The 2008 version of Lolla did not disappoint – A great weekend full of great music. Here’s some Day 1 notes:
K’naan – I started my fest by immediately heading the opposite direction of my Bang Camero bound friends to see K’naan and was quickly rewarded. Plenty of variation from the CD, crowd involvement (at 11AM on the first day) and even some new stuff led to this being one of my favorite shows of the whole weekend. This show also was (amazingly) the first time that I’ve ever seen a show get cutoff at Lolla. I’m not sure how they do it but bands seem genuinely afraid to go over time – almost always stopping 3-10 min before their time is up (with some exceptions to close nights). Anyway, K’naan was done but the crowd was demanding more (again, pretty impressive for 11AM on the first day) so he tried to throw one more in – got about 3/4 of the way through and they just faded out his sound… not that that’s very dramatic – more strange that it’s the only time I’ve seen it happen there than anything.
Manchester Orchestra – My plan was to see Noah & The Whale but apparently they didn’t end up playing? At any rate, it was (roughly) a million degrees Fahrenheit so I was looking for some shade. The nice thing about a festival like this is sometimes you accidentally bump into something that you really like. I’ve got a thing for bands that can pull off loud and quiet in the same song and something. This and the vocalists tendency to transition from a “normal” singing voice to more of a scream for the loud stuff rubbed me the right way. This show also featured two guys in the audience randomly putting on a pretty wicked hacky sack show… good stuff.
Parlor Mob – These guys impressed as well. Guitar centric with big vocals sitting right on top – plenty of long hair and energy.
The Kills – These guys mixed a couple of songs that I really liked in with a lot of “just fine”. My biggest complaint: the drum kit. I’m not going to make a blanket statement that drum kit’s are never a good thing, but in this case (as with many others): didn’t work for me.
Gogol Bordello – This was one of the shows that I was most looking forward to coming into the day. They were (unfortunately) opposite the Black Keys. Having seen the Black Keys in the past, I knew that they would put on a great show but I was willing to go for the wildcard… it paid off huge. This show is fighting K’naan for “best of the day” for me and is right up there on the overall weekend list. Also of note: during this show the sun was blocked by a cloud for 5 minutes – believe me, it was a big deal.
Raconteurs - We watched the first 5 or 6 songs of this set before heading off to get setup for Radiohead. Everything sounded great to me but I felt like I was listening to the CD. I was later informed (by every single person I talked to) that my perception that they were “sticking to the disc” was completely off. I’m not sure how much this was due to me just plain being wrong or if maybe they varied more after I left… likely some combination.
Bloc Party – I don’t feel like I saw enough to get a great feel for their live show but liked what I heard – enough that I’ll definitely try to check them out next time.
Radiohead – Well. Let’s not beat around the bush… I was disapointed. I came in with pretty high expectations – got there (fairly) early to get a decent spot – and was kinda bored with a lot of the show. Don’t get me wrong – most of the show was “good” and some of the show was “great”, but I was expecting this to be the show of the weekend and it was probably 3-4 on the day…
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