Lollapalooza rocks 225, 000 People in Chicago

Aug. 10, 2008

And we thought 40,000 people at the Rothbury fest was a lot. Chicago’s Grant Park was seriously rocked last weekend with the latest edition of Lollapalooza, the giant annual music festival that was sold-out this year, and that played host to headliners Wilco, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, The Raconteurs, Nine Inch Nails, and Kanye West. Almost a quarter-million people braved the 90-degree temps, eight stages, and super-dense crowds to check out all of these bands and over 100 more, including additional sets from the likes of Jamie Lidell, Lupe Fiasco, Battles, Louis XIV, Duffy, Booka Shade, The Gutter Twins, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, Flogging Molly, The National, DeVotchKa, The Whigs, and sooo many more. Lolla also offered food, beverage, t-shirt, environmental, vote-info, and, yes, Obama booths, and recycling bins and free water were both available throughout the park. All three days were mostly without incident with the exception of the Rage Against the Machine set on Saturday night, during which hundreds of ticketless fans stormed the fences from outside the park, causing injuries and starting a near-riot until Chicago police on horseback restored order. Check back for our full Lollapalooza report complete with photos from on-site in the Express Labor Day issue...
Blur’s Damon Albarn and cohort Jamie Hewlett - the duo behind Gorillaz - have settled on their focus for their next project, which they’ve dubbed Carousel. It’s no quick deal, either - Albarn has already written around 70 songs for what they say will be both a film and stage project that’ll be “bigger and more difficult” than previous efforts. Staged much like a film with several narrative stories, it will of course be set to music, and will be executed in several different styles, including live action and animation. No word yet on when you’ll be able to check out Carousel for yourself, but we’ll keep you updated...

The Secret Machines have completed recording their newest album, which was tracked in NYC and produced by the band with Brandon Mason. The self-titled disc, which will serve as the follow-up to the band’s 2006 set, Ten Silver Drops, will hit stores on October 14th, complete with songs “Atomic Heels,” “The Walls Are Starting to Crack,” and “Have I Run Out” - it will be the first Secret Machines album to include new guitarist Phil Karnats, who replaced previous guitarist Benjamin Curtis, who departed the band last March...
Singer-songwriter Ben Kweller is ready to unveil some new material, hitting the road to preview songs from his new album, Changing Horses, which is set to hit stores in January, 2009. Kicking off his trek in Dallas, Texas, on September 25, Kweller, the former frontman for the indie band Radish, will make stops cross-country, including Tucson, AZ (9/30), Minneapolis (10/13), Chicago (10/14), Philadelphia (10/20), and Nashville (10/23) before wrapping the tour back in Texas, this time in Austin, on November 2...

MODERN ROCK LINK OF THE WEEK:
The Pretenders are prepping for the release of their new album, Break Up the Concrete, by offering one MP3 track per week, leading up to the album’s official September 23 release date; locate all of the free downloads (which will be available on such online venues as Spinner.com, ClearChannel.com, and VH1 Classic) via the Pretenders’ own website, www.thepretenders.com...

MINI BUZZ:
Irish rockers U2 are warning fans that concert tix being advertised for sale aren’t real, as the band has yet to confirm any live shows and have no definite tour dates planned at this time; the band is actually working hard in the studio with producers Rick Rubin, Brian Eno, and Daniel Lanois, for a new album that’s expected late this year...
Snow Patrol have mostly wrapped work on their next album, which was recorded in Ireland and Berlin; set to drop in October, the album has been dubbed One Hundred Million Suns...
Fellow Brit-rockers Keane have completed their latest set, too - titled Perfect Symmetry; it was also recorded partly in Berlin, as well as in London and L.A., and is expected to hit stores this October...
The Killers are yet another band working hard on a new CD, and they’ve also got a big slate of European festival shows booked for themselves through the end of August...
My Chemical Romance are making plans to record a Bob Dylan cover song for the upcoming comic-adaptation movie Watchmen; the song is slated to play over the film’s credits...
And fresh from Lollapalooza, White Stripe/Raconteur Jack White is teaming up with singer Alicia Keys to record the theme song to the 22nd James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, due in theaters November 7; the song has been dubbed Another Way to Die, and will be the first theme song duet in Bond movie history...
Hopefully making a little music history of their own are this week’s new releases... ON CD: Closure in Moscow’s The Penance and The Patience... The Faint’s Fasciinatiion... Hawthorne Heights’ Fragile Future... LL Cool J’s Exit 13... Conor Oberst’s Conor Oberst... and There For Tomorrow’s There For Tomorrow EP... ON DVD: Iggy and the Stooges: Escaped Maniacs... Norah Jones - Live from Austin, Texas... Beach Boys: The Broadcast Archives... and Ringo Starr Live on Tour... and that’s the buzz for this week’s Modern Rock.
Questions, comments, rants, raves, suggestions on this column or your fave musicians? Send ‘em to Kristi at modernrocker@gmail.com