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Arcade Fire at Lollapalooza 2010

Aug 10, 2010 Web Exclusive By Lindsey Anderson Photography by Matt Jones

I’m always a little bummed to see Lollapalooza come to a close; it marks the end of three brilliant days of music, food and friends. And like we say every year, this year will be hard to top. From Lady Gaga’s spectacle on Friday to Arcade Fire’s Sunday showdown, the expanded festival brought in loads of performers and concert-goers. Here’s what happened on the closing day.

After a morning and afternoon rain left Grant Park soggy and sloppy, it wasn’t until Portland’s Blitzen Trapper took to the Budweiser stage that the sun came out in what became a lovely mix of feel-good folk rock meets warm summer weather. The band sampled heavily from its new album, Destroyer of the Void, and the tarp-dwelling crowd swayed in place to soaring harmonica and organ harmonies that dipped and peaked across the north lawn.

By the time London’s Mumford & Sons stepped onto the PlayStation stage, the heat and humidity were something fierce but the Southern-like weather meshed with the group’s punchy alt-country, bluegrass sound worked. Mumford opened with “Awake My Soul” and awake the crowd, they did. Sleepy Sunday Lolla-goers were suddenly on their feet, stomping and clapping along to “Roll Away Your Stone,” “Little Lion Man,” and “Lover of the Light.” Between banjos, an upright bass, keyboards and the regular fair, the group moved the crowd out of its Sunday lazy zone.

Psychedelic synth-rockers Yeasayer slathered on a handful of hits early in their set with “Tightrope,” “2080,” and a surprisingly rawer and grittier “Sunrise.” The group is good enough live, but the Budweiser stage seemed a little large for the Brooklyn art-rockers, and the time slot and space might have been better fulfilled by Saturday’s Edward Sharp & the Magnetic Zeros.

I was really jonesing to hear the neo-soul of Erykah Badu, so I got my fast walk on and dashed from the north to the south in under 10 minutes (a feat!) As I landed at the Adidas Mega stage, Badu’s band stepped on and grooved a bit while we waited. And waited. And waited. Nearly 20 minutes passed before Badu finally appeared. Did she miss her stop while daydreaming in a “Window Seat?” Badu’s “I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-your-time, this-is-my-time” attitude flopped and so did the two tepid songs she opened with; “20 Feet Tall” from this year’s New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh) and “The Healer” from 2008’s New Amerykah Part One (4th World War.) It really doesn’t matter how diva-licious one might think she is, people pay a pretty penny to see artists during certain timeframes at festivals, and because of Badu’s bad time keeping, I had to leave three songs in to catch the beginning of MGMT.

Two years ago, MGMT played Lollapalooza and clearly didn’t know what they had gotten themselves into. Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser stood like deer in headlights, performing stoically to a curious crowd who were mostly familiar with the group’s summer hit, “Electric Feel.” This year, MGMT pulled in enough people to the north stage that the previous night’s headliners might have been colored jealous. MGMT proceeded to take the audience on a psychedelic-rock journey with old and new tracks and even extended a favorite. “We’re going to jam on the next one,” the band announced as they folded into “The Handshake.” MGMT then let it rip, reworking the 3-minute rocker into a sprawling 7-minute organ and drum rally and finally finished their set with crowd-pleaser and conga-line forming “Kids.”

Broody, love-stricken The National brought the energy down a notch with Arcade Fire’s Richard Parry who stepped in to play with the group. Matt Berninger, donning a tie and looking dapper as ever, opened the set with “Runaway” from the group’s latest album High Violet. Ever the go-to no-frills poetic anecdote to our own heartbreak and general malaise, The National insisted they aren’t really that sad, with Berninger reporting to the crowd he’s a “happy guy” before closing with “Terrible Love.”

With only a little over an hour remaining of Lollapalooza, getting-bigger-by-the-minute Arcade Fire stormed the north side stage with The Suburbs’ “Ready to Start” and never holstered their guns. From pulsing anthems “Neighborhood #2 (Laika)” and “Rebellion (Lies),” to slow-burning builder “Crown of Love,” Arcade Fire repeatedly pulled the trigger, pausing from its orchestral warfare only to thank and connect with the crowd. “The last time I was here was after Obama got elected and we had to sneak in alcohol,” Win Butler joked about Grant Park. “Don’t ever let New York tell you they have the best city because this city is fucking amazing!”

Arcade Fire asked us to dance with “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains),” hoped we had a little more gas in our tanks for the thundering “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out),” and put us in a choke hold with its gritty “Month of May.” When the band finally reached their encore—the anticipated “Wake Up”—Butler asked for background vocal help. It was then that Lollapalooza had one of its biggest sing-a-longs all weekend, and when Arcade Fire finally rested their guns.