pretentious hipster

It’s awesome! And there’s an Obama tent.

Update: so the whole live blogging thing didn’t work out too well, as I wasn’t unable to procure an EDGE signal for data at the festival. However, this just means I get to do it the old fashioned way!

After Holy Fuck, I got some food and watched Rogue Wave. My iPhone didn’t turn out a good picture so just trust me on this one.

walking to The Go! Team with Chicago in background

The plan was to stay at the AT&T stage all day to get a great spot for Radiohead, but we discovered that all the premium spots were already taken when we got there. This allowed us to roam around the very large Grant Park to the other stages and see bands like The Go! Team. They were very loud and energetic with their two drum kits; it was great to finally see them.

After The Go! Team there was the long walk back from the north side of the park at the Bud Light stage to the AT&T stage on the south side of the park where Gogol Bordello was about to start. However we had about an hour to kill, so I went to the merch table and got some awesome stuff, like a Devotchka shirt. Also I had forgotten my baseball cap at home, so I had to buy one or my forehead would fry. Luckily there was the aforementioned Obama tent, and I got myself a (you guessed it) Obama hat.

After this we rambled onto Gogol Bordello where they gave an excellent performance. I’ll have to start wearing purple now.

After this we walked towards the food court again, and heard Mates of State playing at the Myspace stage immediately behind us. My walking pace quickened, and after getting some food went to the interestingly placed Citi stage where Grizzly Bear was about to play. The stage is placed right on a street that intersects across the park, so there’s no grass to sit on right in front of the stage (since it’s road) but there are trees on both sides with shade. Also, Grizzly Bear was pretty good although the mellowness of their music was starting to put me to sleep as I had only 5 hours of sleep the night before.

After Grizzly Bear, we headed over to the tail end of Bloc Party (ick) so we’d be able to get better spots for Radiohead. For what it’s worth, the crowd was really into Banquet and Helicopter.

And now, the real reason I was there that day.

Their amazing light show was tempered a little bit in the beginning as the sun was still trying to do go down, but hearing Airbag (an old favorite of mine off OK Computer) as the second song helped.

Radiohead’s camera work was also amazing, as they had closeups of all the band members with video effects overlayed on the large TV displays to the side.

Some fireworks were going off at about 9 pm behind the stage, at Navy Pier is what I heard from some people around me. Of course, Radiohead was singing Fake Plastic Trees during this time and it meshed pretty well.

Well, that was pretty much the last picture I was able to take because soon afterwards we hit encore #1 and a lot of assholes were pushing ahead and I literally could not move my arms. However, I was able to mosh for a brief moment with a cute girl during Paranoid Android, so I guess I should consider myself Lucky. But then again, I’m usually too Optimistic.

All in all it was a glorious day. Day 2 soon…