Pitchfork

Photos by Kirstie Shanley; text by Amy Phillips

For Scott Plagenhoef's previous Lollapalooza coverage, click here: Friday / Saturday / Sunday

For Amy Phillips' Lollapalooza coverage: Saturday / Sunday

For Matthew Solarski's Lollapalooza coverage: Friday / Saturday / Sunday

 

First, a PSA that we're sad to report: Due to problems with their incoming flight to Chicago, CSS will not be performing today at 5 p.m. Although that saves your Pitchfork correspondents the heartache of having to choose between seeing all of their set and missing the first half of the Hold Steady, it's still a total kick in the pants to have one of the best live bands going out of today's lineup.

M.I.A. [Bud Light Stage; 4:30 p.m.]

M.I.A.'s late afternoon set was marred by technical difficulties, a terrible mix that privileged the bone-rattling bass at the expense of just about everything else, and Maya's own sore throat, which rendered her hoarse. (At one point, she pulled out some kind of throat spray and bragged that Jack White had sent it to her.)

But I didn't care in the slightest. Watching M.I.A. in action right now is a thrill no matter what, not only because her new Kala is probably the album of the year, but because she's just so...awkward. In the best possible way, of course. Her music doesn't fit neatly into any established genre guidelines, her current fashion style is, like, suburban mall glam meets downtown hoochie mama, and she's developed a fascinatingly outspoken persona that dares to make people uncomfortable.

All of this collided at Lollapalooza, her eccentricities magnified by the fact that she was singing "Pull up the people!/ Pull up the poor!" on the Bud Light stage, surrounded by people eating $5 pizza slices. The Arular tunes-- "Galang", "Bucky Done Gun", "URAQT", "Sunshowers" (the latter dedicated to "the FBI and those guys in Washington doing a really great job, I love you")-- got the biggest crowd response, inspiring much loose-limbed I'm-a-funky-white-person dancing, in stark contrast with the rigid booty contortions of M.I.A. and her hype woman. (The pair was accompanied on stage by DJ Low B, Diplo's partner in Hollertronix.)

It's weird and awesome to see M.I.A. embracing her sexuality and forcing it to the forefront. She's not naturally, fluidly sexy or particularly graceful; rather, she's bullying sexiness into fitting her standards, and it works. When she climbed the scaffolding on the side of the stage during Kala standout "Paper Planes", singing "All I wanna do is-ah (gun clicking noises) and-ah (explosion noises) and-ah take your money," I couldn't think of anything cooler.

LCD Soundsystem [MySpace Stage; 7:30 p.m.]

Even if LCD Soundsystem's twilight set had been a complete disaster (it wasn't), it would have been worth it just to watch them play "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" less than an hour before the French gods themselves took the stage right across the same field. Getting to shout "You've got to set them up, kid! Set them up!" right at the people actually setting up Daft Punk's equipment was probably wish fulfillment on par with the nerd bagging the prom queen, but James Murphy didn't seem overly excited. True to his reputation as the kind of the New York hipsters, he acknowledged the situation by introducing the song with, "It's kinda funny...not really ironic."

LCD aren't really an outdoor band; their ice-cool punk-house sound finds its natural habitat in any packed, black-walled room with a disco ball. But there was still something magical about experiencing the crescendo of "All My Friends" as the sun went down over the baseball field, and Murphy's face loomed on the enormous screen next to the stage, the Sears Tower rising ominously in the background behind it.

That song's peak ("Where are my friends tonight! Where are my friends tonight!") will never cease to cause audiences to lose their shit from now until the end of time, but it hasn't gotten old yet. Barefoot dreadlocked creatures with hemp necklaces, bandana'd slicksters in So Me T-shirts, Schaumberg residents who piled the whole family into the mini-van-- everybody can appreciate the value of a good sonic climax.

I want to give Murphy a special shout out for one most excellent piece of between-song banter. After "North American Scum", he thanked the mosh pit for not getting too rowdy. "If you're dancing and you suddenly can't see any girls around you, you're dancing wrong," he said, deflating the machismo inherent in slam-dancing. Yes. YES. Thank you, Mr. Murphy. Please, everyone learn from this man.