Lollapallooza

So I let myself be "dragged" to Lollapalooza in Grant Park in Chicago, by my sweetheart and his son. They went last year, and had a blast, but I refused because I argued that the only other people my age who would be there were the parents that wouldn't let their kids go by themselves. This year, this turned out to be essentially true; there were a few older people there sans kids, but I didn't feel quite as out of place as I thought I would. I consented to go because Patti Smith was playing, so I figured there'd be at least one 50-something woman there who belonged there, and she's actually 60-something. She did have her kid with her, though, one of them, her son Jackson - he plays in her band now.

Anyways, it was fun, although I really couldn't afford a weekend away.

We had one adequate dinner, at Italian Village - Mark cracked a tooth - and one OK breakfast at a place in Oak Park. The food at Lollapalooza was pretty OK - booths from lots of Chicago restaurants - so I had a pulled pork sandwich one day, and Star of Siam Pad Thai the next. The best breakfast was Sunday, at Thyme & Honey, the Greek-run family breakfast place we have been going to for years, that was in an old building in Oak Park with truly crummy bathrooms. It's moved to a newer place in river forest; the tables are closer together and it's loud, but it's nice and clean. We started going there when John & Al were in their bacon eating phase - a side of bacon is 5 pieces at Thyme & Honey.

Everybody and their brother is blogging about the music at Lollapalooza, so I don't have to - for me the best parts were Patti Smith, she did R&R Nigger, and Gloria, and Because the Night, and Smells Like Teen Sprirt and Are you experienced? from her new record of covers, I guess. And Ben Harper was good - he opened with Mercy, mercy, me - Marvin Gaye cover, and Eddie Vedder came out to do Masters of War - Dylan cover. I liked Pearl Jam, but, since they were the closing headliner, and nothing else on, there was this alarming time when the whole crowd, however many thousands there were, that had been nicely divided up all over Grant Park (there was usually music on 4 stages at once) all started migrating to the south end of the park, to the AT&T stage. I think Pearl Jam closed with Neil Young's keep on rockin' in the free world, while we were walking away - to the L - we took the L everywhere. And we saw Lenny Kaye watching Roky Erickson - that was cool.

And, oh yeah, although lots of people were real excited abut the Saturday night last acts, Interpol (too Genesis-like for us) and Muse (too much like the soundtrack of the Transformers movie for us), we left to go eat ice cream, and see the Simpsons movie in Oak Park.

We also saw the Jeff Wall show at the Art institute.

When we got home, the phrase running through my mind was, "well, we don't have to do that again" - John was at an outdoor, multi-band, heavy metal concert in Madison on Sunday, WJJO band camp, and he said he wanted his 4 1/2 hours back; he'd rather go see music in clubs or people's basements - kind of how I feel too -