I had friends in town this weekend for Lollapalooza in Grant Park. It’s been more than a decade since I last caught the show waaaaay back in 1996. I figured I’d take a moment to offer some quick comparisons between now and then:
1. Endurance: Back then, I was heading into my sophomore year of college, some 65 lbs. ago. Coincidentally, both shows happened in humid, mid-90′s heat. I remember the walk between stages being much less life threatening at 19. The Italian Beef sandwich floating on a gallon of beer in my stomach didn’t help.
2. Acts: Check out the 1996 lineup. I knew about 10 bands well enough to sing at least a song or two per set (with most of Metallica, Soundgarden and Rage recited from memory).
Here’s this year’s lineup. Outside of Tool and the Beastie Boys (who cancelled due to MCA’s throat cancer — he’s recovering now), I didn’t know most of these bands.
That isn’t to say they weren’t good, in fact, we caught parts of Perry Farrell and Artic Monkey, as well as Rise Against’s and Tool’s entire sets. All provided solid head banging with the occassional ‘these guys are fucking rocking shit’ moments (and incredible people watching opportunities). But it’s just not the same if you can’t sing along enough to make your voice hoarse.
(ED: After doing a little research, it’s fair to say the show fundamentally changed during its hiatus between 1997 and 2003, and again when it landed in Chicago full-time in 2005 after the cancellation of a nation-wide tour the year earlier due to poor ticket sales.)
3. Location / Atmosphere: There was definitely an indie vibe at this year’s show, with each stage featuring a number of different and up and coming sounds. And the size of Grant Park allowed for multiple and nearly self-contained venues.
At the Winnebago County Fairgrounds (a somewhat obscure and smaller venue) in ’96, people were piling up two-deep to see the main stage. You could sometimes hear music and feedback from other stages, which were closer than Grant Park’s set up. And then there was the water bottle carpet bombing, which happened almost non-stop and escalated to rocks later in the night.
Nothing like that this year. And the audience was more varied than the still-grunge-influenced crowd of the mid-90′s. But don’t take my word for it.
4. Encore: No encore this year. It was the first show I’d seen where a headline band didn’t play at least one encore. Sure, the crowd wasn’t going absolutely insane for Tool, but the place was packed and people were into it. Maybe that’s a Chicago / Grant Park venue thing, or maybe Tool wasn’t feeling the love. Either way, you could feel the air go out of the place when the house lights came up (which is probably what city officials wanted).
5. Bathrooms: Pretty much the same at both events.
There’s nothing like your first 30-45 seconds in a nearly full port-a-potty.
It’s an adult version of the game Operation. In 95 degree heat. And drunk. And trying not to piss the front of your pants while making sure the bottom of your shirt doesn’t touch the turd melting in the side ‘urinal’ compartment. By mid-day, you couldn’t fire off a stream without spray-back from the dozen or so beer cans riding shit mountain. It’s just that gross.
The answer? Hand Sanitizer Stations sitting in front of the bathroom area. As if it wasn’t disgusting enough to share germs with the hundreds of people that used your one porta, let’s entice everyone to use these four sanitizers with the promise of ’99% germ killing’ effectiveness. Maybe that works if you refill them. Alas, they were little more than false promises and gigantic human petri dishes by the end.
Enough about the show.
UFC 101
There were two sports-related events that I missed this weekend. First was the UFC 101 PPV on Saturday night, which I usually watch at my sister’s house. From the brief clips I saw on the Web, the main card fights were dominated by Anderson Silva and B.J. Penn.
The Silva KO wasn’t a big surprise. Forrest Griffin just isn’t the same fighter that beat Rampage last year. He’s since been dominated by two elite UFC fighters in Silva and Rashad Evans, and the Silva fight wasn’t close. It’s going to be a tough road back in the stacked Light Heavyweight division.
Next up for Silva? Probably a return to middleweight, where Dan Henderson awaits their rematch. After that, who knows. There’s not many options at middleweight for Silva. But if he goes Light Heavyweight, against Lyoto, Rampage or Rashad? Or a catch-weight against GSP? Drool . . .
As for Penn, he looked sharp against ESPN’s Kenny Florian. I’m not sure that says a whole lot beyond that Penn’s conditioning is light years better than what we’ve seen recently. The question is whether or not this reincarnation will last long enough for him to step into the ring a third time with GSP.
Hall of Fame Game
Okay, so maybe the Hall of Fame game isn’t that significant. But it happened on Sunday night. And that can only mean one thing — the NFL season is little more than a month away. Huzzah!
Link Dump (or What I Did Last Week With H1N1)
Although he didn’t do any blood testing for H1N1, my doc prescribed Tamiflu, which only served to lighten my wallet and make me feel worse instead of better. There’s a lot of talk about Tamiflu these days, particularly the shortage of this incredibly pricey drug that may or may not actually reduce the length of the flu.
I understand the importance of controlling flu outbreaks (read: Flu, The Spanish), but it seems every time a new mutation is found, the country (world) goes absolutely insane (read: Flu, Avian). More specifically, drug companies go into capitalistic over-drive, rushing to market new drugs with very limited track records and vague benefits.
And the kicker, of course, is the lack of generic alternatives in such occassions, meaning zero low-cost choices for suckers like me that pony up $88 for 10 . . . that’s right . . . 10 pills. As a side note, I only took two, and immediately regretted taking the second one, which put me on the verge of puking for four hours.
But I digress. Outside of sweating through 2-3 pairs of drawers each day, it wasn’t a very productive week. However, I did re-acclimate myself with all the LULZ, GTFO’s and NSFW’s the Internet has to offer. As my temperature rose, my IQ continued to drop sharply.
PopThatZit.com: Self-explanatory, and disgusting. Check it out if you’re the type that enjoys images and stories about near-bursting whiteheads and infected boils.
The Ten Biggest Candy Fails Each Halloween: I doubt you see a lot of this today, but back in the late 80′s and early 90′s there was a good chance you’d end the night with a dozen pennies, two unwrapped popcorn balls and free range candy corn in your sack.
Your ISP, if Net Neutrality Disappears: I currently pay about $150 a month for Comcast cable and Internet, which is a ridiculous amount for the services I receive (HD channels, a few low-end movie channels, high-speed Internet and the two boxes they FORCE me to rent). If my Internet package was ever sold a la carte, that figure could easily double. If you don’t know anything about Net Neutrality, it’s basically the Comcasts of the world attempting to charge you for different tiers of access, whether it be particular sites or overall bandwidth allowances. It’s an important issue, and one that is right now working its way through Congress.
15 Free Guides That Teach You Useful Stuff: A collection of easy-to-follow guides for things like home networking, getting started with Linux, using Photoshop effectively and buying a laptop. Good for beginners, and still has a few good tips for the more advanced nerds.
If Cats Could Talk: I don’t like cats, I don’t like lolcats. In fact, I believe cats hate human beings. And this graph proves it.
Angelina Jolie’s Early Modeling Photos: Very SFW. But I can’t get past my long-held notion that Angelina is not an attractive woman. Most guys would give up their best friends for one night with Tyler Durden’s better half. Not I. I’d be too afraid of her elbows or knee caps cutting me in half.
Fancast.com: As a long-time fan of Hulu.com, this site confused me. I think it’s an aggregator of all free TV shows and movies available online, pulling in content from Hulu and it’s backers, as well as content from competing broadcast networks. It’s definitely worth a look.
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Posted in Life, News and Commentary
Tagged Flu, Link Dump, Links, Tamiflu