They say you’ll always remember your first, so needless to say we were pretty stoked to make our inaugural trip down to Chicago to cover Lollapalooza on Thursday. Almost half a million goers will be visiting Grant Park over the four days, with the grounds featuring eight stages playing host to over 170 artists. So yeah, the feeling of being overwhelmed is completely natural, right?
One thing we found out real quick was that Grant Park is massive. This downtown venue stretches the length for three city blocks and takes about thirty minutes to venture from top to bottom. Shout out to our step counter, who just clicked over 34,000 by the end of the day.
Things started off on a delayed foot with Quavo, Offset and Takeoff having some flight issues – but they made up for it, charging into an energetic set to the days biggest crowd at the Bud Stage. The humidity was a real thing, with security pulling out passed out bodies every minute from the crowd.
With set times pushed, we had to rush over to the Perry’s Stage to catch the end of Fool’s Gold founder and #realdj advocate, A-Trak. The stage was ridiculous, featuring the biggest screens we’ve ever seen, mixed in with the usual pyro techniques and smoke blasters. *cue airhorn noise.
The weather was fairly wet throughout the day, but when Kaytranada began his set, you could tell some serious clouds were forming. We ignored the impending doom by getting low to all of Kay’s tracks off his debut studio album, 99.9%. Oh, and of course he dropped his Chance remix, well received by the Chicago crowd.
By the time Wiz Khalifa took the stage, the weather opened up and the term “raining sideways” didn’t even begin to cover it. It was so bad that Lollapalooza had to call it a day, announcing evacuation due to active weather. Our gear barely made it out alive.
Day one was definitely a learning process. But now that we have our Lolla-legs under us, we’re stoked to dive in even harder on Friday.
Check out our photos below.
