Author: Piet Levy / Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Scenes from Lollapalooa 2018 at Chicago’s Grant Park. Video courtesy Lollapalooza
CHICAGO – Lollapalooza lucked out in a lot of ways in 2018.
For the first time in ages, no massive storms rained on the fun or forced a full evacuation of Grant Park.
Heightened security ran smoothly, and there were no major issues — a greater concern following the Route 91 Harvest Festival tragedy in Las Vegas last October. (The gunman in that shooting had checked out Chicago hotel rooms overlooking Grant Park during Lollapalooza 2017 that he never checked into.)
And in terms of talent, Lollapalooza had one of the single most entertaining headliners since rebranding as a Chicago destination festival 13 years ago.
After four days and more than 180 acts, here’s a look back at some of the highs and lows at this year’s Lolla.
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Best set
Making his Lollapalooza debut (excluding an Eminem set cameo seven years ago), Bruno Mars dazzled on a perfectly cool summer night with effortlessly incredible showmanship and an infectious homage to ’70s soul, ’90s R&B and other momentous chapters in the history of black music.
Even with enough fireworks for a Fourth of July bonanza, it was Mars, first and foremost, who burned brightest, whether he was passionately pouring his heart out with his velvet pipes for the sultry “Versace on the Floor,” or dancing brilliantly without a single note of music to back him up when “Runaway Baby” took a pause. Bravo on the booking, Lolla — now let’s see if you can top it.
Honorable mentions
With bandmates wearing face stockings, beige suits and blond Moe Howard wigs, and fever dream visuals including a crown of severed gloved hands, St. Vincent took Lollapalooza back to the large-scale weirdness of the early days with her futuristic baroque pop. She also made the electric guitar queen again, if only for an hour, with her jagged, brilliant riffs.
And at a festival dominated by new rappers used to big streaming numbers, but not playing big shows, hip-hop legend LL Cool J showed ’em how its done, performing with the swagger of a young hotshot with so much left to prove.
Worst set
Living meme Lil Pump’s set was the perfect storm of awful. With just 45 minutes to play, Lil Pump still had a DJ warm up the packed, combustible crowd, followed by a little-known rapper no one cared to see. Then when Pump was finally supposed to take the stage, the DJ’s laptop overheated, prompting thousands of fans to boo and scream “(Expletive) you” and “This is (expletive),” and a few people to chuck full water bottles on the stage.
The DJ had no backup plan, of course, but some smart crew members plugged in fans to cool down the laptop — and miraculously, it worked. But when Pump hit the stage, he only did two short songs before pausing the set after security pulled several faint people — plus a hysterical woman, a vomiting girl, and a boy no older than 10 — out of the crowd chaos into the photo pit.
Pump just did a couple songs after that, and later on social media, the 17-year-old rapper blamed the festival.
And he’s right: Lollapalooza planners deserve most of the blame.
Last year, the festival had rapper Lil Yachty…
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