Saturday’s Lollapalooza opened with less fanfare — blame the rain pelting down in Grant Park for much of the afternoon. As the first soggy fans made their way to the T-Mobile stage, festival staffers in ponchos were still busy clearing up detritus left by Friday night’s massive crowd for Kendrick Lamar.
Day 3 headliners are Odesza on the T-Mobile stage and the K-pop band Tomorrow X Together on the Bud Light Stage, plus the rapper Pusha T in a day-ending set on the Perry’s stage.
Some fans came prepared. Anna and Jovana Martinez of DeKalb County and Hope Herrera from Joliet stopped at CVS on their way into the festival for bright yellow $6 rain ponchos. They planned to be at the T-Mobile stage for the Revivalists’ set late afternoon and stay through Odesza. They’d also been there for Billie Eilish on opening day.
“People were literally slipping on top of each other” at Eilish’s set, said Jovana Martinez, who said this year’s festival was “way more intense than last year. She blames the lineup more than the larger crowd sizes — daily capacity at Lollapalooza has been increased for 2023.
At the start of Lamar’s set last night, the Martinez sisters said they heard repeated calls for a medic during the 15-minute delay before music began. Crew members “were pulling a lot of people out of the crowd.”
If Saturday’s slow start intimidated Australian DJ Benson, his splashy set was no indication. With fewer than a hundred fans in attendance when he dropped his first beat at noon, Benson seemed euphoric, bopping all around the turntable as he ran through some of his favorite music club edits.
“This is my first time in Chicago,” he told fans, giving them props for braving the rain. “This city is so good!”
Trippy glitchcore graphics and a red laser light show, pulsing in time with Benson’s hypnotic rap-infused mixes, pulled many attendees off the sidewalks and toward the Perry’s stage as if magnetized.
Nathan and Hailey Fast, both 35, opted to watch the set from a giant inflatable chair. The couple plans to tote the cloudlike rainbow cushion to multiple shows today, Nathan Fast said.
“I don’t want to stand all day,” Hailey Fast said, glancing around the muddy lawn in front of the Perry’s stage. “It was a condition of me coming with him.”
Frayne Vibez, playing with Kosine, was the opener on the Barcardi stage. It was the 22-year-old musician’s first Lollapalooza but he’s no stranger to the stage — he’s the grandson of the late Chicago jazz great Ramsey Lewis.
Speaking to the Tribune after his set (“It went great,” he said. “Rain, but the show goes on”), he said he grew up with his father taking him along to Lewis’s studio.
“The biggest thing he left me with is it’s all about the music,” Vibez said. “Forget about the outside forces, forget about what people say, what’s important is just to be in that two minutes and 40 seconds.”
Vibez, who grew up in the western suburbs and attended Fenwick High School in Oak Park, describes his sound as pop with hip hop and alternative rock influences. He hopes to have a first album out next year and continue performing around Chicago. Lollapalooza equals momentum, he said. “We’re not stopping now.”
“Burgers? Hot dogs?” Epic Burger employees called, seeking to entice customers during a 12:30 break in the storm. Next door, Tandoor Char House vendors laughed and leaned into each other between dishing out tandoori chicken empanadas and loaded chaat fries.
The Chow Town area in the middle of Grant Park, with concession booths on one side and shade trees on the other, was a popular shelter from morning showers. Lines formed at Fatso’s Last Stand and Broken English Taco Pub.
Iconic Chicago “Cheezborger” joint Billy Goat Tavern expects to sell 5,000 burgers each day of the festival. Connie’s Pizza, a longtime Lolla staple, sold 5,500 slices Thursday and 5,300 Friday, said general manager Mike Acton. He said he misses the days when the festival was smaller.
“I like the extra people — it felt like a lot more vendors got more business,” he said. “But do we like that? No. Because there’s more vendors.”
Two 26-year-olds from Portage, Indiana — Tim Wozniak and Alyssa Rospierski — stood in the middle of the street as the rain poured down. Rospierski huddled under Wozniak’s poncho to keep her nachos dry.
”We’re weathering the rain because we wanted to see Friday Pilots Club,” Rospierski said. “We’re not staying dry at this point. We’re just hoping to stay warm.”
They saw 1975 last night, they said, and the energy from that was carrying them through the gloomy weather. Wozniak is an electrician and Rospierski works in a dental office and they both love live music, especially when it’s local. Friday Pilots Club singer Caleb Hiltunen met guitarist Drew Polovick while attending Columbia College.
”Rain rain go away, so we can enjoy the rest of today, and tomorrow,” she said.
This story is updating.