5 days of music

THE INTONATION FESTIVAL\nThe Intonation Festival, held by Pitchfork Media over the July 16-17 weekend at Chicago's Union Park, served as a warm-up for the following weekend's grand event, Lollapalooza.\nTwenty-one groups were to perform over two days on two alternating stages, and for many of them it was to be the largest crowd they'd yet played for -- 15,000 people. I wasn't impressed with the venue (a bunch of dusty baseball fields), but for just over a dollar a band, I'd stand on a frozen lake if it meant I got to hear this festival's lineup.\nA friend and I arrived a little late the first day, just managing to catch the New Pornographers' frontman A.C. Newman's opening. His rendition of "On the Table," from 2004's The Slow Wonder, was, I'm sorry to say, disappointingly dismal. The audience clapped, but Newman held them up, saying, "That sounded bad. I can't even imagine what that was like for you guys." He retuned with his guitarist and gave it another shot, calling the first run-through a "jazz" version. Things, I thought to myself, were starting to look up, with 13-part Broken Social Scene's versatile pop and Prefuse 73's blip-hop on the way.\nBut it was the Go! Team's performance that really stood out. Full of fun, the British group call to mind something like a funky hodgepodge of Motown-inspired, RJD2-mixed Spice Girls. Near the end of their set they invited a dozen or so local kids from the neighborhood pool onstage as impromptu dancers.\nAndrew Bird was our main draw for coming out the second day. We'd just familiarized ourselves with his new album, The Mysterious Production of Eggs. It was hard to believe there were only two performers up there (Bird and his drummer). Bird himself played violin or guitar, while he manipulated via foot pedal the other programmed part. Also, as his name implies, this kid can whistle. The show was wrapped up with humor; his charismatic energy had us hooked.\nDeerhoof, the Wrens, Les Savy Fav and the Decemberists all followed, and not one let me down. My appetite was whet -- I couldn't wait to get on the Lolla scene, four times bigger and one week later.\nANI DIFRANCO \nWhat did I expect from an Ani Difranco concert? I expected my girlfriend to love it. I also expected to be a little surprised myself by an artist known for her impressive live show. I anticipated calm, composed, intimate musical sessions of boho-rapping and guitar-strumming accompanied with earnest, upbeat songs about not-always-righteous womanhood prevailing.\nOnce we arrived, I can't deny being taken with the whole "everybody here's a lesbian" scene. The audience was different but tightly-knit -- there was a definite camaraderie among these women. Many with short hair and boho skirts, and clearly these tempests in teacups were ready to roll their hips and bodies all the way through along with Ani.\nWe ended up plopped on the lawn for much of the show, watching Difranco and her string bassist masterfully weaving her music's subtle scenes into overriding themes and philosophies, and it was impossible to miss her inexplicably heart-wrenching lyrics.\nDifranco's lineup alternated between songs from her new album Knuckle Down and old favorites. Her encore performance of "Shameless" finally had her women on their feet dancing. I'd like to think I joined in with the best of them, but I couldn't help feel the concert was over before it started.\nAlas, this only confirmed the fact that my initial expectations weren't unwarranted. This was Difranco's fault; with an audience chock-full of diehards (and the occasional boyfriend), the artist should've -- and could've -- balanced reflective introspection with outward celebration. There was definitely a balls-to-the-wall energy in the crowd that she took far too long to harness.\nIf I appreciated Ani Difranco the way these women do, I'm not sure if I would've expected more or less, and that's a testament to Difranco's limited audience.\nLOLLAPALOOZA\nKatie, a good friend from high school, is driving me home from her apartment in Chicago. Three o'clock in the morning (she really is a good friend), and we're just crossing into Indiana. My vision's focused on the white line in the middle of the road and I'm drifting in and out of consciousness, mentally reviewing some of the sights and sounds of the weekend. God, it was hot in Chicago.\n***\n"Lollapalooza." What an odd name. It means "something grand of its kind," so if you call 100-plus degrees, 66,000 people, more than 60 bands of largely alternative-rock influences and $120 later "something grand," I guess it fits.\nMy girlfriend Liz and I got into Chicago at 6:00 a.m. Saturday morning, met the gang and stashed our gear at Katie's, our home for the weekend. After having a few, we all took a bus to the first annual single-site, two-day Lollapalooza at Grant Park.\nWe arrived at noon and filed in with the other thousands of people. Security took away our water jug, replacing it with one of their $3 waters, but we felt better as we were greeted by a surprisingly good set by Chicago's own The Redwalls.\nBands rotated every hour, two playing at a time. So we ran over and caught the end of the International Noise Conspiracy's Hives-ish set. Swedish and very political, INC's lead singer went on an anti-RIAA rant and said to download the band's new album this fall. It was the only show of anyone trying to fight "the Man" we witnessed all weekend, as corporate logos donned the stage. I was still bitter about my stolen water jug.\nAlt-rock stars Cake were to play two hours later. When Liz Phair's set ended and her fans decamped en mass from their posts, Liz and I muscled our way -- lo and behold! -- to the front row! Unlike the other acts of the day, Cake's an oldie. As 4:30 rolled around, the bubble of anticipation needed little more than a few notes from "The Distance" to burst.\nAfter Cake's performance, we found ourselves reluctant to give up the rail, deciding to hang on for dear life amongst Primus' hardcore fans as part of the day's growing coalition of Weezer-waiters.\nThe Pixies performed next-stage. We were unable to see the act, though, and started regretting holding our ground. In between Primus (the band responsible for South Park's theme) and Weezer, Billy Idol and Blonde Redhead (among others) were playing on other stages. But good things, as we soon remembered, come to those who wait.\nThe show, complete with lights, fog machines and their trademarked W, amounted to over an hour of crowd sing-alongs culled almost entirely from The Blue Album and Pinkerton, and 2005's Make Believe. Weezer's kind of a bigger-than-life group, and just being a few feet from an elusive Rivers Cuomo made our vigil along the rail worthwhile.\nThe adrenaline wore off though, and with our first day of Lolla-gagging through, we needed sleep.\nThe Sunday sun was brutal, and the festival became a mental and physical marathon. In fantasizing about this weekend, my image of it had never included standing with thousands through a day with a heat index of 115 degrees. With people passing out next to us, I couldn't help but notice that the $5-a-cup beer sluggers of yesterday had switched to water.\nBut it wasn't all fire and brimstone -- Dinosaur Jr.'s original lineup graced the audience with their "ear-bleeding country" for the first time since 1989, including a reinvigorating take of The Cure's "Just Like Heaven."\nA brief rest in the shade was in order, as were some granola bars and a swig or two of water. It helped with the energy index, and we were all set for Arcade Fire's 5:30 performance.\nThe nine Canadians' stage presence remains unparalleled, in my eyes and ears. As they performed tracks from 2004's Funeral, they swaggered with their technical prowess, switching instruments between nearly every song. And I mean from drums to accordion, from xylophone to string bass!\nNear the end of a blow-away set, during Arcade Fire's hit "Rebellion (Lies)," Wis Butler jumped offstage -- not an unusual act at Lolla. As he tramped his way up the press pit runway that split the audience in half, he hurtled the rail, parting people like the Red Sea and stopping at me, picking up the song and our own voices in the mic.\nStarry-eyed and breathless, we moved on to see class-act indie-rockers Spoon. A vivacious performance, however, couldn't hold the crowd from prematurely gravitating away from them (and, for that matter, from everywhere else) in anticipation of the night's headliners: the Killers.\nHowever, we chose good spots for Death Cab for Cutie over mile-away spots for the Killers. Death Cab's performance was impressive and their eight-minute encore of "Transatlanticism" was one of the best show-stoppers I've heard. We took off for Katie's via bus, our overheated bodies sprawled out on the cheap plastic seats.\n ***\nI head out the door the next morning and to my grounds-keeping job at the cemetery. We made it home last night, Katie's crashed on the couch, and it occurs to me how amazing it is that we go from one life to another. That's what festivals are: moments of musical euphoria which give way to bone-crushing, sweaty moments of something, and then they're over and we're back at our jobs and the humdrum of daily life. Well, it's over, and once again I'm left searching for the next grand event.