Lolla '09: The year of the woman - Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune 8/10/09

Steady rain and intense heat besieged Lollapalooza over the weekend, but Grant Park was still swarming with revelers. At the end Sunday, a helicopter shined a light on the masses as Jane's Addiction took the stage, the same headliner that opened the first Lollapalooza in 1991.

Promoters announced that the festival had sold out for the second year in a row, drawing a total of 225,000 people.

That's an achievement in what has otherwise been a soft season for the recession-racked concert business. Last year, an elite group of headliners ( Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Kanye West) attracted a capacity audience to the festival for the first time since its debut on the lakefront in 2005. This year, the headliners weren't quite so commercially potent ( Depeche Mode, Tool, Killers), and still the fans came despite Friday's downpour and Sunday's oppressive heat.

Clearly, Lollapalooza has joined the ranks of North America's signature summer festivals, alongside Coachella in California and Bonnaroo in Tennessee.

Why? The setting is spectacular with the skyline and Lake Michigan providing an idyllic backdrop for the music, come rain or shine. And Texas-based promoters C3 Presents have the logistics figured out: lines for concessions and restroom facilities were relatively short, and four air-conditioned buses and a medical staff of 40 kept heat-related medical problems in check. (The festival did suffer the first death in its Grant Park history Friday when Jeffrey Grimm, 39, of Oak Park, collapsed of a heart ailment near the northernmost stage.)

But the festival still feels generic, lacking any real connection to Chicago's predominantly independent music scene other than a few local acts. One senses that C3 could do exactly the same kind of festival anywhere else in the country and it wouldn't matter: They've built an efficient model designed to showcase current talent, and they've got the budget to pay for it. If there is little risk or daring in their bookings, there is a certain mainstream reliability.

The talent was embodied by a handful of female performers who owned the weekend. The biggest revelation might've been the crowd that packed Butler Field to see Santigold on Saturday. Part of it might've been spillover from a well-received set by the UK band the Arctic Monkeys, but most people stayed and stood shoulder-to-shoulder for a city block to see the Philadelphia-born singer. Her 2008 debut album has been a steady-building success, and as she reprised its new-wave and reggae-fired songs, the crowd sang them back to her, including the appropriately defiant "Unstoppable."

Also soaring: Erika Wennerstrom's voice boomed across Hutchinson Field as she led her Heartless Bastards through a series of hard-hitting ballads and bluesy stomps; Norway's Ida Maria ripped it up with a boisterous set in which she offered the perfect fashion tip for a blistering weekend, "I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked"; and Shara Worden stole the show with her thundering cameo vocals during the Decemberists' set, when they played their new rock opera "The Hazards of Love" in its entirety. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who filled in last minute for the Beastie Boys, had no trouble commanding a headlining slot with the dynamic Karen O in charge. Her Oriental-themed costumes added to the allure of a set that mixed thrash and introspection.

Sunday, it was Natasha Khan's turn. The singer showed off a multi-octave voice over tribal drums in Bat for Lashes' set. Two hours later, Neko Case was joined by Kelly Hogan and Nora O'Connor in a display of sublime harmonizing and plaintive balladry. He Say, She Say pumped out electro-rock and funk with singer Drea Smith commanding the stage, while partner Mano minded the beats.

There were a few major disappointments. Depeche Mode opened its headlining set Friday with an hour of lower-key material before finally giving the crowd what it came to see: a taste of those gloom-stomp '80s and early-'90s anthems. Animal Collective is coming off the finest (or at least most accessible) album of its career in "Merriweather Post Pavilion," but it settled for monotonous beats and mind-numbing wordless chants in its underwhelming Saturday set.

Other bands stepped it up. Of Montreal came prepared to entertain; its arsenal included dozens of helium balloons, an inflatable dolphin and a pair of 10-foot tall, wooden "torture devices" used to "crucify" two extras during the band's final song. Fleet Foxes' glorious harmonies turned Butler Field into a big cathedral (albeit with a really leaky roof on a rain-soaked Friday). And Chicago singer-songwriter Joe Pug and the NewNo2 made the most of their afternoon slots. The latter band showcased the talents of Dhani Harrison, who blended noise guitar and electro beats with a panache that his late father, Beatles guitarist George Harrison, would've surely admired.

Best of all were Dan Deacon and Lou Reed. Three years ago, Deacon was a one-man-band who energized the Pitchfork Music Festival in Union Park. On Sunday, he was accompanied by an armada of keyboardists, drummers and a brass section that turned the event into celebration. Deacon not only orchestrated the band but the audience, at one point instigating a huge conga line that wended its way through Hutchinson Field.

Reed, on the other hand, brought the weekend's most audacious music, a set laced with bile, violence and feedback, never more so than when he threaded a raging "Paranoia Key of E" into a pile-driving "Waiting for the Man." He closed with a bouquet, "Walk on the Wild Side," and everyone sang, "Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do," while a saxophonist serenaded Lollapalooza through its final hours.