Just got back from Lollapalooza. Great show. Got to see Iggy Pop, Spoon, LCD Soundsystem, Daft Punk (holy shit that was amazing) and about a dozen more amazing acts that I’ll talk about later this week. I’ll also have links to my photos that I took during the show as well, which includes some awesome shots of Regina Spektor. There were something like 60,000 people at Lollapalooza this year, which can only mean one thing; a whole lot of douchebags. I saw so much idiotic behavior that I feel the need to update The Lost Turntable Guide To Concerts. So I now present:

The Lost Turntable Guide To Festival Etiquette.

Rule No. 1: Get off your goddamn cellphone. This should have been a rule in my original guide, but I somehow forgot it. Someone explain this to me. You’ve just spent $195 on a ticket to a three-day festival that’s jam-packed with over 100 amazing bands, and you spend most of the show on your fucking phone telling everyone how awesome it is?! How can you tell everyone how awesome it is? You won’t get off your fucking phone! The people that do this can never hear a fucking thing too. Here’s a recreation of every cell phone conversation I heard this weekend:

Dude, I’m at Lollapalooza it’s awesome!
I said I’m at Lollapalooza!
What?
What?
WHAT?
I’m at a concert!
*long pause*
WHAT!?!?

If you really feel the need to talk to one of your dumbass friends who was too cheap to buy a ticket then get away from the stage, Grant Park is really fucking big.

Rule No. 2: Your friends won’t be able to find you, so you can put your damn hand down.
Bitch on phone: “You can’t find me? Look, I’m raising my hand now! I’m by the stage. I said I’m by the stage!”

Look around you bitch, see all the other braindead cunnies holding their hands up and talking on their cell phones? It’s an exercise in futility. Set up a fucking meeting place before you get there and you won’t have this fucking problem.

Rule No. 3: Don’t rush up to a stage right before a show starts and expect to get in the front row. Hey asshole, I’ve been standing here for 45 minutes so I could get a good view of Regina Spector, stop trying to push your way past me. I’m elbowing you in the stomach on purpose. I don’t care if you can’t see from “way back there”. Fuck off and die.

Rule No. 4: You can’t “hold spaces” for people. This is related to the two previous rules, because most dumbass motherfuckers who were on the phone trying to find their friends were doing so because they “totally got an awesome spot” Nevermind the fact that they are shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone around them, their friend can totally meet them up there because they saved a spot for them. Unless that spot is a stain in their underwear they are sorely mistaken. See rule number 4 and go suck it.

Rule No. 5: Watch where you throw that fucking frisbee you goddamn hippie! Seriously, I like my nose the way it is.

Rule No. 6: Give a hoot, clean up after your lazy ass. Everywhere you went at Lollapalooza this year you were reminded that it was a “green” festival. Signs about your carbon footprint were everywhere. The program was printed on recycled paper, and every five feet a person was trying to get you to sign some sort of environmental petition. You think you’d get the hint and throw your fucking plastic cup away. We’re all sharing this space for three days, don’t turn it into a fucking toilet.

Rule No. 7: Wear sunscreen. Nothing mean to say here, it’s just good advice. Apply it gnerously every couple of hours.

Rule No. 8: If you are using a portapotty lock the motherfucking door. If you don’t that’s fine by me, but don’t yell at me when I open the door and get a look at the goods. Trust me honey, out of all the chicks I wanted to get a flash from, your chunky butt was really low on the list.

And finally Rule No. 9: SHUT THE FUCK UP! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (sadly) people come to concerts to listen to the fucking music, not to hear you bitch about how you couldn’t get any good weed the night before. I’m not a complete asshole, I do realize that a festival is different from a regular concert and that people will be talking, that’s fine. Just don’t have complete conversations when everyone else around you is trying to listen to the fucking music. Someone in front of me ran into someone they knew during Modest Mouse and they both began singing “Ruby Soho” at the top of their lungs. Look you little fratboy pricks, I’m sure that’s the punchline to a really funny inside joke about that one time you were at the beach house and got so fucked up you pissed on the kitchen floor, but I’m trying to hear “Float On”.

Hang up the damn phone and listen to the fucking music, Iggy Pop is playing for fuck’s sake.

Ah, that felt good.

Muse
Recess
Yes Please
Dead Star
Muscle Museum (Soulwax Remix)
House Of The Rising Sun
Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You

Muse’s show at Lollapalooza was holy shit amazing. I’ve heard things about their live shows in the past, but nothing could have compared me for the utter brilliance I witnessed when they took the stage. The combination of absolutely incendiary music and some of the most awe-inspiring visuals I have ever seen at a concert combined to create an experience like nothing else I have ever been witness to. It was almost like a religious experience, I almost saw God when Bellamy started playing ‘Plug In Baby’, complete and total audio/visual orgasm.

As for the tracks above, most of them will only be rarities to people in America, as Muse is huge everywhere else. ‘Dead Star’ was a single in the UK but never released in America, and it’s B-side was the cover of ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You’. Their cover of ‘House Of The Rising Sun’ was only released on a charity album that came with issues of NME. The other two songs are off of their compilation/live album Hulabaloo Soundtrack, which never came out in the states either. I have no idea where that remix of ‘Muscle Museum’ is from though.

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