and the record begins with a song of rebellion

Lollapalooza Day 1

Friday August 3rd-August 5th 2012 marked the seventh year of the Lollapalooza festival in Grant Park, Chicago. Traveling from New York to Chicago was quite the trip for a festival, but 800 miles and 2 hours later I was in the windy city.

I entered the gates of Lollapalooza around 3PM Friday. Grant Park was much bigger than I had expected; the festival drawing over 250,000 people for the three days had one of its biggest showings to date. The park was comprised of eight different stages at all corners and areas of the park.

As I quickly glanced over the schedule I knew exactly where I would be the entire day: Perry’s Stage. Perry’s stage, for the people who do not know is pretty much the dance area, the bass in my face stage, the sea of neon, the get your groove on stage whatever you may like to call it. It is where most of the electronic dance music artists would be preforming. Fridays artists included Zedd, Porter Robinson, Nero and headlining artist Bassnectar.

The Perry’s stage area was massive; one main stage along with two huge LED screens on each side of the field about halfway between the main stage and back of the field. I got there about halfway in Zedd’s set who already had a massive crowd.

Zedd was extremely fun to watch and be at. He threw a solid mix of electro bangers together with his originals and remixes making it fun for everyone. One of the high points of his set was when he dropped The Bloody Beetroots & Steve Aoki - Warp 1.9 and followed that into his hard pounding original song Shotgun which sent the crowd off their feet jumping in unison. Other songs included in his set were: Knife Party - Internet Friends | Reel 2 Real - I Like To Move It (Klass Remix) | Zedd - The Legend of Zelda | Zedd - Spectrum | Swedish House Mafia - Save The World (Zedd Remix) | Skrillex & The Doors - Breakin A Sweat (Zedd Remix) | Knife Party & Swedish House Mafia - Antidote (Tommy Trash Remix) | To say the least his set was a superb start to the day.

After his set ended, I decided to take a small break (the sun was absolutely brutal), find some shade and rest for a bit. One of the great things that most festivals do now a days is have free water refilling stations for camel backs. I have seen way too many people become ill or pass out at shows due to heat exhaustion. Unfortunately, I did not have one but a bottle box of water was only $2 which could be refilled at any of the stations. I grabbed myself one and headed back to Perry’s to get set forPorter Robinson.

Porter Robinson is absolutely one of my favorite DJ’s to see live; I still find it hard to believe the kidis only twenty years old. This was my third time seeing Porter and he did not disappoint. As soon as he walked on stage the whole crowd went absolutely nuts. He opened with Ratatat -17 Years which surprised me and immediately had everyone dancing. His constant energy on stage engaging the crowd to jump and go crazy made it more fun for everyone. There is nothing I love nothing more then to see a DJ having just as much of a good as you are.

His set was riddled with bootlegs of heavy electro songs similar to Zedd’s set of which included:Skrillex - All I Ask Of You | Porter Robinson - Spitfire | Knife Party - Destroy Them With Lazers | Major Lazer - Original Don (Flosstradomus Remix)| Porter Robinson - Unsion (Knife Party Remix) which had the crowd going bonkers when it dropped. To close he dropped his latest single and of the most popular electronic songs out today Language. The perfect ending to his set

NERO, the U.K. dubstep duo was up next, who I believe had one of the best sets of the festival. I manged to wiggle and squeeze myself up to three rows back from the barricade. Moving away from the electro house and progressive tracks, the crowd was well primped and ready to listen to some hard hitting bass; NERO defiently delivered. They opened up with their hard-hitting track Doomsday which set the tone and turned the crowd into a frenzy. Among other tracks from their album Welcome Reality included
My Eyes, Must Be The Feeling, Crush On You, Angst, Recluse, Reaching Out, Innocence. A dynamic element that NERO added to their set was bringing out their singer Alana Watson, to sing Promises (Skrillex Remix) which created more of a live than DJ set.

Besides dropping most of their original singles they also dropped their remix of Calvin Harris - Feel So Close along with more Skrillex -Right on TimeandRight In as well as Knife Party’sRageValley. I wanted to stay up front and be right there for Bassnectar but there wasn’t much more I could take; I was just covered in sweat and felt like I was going to pass out of exhaustion. As the sun was setting I was exiting one one of the craziest and wildest sets I have ever been a part of.

It seemed as the day got later and later the acts got better and better. Finally to close out the night was Bassnectar. At around 8:20 PM the long haired musical producer announced he would be starting 10 minutes earlier then expected. Opening up with his well known track Bass Headthe crowd began to womp and start moving. Bassnectar mixed a solid set of drum ‘n’ bass, glitch, and some screamo/heavy metal remixes. I’m not too much a fan of break and glitch music but I have to say the visual shows that the LED screens displayed was incredible. Bassnectar seemed to have the crowd eating out of the paws of his hand as every single person seemed to be enjoying themselves even if they were just standing there not moving. There was good vibes all around. When he dropped his ever-so popular remix of Lights, every single person started singing along, as a sea of glowsticks went flying through the air for the drop. He closed with his remix of Ace of Spades at 10pm and just like that Day 1 of Lollapalooza was in the books