As I’m writing this, it’s the one year anniversary of my first ever festival experience at Lollapalooza. Over the course of four days, it was nothing but nonstop concerts, sunshine, positive vibes, exploring a new city, and amazing music with me and 100,000 of my closest friends. Even now, I most likely would’ve been finishing up day two of the festival this year, rumoured to have Kendrick Lamar, Foo Fighters, and Lizzo headlining.
It’s a really hard pill to swallow when you all the sudden can’t do the thing that brings you the most joy in life. You almost have to try and relive the experiences, which I do a lot of these days. I have about 100 short videos from the four days at Lollapalooza last year, and I probably have them all memorized by now, whether it’s Ariana Grande hitting the high note in “breathin” with the city in the background, or Harry Hudson grabbing a giant, yellow tulip from the crowd during his balled, “Yellow Lights”.
Lollapalooza 2019 was my first true festival experience, and it couldn’t have been more amazing! Concerts are already my favorite place ever, but having four days of nothing but concerts was something I never thought would happen, but I’m so glad it did. I saw artists that weekend that I would most likely have never seen, including large people like The Strokes and Twenty One Pilots, to new and smaller artists like The New Respects and Cousin Stizz.
Even with the over 30 sets I saw, there were some of my favorite sets I’ve ever seen in those few days! Janelle Monae put on a performance that would make Prince proud, where she blended songs from all her albums and ended with an 8 minute version of her 2010 hit “Tightrope”. Childish Gambino brought the crowd to church for his headlining set, running through his albums worth of hits while telling his fans to live in the moment without their phones. Ariana Grande’s choreography might not have been top notch or necessary, but her incredible vocals along with the nostalgia of knowing her and her music for the last decade made it an extremely memorable performance.
There were even some more personal “legacy” driven acts that had quite a bit of nostalgia as well. Lil Wayne was the biggest with his hour long set, which contained only a portion of the hours of hit songs he’s gained over his career. Every time a song like “Love Me”, “The Motto”, or “I’m Goin’ In” started, it immediately took me back to being 13 and first discovering rap music. Even someone like Twenty One Pilots left me with quite a bit of nostalgia, bringing me back to the days of listening to “Car Radio” on repeat, even though I couldn’t even drive at the time of that song.
There’s plenty more sets that I could talk about, including H.E.R. bringing the multi-instrumentalist, R&B sound to the festival, or Kacey Musgraves providing an effervescent performance of country-tinged pop songs, but there’s many more places to see shows. While watching a performer with 60,000 of your closest friends is something special, there’s not much quite like a small show.
Seeing small shows provide the opportunity for something different, an intimate connection with the artists. These aren’t artists at their prime, but people grinding their way to the top. You can see an artist while they’re small, where they probably need your support to make sure they can make a living off of their art. It also allows for a more dedicated audience. The people in these venues already know all the lyrics, are more engaged with the performance, and overall more caring of the people around them.
There have been quite a few shows that have left me an impact on me. I’ve seen JID and Earthgang live multiple times each in sold out, small venues, and they only get better with time! The energy they bring to the stage, the way they can actually do all the rapping and singing live, and somehow manage to have the crowd at their whim. I’m sure the next time they come around town, they won’t be playing in the small venues anymore.
A similar experience happened when I saw Noname live for the first time in 2017 in a 600 person theatre. Even though she only had one, ten song mixtape out, she had the entire crowd ready to yell her words whenever she held out her microphone. The crowd had the theatre shaking while trying to bring Noname back out for her encore. Her positive energy just radiated from her the entire show, and had everyone leaving with a permanent smile, even after only having a 45 minute set.
But as with most gatherings of a lot of people, many concerts involve friends and family, and I have quite a few of those great shows as well. I took two of my friends to their first ever concert for Noname’s 2019 show, which was in a venue four times the size of her previous show fourteen months prior. Just showing them something that’s changed my life, even knowing they didn’t know the music was really cool. Another memorable experience is seeing the TDE Championship tour with my family and cousin outside in the rain. While it rained through pretty much the entirety of Kendrick Lamar’s ending set, it somehow made the night better, and having almost my entire family and cousin there was something special.
No matter how much more time goes by without concerts, we will always be longing to see live music once more. Longing to see these inspirational artists on the stage in front of our very own eyes. To see these artists that somehow express emotions that many of us can’t feel without it. To see these people that are fulfilling their true purpose in life. Concerts are somewhere where you can truly be yourself, and no one will judge you. It’s home, and I can’t wait to return.
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