With all the challenges and painful events that are going on, I'm still managing to remain serene. I think this is one of the hardest times in my life, but I gain comfort in the fact I can't control the outcome. I can only take care of myself and ride it out. I hope my luck will change for the better and soon.

Click here to see 30 of my photos from Lollapalooza published in The Phoenix

Pictures from Lollapalooza

Chicago

Lollapalooza Day 2

Today, was hard. I dragged myself out of bed to find that my forehead was starting to scab up from a very bad accident with a very absent minded hairdresser. I went to the Vidal Sassoon in Chicago and got a very bad chemical burn on my forehead. The burns took about two days to heal and when they did they started to crack and bleed. I am afraid that the scabs will scar. There was nothing I could do about it now. I put my hair in a headband and went my day. The most important thing I needed to do today was report and photograph Day 2. Even though, I don't have a publication to pitch my stuff too, I've decided to persevere for a imaginary source.

I ended up getting to the venue rather late. I was pretty sad today and this causes me to move more slowly. I got to the venue at 3pm just in time to check out Broken Social Scene, who played a very good set. BSS consists of 19 players on stage including their only female vocalist (at least right now) Amy Miller. She was uplifting and sang with a beautiful voice that complimented the soft voice of their lead singer. He sang lyrics which I was surprised to hear including, "Why do you always fuck doves." I was intrigued by the lyrics and wanted to understand what he meant by this. But having a limited time to see the band I didn't have time to grasp what the lyrics meant. I appreciated his candidness. After seeing the BSS, I went across the park to see Rage Against The Machine. I saw some other acts in between, but I feel they are not worth mentioning at least in this blog post.

Last night at Radiohead there was 75,000 people. I wanted to see if my cousin Joey who was in the Lolla (fancy important people area) could get me in. It was off to the side of the stage and the view was not as good as being front and center, but it would have been impossible to get that close. Joey got a man named Bill who is in charge of the Park department in the Illinois government to help get me in. I got a couple free drinks of vitamin water and vodka. The best part was being able to see the stage and hear Rage Against the Machine.

The band played a solid set. I thought it was rather funny because they played all their most popular songs first. Then in the middle of one of their most famous songs they stopped. They said they wouldn't start up again until the crowd moved back 10-15 feet from the stage. Lead singer, Zach de la Rocha TK said he saw some people in the crowd getting hurt and he didn't want his music to contribute to the senseless violence of the people getting crushed from their enthusiasm of his music.

Rage Against the Machine made the audience jump. It seemed to me that everyone who was listening to the band perform were under some sort of spell to dance and scream the lyrics. It was mayhem, but in the best way. Zach de la Rocha said that if Obama gets elected and doesn't pull the troops out that he knew young people in every city that would burn down all the metropolitan government buildings. I was shocked to hear this, but this is what happens when disillusioned political rock stars don't see change.

After the show, no one seemed concerned about the political agenda and angst that the band showed. I think that most didn't get his message, which left me feeling that maybe our young generation isn't ready to really understand all the problems going on around us. I feel I understand the surface of what the band was trying to say. I will do my research on the message that the band tried to share.

Lollapalooza Day 1 - August 1st

I am super sleepy after spending a day in the sun at Lallapalooza. It was 90 degrees today and my body is asking me for nourishment and sleep. I left my cousin's house around 10:30am for a quick hang out with my old roommate, Dan from Cambridge. He met me right by the L station closest to Grant Park where the concert was being held. We talked about his PhD program and my recent move to Cleveland to help out with my Grandmother. Our short meeting was really nice and he walked me up to the concert's entrance. We said our goodbyes and I went to wait in the giant entrance line into the outdoor venue.

The first thing I noticed besides the crowd was the lovely Buckingham fountain. It was much more grandiose than I remembered. I didn't have time to marvel at its beauty for The Black Lips were beginning. I ran down to the other side of the park to listen to some good old punky/blues tunes by these boys out of Atlanta. They were fun and really into showing off for their fans. Guitarist TK wore a black curly wig with a feather and screamed into the mike and then spitted up into the sky and catched it. He was quite good at it. The band played a lot of familiar tunes, but not my favorite "It feels alright."

After watching these boys play it was time to run to the other side of the park to hear the Yeasayer, which in my opinion were God awful. They were trying to be "wordly" and instead it just got on my nerves. I think I don't have a threshold for bands that create music from blending their favorite world bands together. However, I do realize my opinion really doesn't matter because they were playing at the large AT&T stage and their fans were really into them.

On my way back across the park (probably a good 1/2 walk) I stopped to watch a band called Enemy UK. They were obviously a new British band and didn't look older than 21, but they did possess a real raw punk sound. I'm going to check out more of their stuff. I got to the Bud Light stage to watch a very energetic The Go! Team with two amazing girl musicians. The lead singer reminded me of a Spice Girl, with a lot of talent. She jumped around stage and did aerobic dance moves while her Japanese guitarist worked it. I am so impressed by talented bands especially led by powerful lead females. The entire band danced and jumped into each other and crashed to the ground. A bunch of great performers who were obviously having a lot of fun while creating amazing music.

Walking back again to the AT&T stage, I caught a new act from England called Electric Touch. I was so impressed by these guys too. They really had a gripe on the modern British rock. The lead man reminded me of Eddie Furlong with a gripping voice of some famous singer from the past that I can't recall. They sang a lot of love songs while beating on electric guitars. Another newbie, worth downloading. I stopped for a bit to listen to Louis XIV, which was cool for a few songs. They are really not my style, but they play a very interesting style of blues guitar and reminded me of ZZ Top. They sang about getting it on and used just about all the sexual innuendos in rock for their lyrics.

I decided to sacrifice trying to stand close up to see The Black Keys so that I could be front and center for Cat Power. I truly like The Black Keys, I think they're one of the most talented bands out there, but I have been really been into Cat Power lately. I love her realistic perspective on love, heart break, and just the fact she has such dynamic lyrics and a voice to back it up. Yes, I was up in front, but the sound guy was horrible. The show consisted of the band trying to tune up with the sound guy and the audience plugging their ear's from the feedback. Chan was really amazing to watch perform. You could really tell she felt everything she was saying. She was very self pitiful in such a righteous way. Everyone seemed to love her performance even though the sound system was horrendous.

I decided not to stay for the whole Cat Power show because I really wanted to see Grizzly Bear. I believe this band is the best new band out there. Their set was so tight and really showed that these guys practice a lot. The two singer's voices were so beautiful. One of them could sing in falsetto, which I thought was impressive since his physique didn't match the lovely high notes he could hit.

After that, it was time to reclaim my position at AT&T stage to watch the headliners. It was packed with thousands of people waiting to see Radiohead. I missed a lot of bands that I would have loved to see such as The Raconteurs, The Cool Kids, CSS, but it was smart to stay in one place. I got to watch Bloc Party perform, which surprisingly turned out to be my very favorite band of the day. (Close second Grizzly Bear). It was so wonderful to hear them and they really got me to dance. I haven't felt that spirited watching a monitor. The band was too far away to see. Bloc Party is a really likable band. The lead singer wore an Obama shirt with red shorts. Very stylish.

After Bloc Party, the rest of the crowd and I wait 45 minutes for Radiohead. There were some funny convos going on and one that I especially enjoyed listening to was by a couple of local music writers. It was great talking to these guys about the writing scene in Chicago, even though they weren't really hopeful about it. After testing the water in three metropolitan cities for writing, I feel nothing could really make me disillusioned from wanting to become a writer. That's another story.

Radiohead was pretty cool. The only complaint I had was that I felt like I was watching them on TV since I was so far away. The light show was impressive. They even had fireworks in the background, but I don't think that was intentionally part of the show because it was rather cheesy.

Tsukiji Fish Market 4/19/08

We woke up at reasonable time (9am) and went down to the famous Tsukiji fish market. We arrived late so we didn't see the million dollar tunas, but we did eat some fantastic fresh sushi (from that morning) at the market. The restaurant we ate ate had a line and was extremely cramped. The sushi chef really liked us and gave us ample amounts of sushi. Kates and I shared 31500 yen assortment of fresh raw fish including clams, tuna, mackeral, hamachi, mini squid, and finally salmon roe. The squid and claim were gushy tender and almost felt a bit like eating something that was in midst of transitioning from death to life. All the other fish tasted delicious very fresh and buttery. After lunch, we walked around the outdoor market looking at the different cookware and dead sea life that was in its boxed coffin crate. It was really a blast and made me like the section of town, which was like a giant farmer's market with ma and pa stands selling their goods. The vendors were very polite and friendly. It was really fun sampling their raw fish.

After roaming the market we followed the signs in Tsukiji to a Temple Tsukiji Hongwanji. The temple had a ceremony or mass going on. We walked up to the entrance and watched the people sit near the shrine. I tried to make myself as invisible as possible so I could observe.

Katie wanted to get Mikey a Tokyo Giant's hat and the only place that seemed to sell them was at the Tokyo Dome so we ventured off in that direction on the subway. The dome was in Hibaya and was noticeable in every direction from the downtown. Katie found the hat and we discovered that the park was not just for baseball, but had an amusement park and a outdoor mall. Katie and I caroused the mall buying nice bowls and other random things. Then we went to a local restaurant and had bento boxes with tempura and noodles. The portions were huge and very flavorful. Katie and I chatted at the restaurant until late. We decided that talking at the restaurant was better than going out and partying. Our goal for going to Japan was to breathe in the culture and not numbing our senses. We went back to the hotel to relax and plan out our day trip for tomorrow.

Shabu Shabu 4/18/08

Today was another rainy day in Japan. Although, the rain did pour down on us we didn't let it get our spirits down. Instead, we felt it fit to do some indoor activities. Tokyo's Ginza area is pretty comparable to New York's 5th Avenue. Shopping here was fun regardless of a minor tiff we had that both made us sore. Though, being friend's for so long we knew what it took to quickly resolve it and move on to some fun. The department stores were pretty comparable to ones in the States except for the general layout where instead of being only two stories most of the malls had at least nine. The malls' exterior were impressive to look at these sky scrapers had enormous product placements in the form of video advertisements. It was futuristic in a sense and what interested me was why in the States we don't see this type of technology advancements. It was almost hard to appreciate the good marketing scheme because it was overwhelming. After walking around for half the day and buying only little affordable knickknacks we rode the train to the Edo-Tokyo museum.

The museum's girth was astonishingly large. It was filled with life size replicas of battle scenes, traditional dancing scenes, and a full scaled ryokon. The inside of the museum was spacious and had many facts and displays about the history of Japan from shoguns to rickshaws. The exhibits and mini replicas of villages were wonderful.

All this walking around stirred up a healthy appetite. We took the subway to an unexplored Shinjuku and went out to Lonely Planets recommended Shabu Shabu. Dinner cost a mere 2500 yen each including sake and loads of meat and veggies. It was my first shabu shabu experience and I was disappointed in the bland and uncreative dish. Even cooking to meat was boring. Luckily, I didn't get sick eating all the beef, an item I haven't ate in nearly ten years. Both of us were still hungry after we left, though we weren't starving. We followed wearily Lonely Planet's guide to Golden Era and stumbled upon a punk-rock bar. What caught my eye about this bar was it was punk, red, and had a cute young yellow haired punky bartender. Katie and I sat and talked about everything from my boyfriend Ian, work, relationships, and so on. It was nice to let go of my thoughts to a good friend.

We talked with the bartender who told us about Japan punk made us tasty drinks lychee
soda and melon ball. The Japanese bartender was fun to talk to, he spoke English pretty well, but it was more like a guessing game trying to figure out what he was saying or like playing charades. Katie and I went home and slept very well.