And that didn't even include lunch, more less breakfast.
But we were greeted by this and we had to take a few initial pictures before venturing on to the concerts. 
Finally we stumbled upon our first concert, Jukebox the Ghost. This was a band that I had never heard of (not sure about Emily) or heard a song from before we decided to go to Lollapalooza. But I did start listening to some of the bands before making the trip and this was one that I starting loving their music. But it's just a little unfortunate that it had to be the first concert we'd see and before any food hit my stomach. They were great, but after a couple of songs we had to move on and get food.
I am going to try to add YouTube videos of what I can from the concerts. I took a couple of videos myself, but I didn't really remember I had that capability until the middle of the second day. So the rest are what I am just pulling off of random people from YouTube. You should know from the videos I've seen so far they were FAR from professional. BUT they still bring me back to what it felt like to be at the concert, what songs the bands were singing and the atmosphere around you.
(Of course, to get the true atmosphere you would have to have feet in excruciating pain, smells of all kinds, and you'd have to stand outside in the blazing heat for hours. Don't let Chicago fool you, IT WAS HOT!)
So anyways, Jukebox the Ghost. To me, they sound like the piano-man broke free from Pete's, joined a band, and decided to mix the funny music with more serious music. In other words, I LOVE IT!
So after we ate we made it over to what we would later call "the family friendly" stages. There were eight stages in the park. On the far ends of the park there were two that faced each other. That way as soon as one band ended, the next would begin. Then, there were four stages spaced out in the middle of the two ends. But the south end of the park had much more room between the two stages and that made it nice to where you could spread out, sit down and still see (hence, more family friendly). It even had this hill that we absolutely loved and spent all of our time on (when we were on the family friendly side, the hippie side naturally didn't have a convenient hill to park yourself on). Oh, and the tents behind the hill are the VIP section that would set one back OVER $1000!
The north end's stages, well we called that "the hippie zone." It seriously made you think you were teleported back in time to Woodstock. It just looked like the pictures I've always seen, the music made it sound the same, and I am sure it smelled the same (in more ways than one).
Anyways, after we found what would be our usual spot in the family friendly area we saw: The Big Pink, Devo and part of Matt & Kim.
Here's the Big Pink's Dominos:
The classic, Devo with Whip It. And you can see they are wearing those ridiculous hats in the video clip. They also made a couple of costume changes throughout their set!
The classic, Devo with Whip It. And you can see they are wearing those ridiculous hats in the video clip. They also made a couple of costume changes throughout their set!
And then there's Matt & Kim. I was definitely around when they started their set, but we we far off on our glorious hill and didn't notice what is shown in this video. But they look like people I want to hang out with all the time!
Then we made our way back to the BMI stage (where Jukebox the Ghost had played earlier). But between the two times we were there, something had happened during one of the shows there, but we didn't find out about it until the next day. Semi Precious Weapons played on that stage and they are friends with Lady Gaga. She apparently watched the whole show from the side of the stage, but then she joined in on the fun. Now, I am warning you, this is explicit footage (does that even need to be said with Lady Gaga?). This video just furthers my suspicion that she is either on some serious drugs or is seriously messed up in the head. But man, it sure is entertaining!
So only thirty minutes later we showed up to that same stage to watch Neon Trees. This is a band that just back in March they had a free song you could download on iTunes (signaling they weren't that big). Emily downloaded it, liked it, looked it up and found that they were playing at South-By-Southwest (which was going on at that time). She went to that show, loved them and got me hooked on them. Now their song "Animal" is featured on the Camp Vegas commercial. They were probably one of my favorite bands to watch perform at Lollapalooza. The lead singer, Tyler Glenn, has so much energy you get tired just watching him. And don't let his looks scare you, he was not a scary person, actually a rather nice-sounding person with just a different taste in appearances than what would be considered normal. And you've just always gotta love when the drummer is a female (That makes two for the day, Matt & Kim, she was the drummer too)! 
Then back to the family friendly side for Chromeo:
And then....oh my goodness....lady Gaga!!!
We tried to get close to her stage early, but I think we would've had to have stood there all day to have accomplished a really good position. By the way, sooooooo many people dressed up for the day in honor of Lady Gaga. There were all kinds of crazy looking people walking around. I wish I could've gotten some pictures, but I get way too nervous of taking pictures of random scary looking people. I am pretty sure they are the ones that will beat you up if they catch you. But the winner of the day of the weirdest outfit (given by me) was the girl that seriously only wore police tape across her body. WOW, and you do know Lady Gaga won't actually be able to see you in that, right???
Anyways, she puts on the most theatrical ridiculous show I've ever seen! I really have never watched or payed much attention to her before, but she's got my attention now! I don't want to promote that kind of crazy behavior, but then again, it's like a train wreck you can't take your eyes off of. I would definitely pay to see her show again and again (and again). It really was worth my money just to see her.
Even if she was a million miles away and she looked like an ant.
By the way, don't let the outline of the person's body in this picture fool you, that is the camera man that is located on the much-closer-to-me sound stage and not Lady Gaga. Though, it would be the icing on the cake if she was that big!
Even though we were pretty far back, we were still about only a fourth of the way back from the rest of the crowd. She at one point said that there were 80,000 people in the crowd. Now, The Strokes were having a concert at the same time (on the hippie end of the park) so how someone separated and counted who was at what concert, I don't know. But we all know Lady Gaga is totally on her rocker, and what she says must be true.
Though I never freaked out in that crowd like Emily's husband thought that we should have, I do think I had a little bit of "crowd rage" (not that there is such a thing, I am just going off of road rage). One too many people over-aggressively pushed past me and I turned to the second person in their line and stopped them and let them know they had no right to push people like that. There was no foul language and hardly a raised voice. That person stopped and looked at me like a deer caught in headlights, and I think for that moment they did feel bad. And that was all I was asking for. But then they pushed their way forward anyways.
This was a picture I took before the concert began. I couldn't ever truly capture the depth of how many people were there on photo, but this was some-what telling. Keep in mind, this photo was taken of the people behind me, the stage you see is the other stage that Lady Gaga did not play on.
We did also have a belligerently drunk man try to break out a fight by us. There was a young girl with her family right beside me and he knocked into her and her dad was not so happy. But you had a camaraderie of the group around us come about, and they all stood up, non-violently to the drunk man and made him leave. It was one of those moments where you appreciate man-kind for their natural sense of caring for each other, for the most part.
After the Lady Gaga concert was over, we made the long walk out of the concert area. When we reached the end of that part of the park and as we walked up the stairs, we turned around and looked back on the crowd still there. I am not even kidding you, it looked like not a person had moved since the concert ended. And remember, we were standing in the front quarter of the park, so think about how many people must have been there and already walked out, that's incredible!
In fact, there were so many people walking out of there; when we made it to the first non-blocked off street the crowds had actually taken over the street. The cops controlling the crowds could not stop the masses of people crossing the street. Luckily the crowd was happy, otherwise it could have been a scary moment!
Speaking of walking home, by this point, with all the walking and standing we had done that day, my feet were killing me. I turned to Emily and said, "I feel like I am waddling like a duck." To which she said, "you are.... please stop."
But we made our way home (even if it was by waddling). We had hopes of making it back out to the Hard Rock Hotel for the first of three nights of "Belve Nights," but there was just no way. We were in too much pain. And of course that glorious bathtub we were looking forward to soaking our feet in would not cooperate and only put out cold water.
So we went with our backup pre-sleep entertainment. On the plane we had watched Vanilla Sky, but we had to turn it off about 20 minutes before the end. So we decided we would put that on and finish it. Except I think I made it only about 5 minutes and the next thing I knew it was six o'clock in the morning, I was hugging a computer that was dead, the lights in the room were still on and the TV was still playing but on mute. Guess we were a little more tired from the day than we thought. I'd say that was a successful first day though!
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