11am The gates open as the Star Wars theme song blares across Grant Park. -BD
11:10am The Lollapalooza gift shop is already packed and people are oddly getting their hair braided here.- BD
11:13am The main entrance is like the freaking DMZ this year.- BD
11:49am It is shockingly crowded considering no bands are yet playing. The dampness from the morning rain seems to have already baked off.-
11:55am I've already heard two LCD Soundsystem songs blaring. A band that has been broken up for years.-
12:03pm Oh, Glenn Danzig is singing for the Strokes now. Wait, it's Drowners. I thought they were from NYC, but the singer sounds British. "You've got a long while to wait for Lana Del Rey," he says from the Grove stage.-
12:05pm Definite Morrissey worship with Drowners. Locals might mistake them for the Smoking Popes.-
12:10pm Aaand we officially have our first bass drop of the weekend at Perry's Stage.-
1:05pm The best place to spark your one-hitter is just downwind of the cops in the picnic area.- ZL
1:49pm Deap Vally singer noticed an inflatable Stanley Cup in the crowd and confused the NHL with the NFL. Crowd started booing.- ZL
1:49pm Party time over at the Lake Shore Stage with Swedish duo Icona Pop getting the crowd to sing along (and wave a giant American flag) to "Nights Like This." First raindrops.- LP
2:15pm Officially raining. Some prepared fest-goers standing near stage where Icona Pop is playing eschew umbrellas and cover themselves with giant plastic tarp. #iloveit- LP
2:24pm Officially not raining. Bright sun and two bros near me twirling hula hoops for Icona Pop's iconic pop anthem "I Love It."- LP
2:30pm Papa Emeritus II (a.k.a. the skeleton pope) of Ghost B.C. is definitely going to give some kids nightmares tonight. Underneath the theatrical costumes is a fairly standard heavy metal band.
to take self-po with Father J.M. (disclosure: I don't hate people; I just hate the word "selfie").- 2:42pm Brief convo with Josh Tillman (disclosure: we have mutual friends) before his Father John Misty set, about feeling misanthropic at festivals, and approximately 10 kids approach him for photos. "Can I take that for you?" I ask one girl. "No, I've got it," she replies, extending her arm LP
3:14 Father John Misty opens with "Fun Times in Babylon" in front of a backdrop designed by artist Alia Penner featuring a rainbow, naked ladies, a disco ball, church, fireworks, a motorcycle and pizza-i.e., all the totems of his Father John alter ego. -LP
3:25pm Extremely talkative crowd gathered to watch Jessie Ware. She is not letting it bother her, bouncing across the stage like a soulful cartoon character. Also, she's a Disclosure fan-go figure. - ZL3:35pm Atlas Genius has a packed the field at the Grove stage. Everyone wants to hear the Aussies play "Trojans". Coincidentally, an airplane is flying overhead dragging a banner advertising Trojan condoms. Why hasn't an ad agency made that leap yet? - BD
3:37pm First mud people sighting. Make sure you don't bump into those guys. - ZL
3:43pm If I had a dollar for every faux flower headband I have seen, I would have enough money to buy a Platinum Pass. - LP
3:45pm Kings of Cut Copy? Cut Copies of Leon? You see where I'm going with my description of what Atlas Genius sounds like live. - BD
Alice glass takes a long swig from a bottle Jameson and a drag of a cigarette before screeching the opening of the Crystal Castles set. With blond bangs, she looks far more bubbly. Of course, the grinding synths and lyrics about genocide wipe that thought away. - BD 4:30pm Crystal Castles now backed with a kick ass drummer in a 2Pac shirt. We say it every year, but live percussion makes all the difference. The duo has never sounded better at a festival. This set is going to be closer to Nine Inch Nails' 1991 Lolla set than tonight's NiN set will be. And Alice has now jumped into the pit. Love her. - BD
4:50pm Can Lolla please hire a new graphic designer? What is this goofy UFO art on the stage banners? #90s4eva - BD
5:25pm Big crowd amassed for big dumb band with songs you have heard 1000 times in NBC promos. Yes, it's Imagine Dragons, the U2 for people who watch Extra!. They have as many giant drums onstage as people.- BD5:28pm The sound blissfully goes out on Imagine Dragons.- BD
5:30pm Sound issues plaguing Imagine Dragon means fans have to imagine Imagine Dragons.- LP
6:11pm "Radioactive" is a weird word to hear thousands of people shout in unison over and over.- BD6:20pm New Order opens with "Crystal". The Killers got their name from the video for this song. Yet the Killers are headliners. What a stupid world.- BD
6:30pm Fake Peter Hook sounds a lot like Peter Hook. Barney sounds a touch more like Mark E. Smith, but who cares? No band at Lolla has better songs than New Order.- BD
Someone at the Red Bull stage is holding a Nicholas Cage face at the end of a long pole. Cage's head keeps creeping into the wide shots of New Order on the jumbo screen.- JM Crowd dancing in mud to "Bizarre Love Triangle." Sumnertime [sic] and the livin' is easy. - LP
6:45pm Quite a few people passed out on the grass with Thorny Rose wine-filled water bottle strewn around them. If you're drinking multiple bottles of that stuff, you have accepted your fate. - ZL
7:35pm Alex of Hot Chip is wearing a Kraftwerk Autobahn shirt under a blue lab coat.- BD Lance Herbstrong sounds like most of the crowd looks: muddy.- LP7:48pm Lance Herbstrong: all doping, no scandal.- BD
7:50pm Hot Chip with the best steel-drum hook of the festival on "One Life Stand."- BD
8:10pm Word on the tweet: Bernard Sumner of New Order will be performing a song with the Killers this evening.- ZL
8:12pm Hot Chip, "Over and Over." It never fails. Leads into new track "Dark and Stormy." Meanwhile... lasers are being set up on the Killers' stage. No palm trees spotted yet!- BD
9:00pm Perry's Stage is far more sparcely populated than it was last year. Is EDM less popular this year, or does Steve Aoki just pale in comparison to the other options this evening?- ZL
9:03pm Lana Del Rey getting drowned out by NiN's "Closer." Of course.- BD
9:09pm Lana sings the original "fuck you hard" (like an animal?) line instead of the cleaned up "kiss you hard" of the album on "Born to Die." She knows her horny crowd. So many people singing along.- BD
Reporting by Brent DiCrescenzo, Zach Long, Jake Malooley, Laura Pearson.
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