Summer without music festivals is a strange feeling, nevertheless we continue to face a big challenge worldwide with the current pandemic in which is better to be safe than sorry staying at home to avoid further risks.
Grant Park without the big crowds at one of the most emblematic music festivals, Lollapalooza is hard to imagine but 2020 is a year that will be remembered because the live music scene had to hit the pause button to follow the safety guidelines of the COVID-19 times. Nevertheless, the organizers decided to do a virtual version with recordings from prior years and some fresh recorded interviews and performances specially for the virtual Lolla, giving us a taste of summer that we would have experienced in Chicago.
This is such a big event that the major of the city of Chicago, Lori E. Lightfoot gave a welcome message with the founder of the festival Perry Farrell. After some performances from the Alabama Shakes & Run The Jewels an incredibly emotional moment occurred when Toni, Chris Cornell daughter performed a social distant acoustic version of Pearl Jam song “Black” demonstrating that she inherited a beautiful voice and is capable to achieve high notes on the characteristic line “I know someday you´ll have a beautiful life, I know you´ll be a star in somebody else´s sky, but why?, why?, why? Can´t it be? Why can´t it be mine?”, just to finish the stream with a heartbreaking note: This song is dedicated to my dad with a picture of Chris at the end.
Another special moments that festivals bring are reunions, and this time was Porno for Pyros turn to do an acoustic set after more than 20 years of not playing together; despite were only a couple of songs “Pets” & “Kimberly Austin” those are the moments that make concerts special. Later on was remembered Sir Paul McCartney performance from 2015 in which songs like Lady Madonna, Here Today (with special dedication to his former band member and friend John Lennon) or the extremely famous song Hey Jude including the “Na, na, na, nanana, na, nanana, na, Hey Jude” sing along by all the fans at the main stage was just as a reminder of how The Beatles songs have trespassed the time barrier and looks that will continue to do it on many years to come still.
LCD Soundsystem performance at Lolla 2016 was streamed as well; on that year the band came back from a 5 year hiatus playing at the festival their classics such as: “Dance Yrself Clean”, “Someone Great” or their closing show song “All My Friends” where James Murphy and company gave a show full of energy and a year later a new album named “American Dream” was released to make their fans even happier with not just a tour reunion.
This is how day one of the virtual effort from Lollapalooza closed to give us a bit of flavor of what summer should have been, where after the festival we would have hit Chicago´s nightlife to continue partying before get some sleep and be ready for Day 2.