Welcome to the Swamp
In the 1850s and ’60s, engineers lifted Chicago out of the swamps inch by jack-screwed inch. During the first overcast hours of Lollapalooza 2024, it felt like the swamps were taking it back.
Thursday morning’s rain softened the dirt outside the urinals at the south end of Grant Park, creating a slipping hazard in one of the funniest places to slip. Dragonflies buzzed over crushed cans of Bud Light Seltzer, and without even a hint of a breeze off Lake Michigan, sweat sat on the skin, unable to evaporate in the 97% humidity.
After just a few hours, everyone could tell who’d neglected their deodorant, and walking past a group of teen boys became a dangerous game. Most of them were fine (we live in a society), but some dudes were wafting misery everywhere they went, just walking around in a cloud of Axe and human tear gas. In dense crowds, the mouth breathers had the last laugh.
If you watched the Lollapalooza 2024 livestream, you heard many of the sounds and saw a few of the sights: Chappell Roan’s wrestle-mania, Deftones’ rage, Stray Kids’ joy, and Blink-182 possibly setting a Lollapalooza record for most dick jokes in one set. But you missed the smell of pizza and sizzling taco meats all along the main drag of Columbus Drive — a much more powerful aroma than those sweaty bros, thankfully. You didn’t feel the bass in the dirt under your feet, or the collective smile that went through an entire crowd the first time the sun broke through the swampy haze Thursday. If you watched on the livestream, you probably didn’t notice the sweltering heat of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and we’re all holding it against you. Here’s what else you missed.
Lollapalooza, photo by Joshua Druding
Pink Thursday
Blondshell may have been the first to mention it during her 1:50 PM slot: “There are a lot of Pink Ponies in the crowd,” she said as the audience went wild. And she wasn’t the last artist of the day to get a bigger cheer for Chappell Roan than any of their own songs. The festival knew what was coming, had even bumped Kesha from the headlining Sponsored by Cell Phones Stage for the less prestigious Sponsored by Hotels, so that all the Pink Ponies had somewhere to go.
Olivia Dean was booked right before the Armagedd-Roan, and she did her best in the face of a pink migration. Her sunny songs (and praise for Chappell) likely won her some new fan among the Roan latecomers. But at a certain point, it became hard to focus on anything but the crowd, possibly a Lollapalooza record.
Chappell Roan’s Lollapalooza crowd, photo by Josh Druding
