Photo by Lisa Occhino.
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Article by: Lisa Occhino
For the eighth time in Chicago’s historic Grant Park, Lollapalooza returned with a three-day, eight-stage musical extravaganza featuring over 130 bands. This year, the festival brought together a whopping 270,000 music lovers, even with an emergency evacuation on Saturday due to severe thunderstorms. But with headliners such as The Black Keys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Black Sabbath, Jack White, Avicii, and Justice, no amount of mud or heat could discourage these massive crowds from staying ‘til the bitter end.
One of the biggest highlights of Lolla Day One was electropop band Passion Pit. Sandwiched in between powerful performances by Metric and Black Sabbath on the Bud Light stage, they held their own to say the least. The group of Berklee alumni (with the exception of lead singer Michael Angelakos) predictably yet satisfyingly opened up their set with “Take a Walk,” the first single off of Gossamer, which was released only a few days before Lollapalooza.
Photo by Dillon McKeever.
They kept the good feelings flowing with favorites such as “The Reeling,” “Better Things,” and “Sleepyhead,” which all perfectly fit Passion Pit’s crowd-pleasing formula: Michael’s distinctive tenor range, catchy lead synth lines, an energetic groove, and a super sing-along-able chorus consisting of “oh no,” “hey, hey, hey,” and/or “na, na, nana, nana.” Simplistic as this combination may seem, it takes some real talent to pull it off in a fresh way that makes thousands of sweaty kids emphatically sing and dance along to each and every song.
The biggest change of pace in the set came with the slow jam, “Constant Conversations.” Although the chorus was still saturated with plenty of “oh, oh, ohs,” this song stood out because of its downtempo feel, a stark deviation from the driving, four-on-the-floor grooves that came before and after it.
I found it to be borderline evil when Passion Pit closed with “Little Secrets,” which contains arguably one of the catchiest choruses they’ve ever written. Alas, I had no choice; the lyrics “higher and higher and higher” were hopelessly stuck in my head on repeat for the rest of the night.
Keep a lookout for the next installment of Best of Lollapalooza, featuring a review of Florence + the Machine.