Lollapalooza Day One Recap: From Airplanes to a Disco Stick

As I write this entry, please realize that my feet are the size of cantaloupes and my entire body has been ravaged by mosquitoes. Day one of Lollapalooza...check! It was a blast. We saw FOURTEEN bands perform yesterday. Not a bad first day, huh? My favorites were B.o.B., Matt & Kim, The Ettes, The Strokes and The Black Keys. I bet y'all were CERTAIN I would say that I loved Lady Gaga. My not-so-professional music opinion? Meh. Seriously. Meh times two. As much as I have a dance party around my apartment to her songs, she was bizarre on stage. I left and caught the entire Strokes set which was incredible.

Now, onto the review of the personal encounters I had as a concert-goer. I was excited to see B.o.B. perform live, so we left home a little bit before 11:00 a.m. to catch them at 11:30 a.m. Silly me for not leaving early, the lines were crazy, as I should have anticipated. We were through the gates by noon to catch the tail end of B.o.B. which was incredible. He finished with a cover of MGMT's Kids which was fantastic. At this point, it wasn't too crowded and no one was incredibly wasted.

As the day progressed, and we walked around catching a song here and a song there, we noticed the girls that were at Lollapalooza for one sole reason: Lady Gaga.

I'm pretty sure this girl was not there to see The Strokes:

I only wish I had the stealthiness to snag a photograph of the girl wearing caution tape as a top and five-inch stilettos. Joke was on her when she got over to the stage where Lady Gaga was performing and it turned out to be a mud pit.

My most horrific crowd moment was during Matt & Kim, a band that I was beyond thrilled to see. It was around 5:00 p.m. and starting to get very crowded. People were also starting to get drunk et cetera so the pushing was starting. I started a new personal policy. If someone wanted to push past me and didn't say excuse me, I would either (a) not move, (b) toss an elbow out there, or (in the most egregious case) (c) do a trippage. Okay, so I only tripped on person and I didn't really elbow anyone, but that was after she stepped on my foot, I shouted in pain, and she just kept walking. So deserved it. Poor P.I.C. Him having to manage stressful crowds and my attitude problem was likely a real challenge. We survived though. And Matt & Kim ended up being one of my favorites of the day, crowds aside.

People watching was excellent from the Lady Gaga fans to the crazy tattoos, like this guy's:

Sure. A flaming sword sounds great for an all-back tattoo.

In any event, a super fun day. I'm hoping that today I get my desire to trip people out of my system (as in, I stop doing it) today. Only time will tell.