Summer in the City: Part 5

I look like a frog or something. Whatevs.

Ask me where I’m from, I say Chicago. But little known secret: I’ve never spent an entire summer here. So begins my series of chronicling my first summertime.

I really had no intention of going to Lollapalooza this year. Even though I’ve been several times and have seen almost all my favorite bands play there, I’d much rather hang out with my cat than pay one million dollars* to stand in the sun for three days straight. But then I had an opportunity to volunteer with one of the food vendors and go to the fest for free. And Lolla ended up becoming one of my favorite weekends of the summer.

The thing is, when something’s free, you don’t feel gypped if it sucks (I’m looking at you Lady Gaga). And when something’s free, you feel like you really lucked out when it’s amazing (like The Strokes, who I decided to see just to get away from the Gaga yawn-fest. The second I got close enough to hear their set, I remembered how much I listened to The Strokes in high school. Nostalgia + music = hooray). As far as bands go, I probably saw an equal number of highlights and lowlights, which isn’t too shabby for a festival.

But then, there was lots of other free stuff - mainly booze and afterparties - that made this Lolla more memorable than all the rest and which led to a lot of dancing and singing, which led to more late nights in one weekend than I typically have in a month, which led to unbelievable fatigue and sore muscles throughout the next day when I was repeating the drink/dance process. Meanwhile, I chatted with a lot of really cool people: chefs from two of my favorite Chicago restaurants and a few artists who were, would you believe it? just normal people who like to talk to other normal people about normal people stuff. Now only if I had met Dave 1, that would have made my life. Apparently I met his also famous brother though, so I guess that’s good enough. Good thing I spent a whole weekend at a music festival and I don’t know anything about music. It doesn’t matter though. Fun matters. And I had fun!

*very close to the actual price of the tickets.