So right off the bat, I’m gonna mention how rainy it was. Not even a downpour, mind you — that I can handle. It was one of those humid foggy kind of rains that renders my equipment borderline crapshot. I spent more time defogging my lens than shooting it seemed.

Even if I managed to snap a half-decent shot, the colors were grey and the contrast was mud. Speaking of mud… There was a lot of that, too. It made travel from stage to stage quite the daunting task.

Nevertheless, the bands didn’t give up, so neither did I.
Click any photo for the full Lollapalooza Day One gallery

So this is more of a warmup for me, considering it was only Thursday. But Berlin was hosting a whole flurry of DJs including from Passion Pit and Brazilian Girls, so it seemed like a great way to crack my knuckles in preparation for the upcoming weekend. In fact, I think most people there were of the same mindset.

The thing I like about Berlin is it makes my job easy — it’s open til 4 AM and the drinks are poured with a heavy hand. There’s nearly 100 photos of people dancing and drinking til the wee hours. If you were there, chances are your mug is in the Lollapalooza Pre-Party gallery. Click the photo to find out.

So Warped Tour made its way to Chicago, celebrating its 15th year plowing through the country.

I have to begin this entry by saying Gallows is my new favorite hardcore band. Not only because they put on a stellar performance, but also because they encapsulated pretty much everything hardcore stands for, and everything that Van’s Warped Tour evokes. By that, I mean they applauded veteran bands and gave respect to the Tour’s original purpose of supporting punk culture, but jeered its blatant commercialism and put to shame its exploitation of teenagerism.

All this while performing in the midst of the biggest circle pit I have ever seen. So very… hardcore.
Lead singer Frank Carter even said I “must be out of [my] fucking mind” to keep shooting in the midst of all the swirling chaos:

Also notable were Bad Religion for going strong longer than Warped Tour has, Anti-Flag who were probably my first political-punk band ever, Chiodos for possibly being the loudest, 3Oh!3 for being very energetic and pulling the largest crowd. Congrats to local 8-bit pop punk band I Fight Dragons, whom I covered at I AM Fest, and thanks to Scary Kids Scaring Kids for getting me the press pass and putting on a great set.

I just now learned the all-time record was broke for largest attendance in Warped Tour history with 23,000.
If you weren’t there, click any photo to see the full set of what you missed.

Wicker Park Festival returns even bigger and better this year, featuring bands such as Black Francis’ new project Grand Duchy, homegrown Chicago superheroes Treaty Of Paris and Smoking Popes, and closing the weekend was Junior Boys (photos shown respectively.)

Also happening was a Michael Jackson’s Thriller Zombie Walk. Hundreds of people put on their messiest makeup and fakest blood, ripped up their clothes, and amassed in the park, ready to lurch through the streets.
One guy wearing a Richard Nixon face mask instructed dozens of fellow Dead-Zeds how to dance the Thriller, which they performed several times like straight out of the music video. Also funny were some militant costumers acting as some sort of Anti-Zombie League “defending” the general public from the approaching onslaught à la Shaun Of The Dead.

Everyone was having such a great time — whether participant or onlooker — that it kind of dawned on me that in all actuality, possibly even ironically, the Michael Jackson Zombie Walk was really quite a celebration of life.

Whole weekend’s photos HERE

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So I will say this right off the bat: I’ve never considered going to Crobar for anything.
I was even slightly reluctant to go for Steve Aoki, opting instead to enjoy myself at some random house party.
Alas, house parties are a dime a dozen in Chicago, and seeing the infamous “Kid Millionaire” and the Dark Wave Disco DJs for free sounded like it might be at least worth checking out.

MORE AFTER THE JUMP »

I got a last-minute photo pass to the I AM (Independent Arts and Music) Festival held at Congress Theater on Saturday. The festival celebrated some up-and-coming local Chicago artists, music and otherwise. There were about 25 bands that played on two separate stages, I managed to shoot 5 or 6 of them.

Most notably in my opinion were Simplistic Urge, very loud and energetic post-hardcore band. They had great stage presence, and almost made it difficult for me to keep up. At one point a guitarist inadvertently flung his guitar straight into a stage light, completely busting it.

Also of note were I Fight Dragons, who can only be described as a pop-punk interpretation of Skate Or Die meets Megaman. They wore comic book hero tshirts and actually converted NES controllers as electronic sampling instruments, creating 8-bit bleeps and bloops with each button press.

I managed a quick impromptu editorial-style shot of them in the loading area out back after their set. I wanted to evoke a kind of fun “superhero” kind of vibe, but it would have been 10 times more effective at night, not to mention that it took me 15 seconds to do:

Some more standout shots:

See the full show gallery HERE.

Labels: Congress Theater, I Fight Dragons, Music Fest