As usual, several staffers from The A.V. Club attended this year's Lollapalooza, a three-day celebration of music, questionable food, and the ego of founder Perry Farrell. This year found the festival settling in, for the third year running, in Chicago's Grant Park from August 3-5, where everyone from sweaty teens to Dennis Rodman had a part to play.
FRIDAY
4:56 p.m.: Outdoor festivals like Lollapalooza are a barrage of unintentional and intentional ass-cracks, cleavage, and crotch shots. We've been here five minutes, and the beer girl's incredibly low-cut tank-top (matched by equally short shorts) leaves virtually nothing to the imagination.
5:02 p.m.: Silversun Pickups begin on the Citi Stage. The sound is pretty thin, with the bass awfully low in the mix. Someone waves a stuffed rooster above the crowd during the entire set. The rooster will appear at numerous performances over the course of the weekend.
5:13 p.m.: It's surprising that Smashing Pumpkins are playing the Virgin Fest this weekend in Baltimore when the newly reunited Chicago group has yet to perform in its hometown. But when Silversun Pickups play "Waste It On" from last year's Carnavas, it's just as good.
5:41 p.m.: A guy watching Silversun Pickups has matching Pearl Jam tattoos on the tops of his arms near his shoulders. An hour later, we'll see two women with the same tattoos in their upper backs.
5:57 p.m.: The first entry in the Dumb T-Shirt File: A homemade white shirt with "PUT PAT SAJAK BACK IN OFFICE" scrawled on it in black marker.
6:31 p.m.: Satellite Party opens with Jane's Addiction's "Stop," the first of many Jane's songs Perry Farrell's band will play. By the end of the set, Satellite Party has played roughly four or five of its own songs. Every other song is by Jane's or, in two cases, Porno For Pyros. Oh, and an egregious cover of Rare Earth's "I Just Want To Celebrate."
6:36 p.m.: Was Perry Farrell always this annoying? Every time he opens his mouth, something annoying comes out. He prefaces each song with a forced allusion to the next song, to wit:
— "Getting drunk? Getting loose? Staying out of the sun? Are you kinky?" ("Kinky")
— "You know, they were callin' for rain. I don't see no rain from the heavens. So I declare today insanity rains!" ("Insanity Rains")
— "Are y'all ready to wish on a dog star?" ("Wish Upon A Dog Star")
— "I wish I could reach out there and pet you all!" (Porno For Pyros' "Pets"—featuring Pyros guitarist Peter DiStefano)
6:50 p.m.: After repeatedly whining about the Chicago Sun-Times for publishing a negative article about the festival, Farrell says, "You think you got it hard? We live on a bus with 11 people!" It's unclear whether he's kidding. "But we're having the time of our life!" Um, no one feels sorry for you, dude.
6:55 p.m.: Farrell tells another forced anecdote about being a bad kid who once was caught stealing, the band goes into "Been Caught Stealing" by Jane's. A couple of women in their mid-40s standing by us totally rock out and dance around. The alternative-rock generation has officially gotten old.
7:25 p.m.: Satellite Party plays a completely inessential encore: "Jane Says." A crowd waits in front of the MySpace Stage for LCD Soundsystem to begin. Various information flashes on the screen next to the stage, including this one, a "recipe for Lollapalooza":
Dance
Walk
Laugh
Eat at Chow-Town
Repeat
7:28 p.m.: Ironic Wardrobe File: Hipster staple D.A.R.E. T-shirt, which a woman has reconfigured as a tube-top.
7:33 p.m.: LCD Soundsystem opens with "Us V Them," beginning one of the weekend's best sets. The crowd, primed for the one-two punch of LCD, then Daft Punk (LCD naturally plays "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House" later), stays pumped during the entire set, with beer and water constantly flying over people's heads.
7:51 p.m.: Even though he rocks out during his songs, LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy has a deadpan detachment in his stage banter. "I have nothing to say," he says before going into "North American Scum." "That's why people say [affects a rocker voice] 'Are you ready?!?!'" People cheer. "I'm not asking. What do you have to be ready for? We're playing. The question is, are we ready. That's why we lumber into songs."
7:56 p.m.: After "North American Scum," Murphy notes that the stage rush of dudes at the beginning of the song had him concerned about a mosh pit. "As a rule, if you can't see any girls around you, you're dancing wrong." The celebratory jam "All My Friends" follows, and it sounds even better live.
8:10 p.m.: There's a sizeable exodus, presumably people who want to jockey for a good spot during Daft Punk. Nonetheless, we decide that while LCD Soundsystem may look like middle-school guidance counselors, or, alternately, chubby versions of our own Josh Modell, they brought da funk and da noise like Stop Making Sense-era Talking Heads. These are some seriously funky white people.
8:33 p.m.: The stage still concealed by a curtain, Daft Punk begins its set with the spooky alien-communication melody from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. When the stage finally opens to reveal the French electronica duo's storied light pyramid, people in Hutchinson Field go from briskly walking toward the AT&T Stage to outright running.
8:41 p.m.: Daft Punk's light show slowly unfolds over the course of its set, growing more dazzling with each song. In true rave form, someone begins tossing dozens of light sticks into the audience. Presumably, the ecstasy is beginning to kick in for someone, somewhere.
8:45 p.m.: When Daft Punk's "around the world" hook from "Around The World" makes a quick appearance at the beginning of another song, the crowd goes nuts. The song won't really start for another few minutes, though. Daft Punk's stage show suggests that they're trying to signal passing UFOs with an elaborate light show out of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's fevered imaginations. It was hard to tell exactly how much actual "performing" the Daft Punksters inside those robot spacesuits were doing, but the sound was huge, the lights hypnotic, and the overall effect trippy, mind-altering, and overpowering. You know, kinda like a more respectable version of Laser Floyd.
9 p.m.: Buckingham Fountain is the cacophonous epicenter of Lollapalooza. Chicago's famous fountain—immortalized, so to speak, in the opening credits of Married With Children—lies smack-dab in the middle of the festival grounds. Facing east, festivalgoers would get an ear full of Ben Harper on the left and Daft Punk on the right. Occasionally, the sounds sync, giving Harper's middling rock a dance-y makeover with house beats.
11:35 p.m.: Every year Lollapalooza returns, Grant Park people get savvier about after-parties. (Lolla itself ends around 10.) At super-comfy alt-country haven Hideout on Friday night, Ted Leo (who played the festival in the afternoon) manned the turntables and played some '80s electro and hip-hop; when he was through, Spoon's Britt Daniel took a turn.
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SATURDAY
12 p.m.: Gray, occasionally intensely cloudy skies keep Grant Park cool and comfortable, though the threat of rain is always imminent. Aside from some occasional sprinkles, the rain stays away until about 8 p.m.
12:45 p.m.: We rushed to see Tokyo Police Club and didn't make it, but still heartily recommend Tokyo Police Club. The young Toronto band (which some have accused of Strokes-aping, but whatever, they're better) just signed to Saddle Creek. They're pretty awesome in general, so we're going to assume they were awesome here.
1:30 p.m.: I'm From Barcelona, all 10,000 of them, bring the kind of pure cheer that Polyphonic Spree always gets credit for. We only catch the last couple of songs, but there's most definitely a guy in a bear costume onstage. They sound fantastic on a huge sound system, too, which is an unexpected delight. Fun fact: I'm From Barcelona is actually from Sweden.
1:42 p.m.: Tapes 'N Tapes give the festival a shout-out as they race through lots of old songs and several promising newbies.
2:06 p.m.: We have no idea how a band like The High Class Elite gets on Lollapalooza, though we don't actually see them play, so maybe they're great. They hang out schmoozing in the press area, the singer's tight white pants leaving little to the imagination. The band also features a pair of ladies in gold dresses. We are confused, but a little happy about it. Also spotted in the press enclave: Perry "King O' Lolla" Farrell, the singer from Snow Patrol, members of Interpol, Spoon, and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and lots of nerdy journalists.
3:26 p.m.: Rumor has it that Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder will be playing a song or two on the Kidzapalooza stage, and the number of dudes sporting PJ shirts when we get there gives us some hope that it might actually happen. My Morning Jacket's Jim James does a warbly version of "The Rainbow Connection" on banjo, and then the MC announces that Patti Smith and Perry Farrell will be out soon. Then he stalls for more time. Then a teen girl does covers of Joni Mitchell and John Mayer songs. Then Perry shows up and says Patti's running late. Then Perry tells the kids—whom he apparently thinks are really slow, based on the way he's talking—how green the festival is. And how they won't see any trash on the ground at Lollapalooza because everybody is so nice. (He must be looking at a different ground than us. And he's calling it "the floor," because obviously kids don't know what the ground is.) And how Chicago is a nice, green city. And then he tells the kids about how Patti Smith made a special appearance at the kids' stage last year and talked about how fucked-up Israel was for bombing Lebanon. (This is not a joke: She actually did that, and he actually brought it up.) This goes on for an uncomfortably long time. Finally, Smith shows up with Lenny Kaye in tow and plays four songs, including a cover of Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and "People Have The Power." She dedicates a song to Jerry Garcia. The punks have officially become the hippies. Vedder doesn't show. A writer we met from Billboard is totally bummed. Oh well, she probably went to their fan-club-only show on Thursday night at the Vic in Chicago.
3:27 p.m.: On the AT&T Stage: the improbable return of Silverchair. The Aussie grunge band made a splash a decade ago because its members were all barely old enough to drive. They would have remained a '90s alt-rock footnote, but a steady presence in their home country has made their new album, Young Modern, a respectable hit stateside. Sure, Silverchair still plays mostly middling alt-rock, but you have to admire their tenacity. Frontman Daniel Johns is clearly enjoying himself on the giant stage.
3:30 p.m.: Power-pop band Motion City Soundtrack—Lolla's lone bone thrown to the Warped Tour crowd—takes the MySpace Stage immediately after Silverchair. The stuffed rooster returns.
3:32 p.m.: The crowd for L.A. band Cold War Kids is too big for the smaller Citi stage. People spill into the neighboring lawn and block one of the main thoroughfares. If they come back next year, promote these guys to one of the bigger stages.
3:39 p.m.: Incredible tattoo alert: On the back of a calf, a hand holds a lighter. The wisps from the light form the highly detailed face of Kurt Cobain.
3:40 p.m.: A guy passing the BMI Stage as Lady Gaga plays says, "This is that hot bitch." Lollapalooza: where musical discourse thrives! A quick glance at Gaga's MySpace page proves him right, though. Also, Gaga has the distinction of being the last performer listed on this year's Lollapalooza T-shirt.
3:42 p.m.: At the PlayStation Stage, Chicago rapper Rhymefest is off to a late start. His large band—keyboardist/computer man, bassist, another keyboardist, three-person horn section, guitarist, drummer, and a DJ—stand around onstage while the could-be-larger crowd waits patiently. In the meantime, the sound-bleed from the neighboring Adidas Stage provides everyone with a taste of Sound Tribe Sector 9. This year's new stage configuration—only two stages on the big fields, with smaller stages next to each other—only exacerbated sound-bleed problems that weren't as much of an issue last year.
3:45 p.m.: Rhymefest finally appears after a hypeman/backup singer asks the crowd, "Are you ready to experience one of the greatest entertainers in the world?" Rhymefest seemingly freestyles without any beat or accompaniment. Someone in the crowd yells, "Hey, where's the music?" Indeed, during the next song ("Devil's Pie" from last year's Blue Collar), only the DJ is doing any work. The band sounded great, but did Fest really need to give everybody a solo, even the bassist? Between the bass solos and The Roots' back-to-back shows, hip-hop fans could be forgiven for thinking they'd stumbled into a jam session between Primus and Bootsy's Rubber Band. Fest bravely focused on new material from forthcoming albums, dipping into Blue Collar for only a handful of songs, and going a cappella more than once.
4:30 p.m.: On the AT&T Stage: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the one band no one had to come to see. The band played Friday night at Chicago's Metro club, an after-party Saturday, and supposedly again on Sunday.
4:31 p.m.: We ask Tokyo Police Club's Graham Wright and Greg Alsop a favorite question from A.V. Club days of yore, spun for this event: "Who at Lollapalooza could your band take in a fight?" Alsop opts for Matt & Kim, citing the simple numbers game: A quartet has twice as many fighters as a duo. Wright chooses fellow Canadian Sam Roberts, whom he says would understand the country's hockey-fighting rules. "We could jersey each other!"
4:32 p.m.: Dumb T-Shirt File: "Drink apple juice because OJ will kill you," wrapped around a drawing of a white Bronco. The shirt looks totally new, in spite of its 13-year-old reference.
4:33 p.m.: The Roots open with "Here I Come" from last year's Game Theory to a massive crowd. The pot smoke quickly grows thick. Like many of this year's acts, ?uestlove, Black Thought, and the gang selfishly attempt to ruin hundreds of loud conversations by stubbornly insisting on performing "music" during their set. The Roots get props for prominently featuring a sousaphone player (he's like a sousaphone hero or something) but lose points for adopting atrocious punny alter egos like Tuba Gooding Jr. and Lord Of The Strings. Black Thought makes a point of repeating these terrible puns, but they don't get any funnier the second time around. The Roots trot out rapid-fire versions of the hits with plenty of soloing and vamping, along with the requisite standard hip-hop hits medley, which run the gamut from Ol' Dirty Bastard's "I Like It Raw" to, um, Mims'… well, you can probably guess what Mims song they covered.
5 p.m.: The schedule says Brazilian electro-dance outfit CSS should be on the Citi Stage, so why is indie-pop duo Matt & Kim up there instead? Flight delays forced CSS to cancel. That'll learn 'em for trying to do too much in one weekend—they played the Virgin Festival the day before.
5:30 p.m.: The charmingly spacey Regina Spektor seems tuned into some wondrous frequency all her own. Performing with just a guitar, piano, and drumstick, Spektor bravely battled terrible sound and the free-floating boorishness of festival crowds to deliver a pretty spectacular set that peaked with a triumphant, appropriately anthemic "Fidelity." Somebody really should cast Spektor (who looks like Ronald McDonald's hot Wiccan cousin) and Tori Amos in a buddy-cop movie about piano-playing singer-songwriters who fight crime in their spare time while wearing black latex catsuits.
5:31 p.m.: The Hold Steady takes the MySpace Stage to an exuberant crowd, opening with "Stuck Between Stations" from last year's Boys And Girls In America. Later, frontman Craig Finn says, "Last year we played here, and I said it was the most fun I've had before 3 o'clock. Now I think it's the most fun I've ever had." Finn and his bandmates are clearly enjoying themselves.
5:40 p.m.: Finn introduces the next song by saying "This song's about a boy and a girl…" Yeah, that narrows it down. "…and a horse." Ah, that would be "Chips Ahoy."
5:56 p.m.: "Hot Soft Light"—ugh, Finn needs to stop using the phrase "kickin' it" in his lyrics. The Hold Steady's set inspires the most fist-pumping of any performance all weekend—it's constant during every song.
6:28 p.m.: Finn is clearly humbled by how far his band has come in four short years—from five dudes drinking beer together to opening for The Rolling Stones in Dublin next month. "There is so much joy in what we do up here," Finn tells the crowd. "I want to thank you for being part of that joy. God bless you all."
6:30 p.m.: We—in this instance, Josh Modell—like Snow Patrol, dammit. The hits and hooks are huge. Sure, who needs "Chasing Cars" again? But "Chocolate" and "Hands Open" are fucking massive. Singer Gary Lightbody (real name!) shouts out to the hep indie bands he's seen: Tapes 'N Tapes, Clap Your Hands, etc.
6:34 p.m.: Most Confusing Shirt Seen At Lollapalooza: "MUSIC IS THE NEW COTTON."
6:35 p.m.: Oh, Perry, please stop talking. His introduction for Yeah Yeah Yeahs is hilarious: "Every once is a great while—maybe five or 10 years—a group comes along with such great talent…" Yes, five years is practically an eon.
6:37 p.m.: Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer Karen O is dressed like a dominatrix from Blade Runner. You never realize just how much she screeches until you see her live. In Chicago, her howls bounce off the high-rises that face Grant Park, undoubtedly riling the residents who complained about Lollapalooza's noise last year.
7:20 p.m.: O prefaces "Maps," Yeah Yeah Yeahs' breakthrough hit, with an introduction that sounds like a hair-metal singer circa 1986. It's impossible to really make it out, but it amounts to "Are you ready to PARTTTTTTTTTTTTYYYYYYY??!?!?!?!"
7:30 p.m.: Dumb T-Shirt File: "This is why I'm hot," with an anthropomorphic earth sweating.
7:34 p.m.: Man, Spoon has so many hits that it can just fill a set with 'em and be done with it. Not hits as in bona fide radio hits, but hits, hook-y beauts that you can't unstick. "The Way We Get By," "I Turn My Camera On," "Small Stakes." Even without some of the hotness from the new Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, things were working.
8:05 p.m.: On the train, a car full of Lolla revelers heading home early sings "Fast Car" by Tracy Chapman, repeating the hook "Aye-e-I had the feeling that I belonged, and aye-e-I had the feeling that I could be someone, be someone…"
8:06 p.m.: One guy discusses the day's performances: "The Fratellis? Unless they're playing something from The Goonies, I don't care."
8:30 p.m.: Saturday's big finish is a competition between Muse on one end and Interpol on the other. We know woefully little about Muse except that it's from England, apparently pretty huge, and people compare it to Radiohead. It's all bombast and light show, at least as much cock-rock as Yorke-rock. It's bright. Wayyyyyyy on the other side of Grant Park is Interpol. They stand there and play songs, some of which we like ("Not Even Jail"), some of which we're not that psyched about ("No I In Threesome"). So it goes.
10:01 p.m.: Lollapalooza isn't the only exciting thing happening in Chicago this weekend; the new Batman movie is filming smack in the middle of downtown, just blocks from the fest. We run into the production on the walk back to the office. A P.A. dutifully lies to an onlooker, telling her that they're filming a movie called Rory's First Kiss. Then why does that SWAT truck say "Gotham Police Department" on it? According to one film-nerd blog, the Chicago Board Of Trade building was the inspiration for Wayne Tower, and right by the Board of Trade is where the action was.
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SUNDAY
2:00 p.m.: Just outside the gates, a scrawny white teenage boy agitatedly subjects disinterested passerby to a loud a cappella anti-Bush rap. Gosh, and we thought these lefty do-gooder types were against cruel and unusual punishment.
2:31 p.m.: Surprise hit of the festival: Scotland's Los Campesinos! (The exclamation point is theirs, but we'd give 'em one if it weren't there.) They share a label with Broken Social Scene, and they capture the same cheery-weird-y vibe. Like Tokyo Police Club, they only have an EP available (Sticking Fingers Into Sockets), but we're guessing more will come gushing forth soon. The EP includes their cover of Pavement's finest song, "Frontwards," which they also played here, at their first-ever U.S. show.
2:45 p.m.: Forget rehab or battles with the battle: Somebody really needs to stage an intervention and force-feed Amy Winehouse some corned-beef sandwiches and maybe some nice potato knishes. At this point, the disconcertingly skinny soul sensation's towering bouffant weighs more than the rest of her, and her eyebrows look frighteningly like black caterpillars. Winehouse has got a voice big enough to fill up all of Chicago, and her band sounds terrific, but she seems nevertheless seems bored. Her apathy proves infectious. Winehouse seems awfully young to be going glumly through the motions.
4:17 p.m.: The Stooges take the stage in oppressively hot and humid conditions, though guitarist Ron Asheton plays in pants and a long-sleeve camouflage jacket. The band—featuring punk legend Mike Watt on bass—opens with "Loose" from its seminal Fun House, and frontman Iggy Pop is suitably riled up. A few minutes later, he'll jump atop the guitar cabinets and hump them.
4:24 p.m.: Iggy's first stage banter: "Hello, motherfuckers! We. Are. The fucking Stooges!" The crowd goes nuts, especially when the band breaks out "I Wanna Be Your Dog" a few minutes later. Afterward, the crowd up front chants, "Ig-gy Pop! Ig-gy Pop!"
4:41 p.m.: Iggy prefaces "Dirt" ominously: "You know, underneath all the horrible pronouncements of the high and mighty, and under all the hideously clever schemes of our media leaders, there is still dirt." Sure, "Dirt" was on Fun House, but here, it's kind of a momentum-killer.
4:44 p.m.: Dumb T-shirt File: A drawing of George H.W. Bush, saying "I SHOULD HAVE PULLED OUT."
4:45 p.m.: During "Real Cool Time," Pop makes a good and bad decision. "I'm so in love! Get up here and dance with The Stooges!" he booms, ordering security to let people rush the stage. "Share the stage!" he yells. Within minutes, as estimated 250 people swallow the stage and the band. One lone bodyguard has the impossible task of protecting Pop during "No Fun."
4:50 p.m.: Pop seems a little surprised that the super-fans he let on stage are slow to exit so the band can finish its set. "Thank you!" he yells. "Now we all have to calm down. Time to go!" But no one's leaving. Pop eventually makes his way behind the guitar amps as girls continually paw at him and kiss him. Meanwhile, the audience controls the mic. "Yo guys! Check out Catastrofuck!" says one guy.
4:57 p.m.: After a seemingly endless delay, the stage has mostly cleared, and Pop is relieved. "Thank you, Lollapalooza dancers! Thank you, Chicago people! I would thank God, but he didn't come onstage!" He may have—there were a lot of people up there.
5:09 p.m.: For the last song of their set, Kings Of Leon introduce special guest Eddie Vedder, who plays some thrash tambourine and sings a bit. The people who've been camped by the big stage waiting for Pearl Jam's fest-closing set freak out. A gaggle of people with backstage passes are awed, following him back to his dressing room.
5:10 p.m.: Swedish pop sensations Peter Bjorn And John lose sound after just a few minutes, beginning a delay that lasts more than half an hour. When the band returns around 5:45 with the quiet "Amsterdam," the dance-party jams of !!! on the neighboring MySpace Stage drown them out.
5:57 p.m.: Silversun Pickups bassist Nikki Monninger joins Peter Bjorn And John for their ubiquitous hit "Young Folks." There's a healthy exodus after the song ends—one guy says, "That's all I needed to hear." Too bad, because the final two songs, especially "Up Against The Wall," are fantastic.
6:18 p.m.: The always-feisty (and now scraggly bearded) Isaac Brock introduces Modest Mouse with, "Hi, we're one of the bands at the festival. Thank you for shopping Modest Mouse." Oh—there are sign-language interpreters (is that the right word?) at both of the big stages, signing away along with the band. They're amazing, dancing along and trying to keep up. We have no idea whether they translated "a fake Jamaican took every last dime with that scam" properly. Modest Mouse—yup, still with Johnny Marr—plays a set damn close to the one they played in May in Chicago, which is still damn fine.
6:32 p.m.: Incredible Tattoo File: In huge lower-case letters across the small of a guy's back, the word "rage," as in Rage Against The Machine. The letters are probably five inches tall.
7:15 p.m.: TV On The Radio begins the penultimate set of the festival on the MySpace Stage (along with Café Tacuba on the Adidas Stage on the other side of the park), concluding a roughly 14-month tour. A large crowd watches, but the growing super-crowd awaiting Pearl Jam—performing in 45 minutes—already swallows up most of Hutchinson Field. Guitarist Dave Sitek plays with wind chimes hanging from his tuning pegs, and he uses them to strike the drum cymbals.
7:44 p.m.: All of TV's songs punch harder live, but when the band busts out the propulsive rocker "Wolf Like Me" (from last year's phenomenal Return To Cookie Mountain), it hits 100 times harder. Fists pump furiously, and the crowd erupts.
7:55 p.m.: TV ends with "Staring At The Sun," the standout track from 2004's Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes, causing the crowd to erupt again. They aren't pleased when the band stops playing at the appointed time. They chant "One more song! One more song! One more song!", but the all-business stage manager tells the band they can't play. The crowd grows more dismayed, then begins to chant "Fuck Pearl Jam! Fuck Pearl Jam! Fuck Pearl Jam!" The gigantic crowd behind the MySpace Stage would disagree.
8:03 p.m.: Promoters were supposedly expecting 70,000 people for Pearl Jam, and if that's how many it takes to absolutely pack half of Grant Park, that's how many there were. Maybe it doesn't sell a ton of records any more, but PJ is still one of the biggest bands on the planet, and the live show helps explain why. Even from a quarter-mile away, the opening salvo of "Why Go" and "Corduroy" sounded amazing. Fireworks greeted "Evenflow," which was a nice touch, and Vedder unsurprisingly climbed on the soapbox to protest BP's decision to dump pollutants in Lake Michigan. (The band even did an impromptu half-song about it!) When Pearl Jam is on, it's on, and it makes us want to go back and listen to albums two through four (Vs., Vitalogy, and No Code) at high volume. Along with much of the crowd, we ducked out toward the end of the main set to beat the heat and the people. The finale, "Rockin' In The Free World," apparently included guests Ben Harper and Dennis Rodman, both old friends of the band. This show and a Chicago fan-club show Thursday night were the band's only two North American dates in 2007, and whichever Lollapalooza booker talked them into it deserves credit—they'd make a solid headliner any year.