour manager and his mom. Prob looking to hit the sack and rest up. They just killed it at the Vic Theatre and I could tell he was losing the voice a bit at the end. Plus they had to play at Lolla main stage tomorrow, Sunday. So he was not partying. Good for him. I told him good show and we'd see him tomorrow.

Soon after walks by these two guys, together. The two in the pic above. Pretty much rulers of the music management world for the past 30+ years. That's Cliff Burnstein in the jeans and the bald fella is Peter Mensch. They run Q Prime Management; Chilli Peppers, Muse, Silversun Pickups, Three Days Grace, Metallica and the two bands I just saw tonight. Metallica has been Cliff's baby since way back. That's a tight relationship.

Peter? Shoot, Peter was managing AC/DC when he was friggin 26! He also built up Def Leppard from pretty much day one. In the past, Q Prime was like a steel army of acts; Smashing Pumpkins, Hole, Scorpions, Dokken, Queensryche, Jimmy Page, the Black Keys, Josh Groban and Tesla to name a few. Even Madonna for a minute. Most people walking by wouldn't think those two guys did all that. But they did and they're still killing it. I was gonna say hey to them, but what do you say? There's too much to talk about.

Nope, I just hung out and snacked on some peanut MnM's, a bottle of water and thought about what tomorrow would possibly bring.

Well, I didn't think I'd be given an all access pass for the day.

Here we go!

Day 3 @ Lolla coming soon....

 

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