Everyone has a story to tell, and here is mine. I hope to take you through the good, the bad and the ugly. I'm a woman with a passion for music, a desire to understand the world, a hunger for knowledge and a knack to laugh.
August 10, 2010
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I’m finally back from Drug-a-palooza, oops, I mean Lollapalooza in Chicago, IL. I guess I’ve always had the ‘Big Festival’ experience somewhere on my bucket list, so I decided to make it happen this year. I booked this trip months in advance upon getting a steady paying job where I finally found myself in a position to scratch it off my list of things to do. Unfortunately, the festival definitely fell short of my expectations. Before I go ranting on my disappointment, let me highlight some of the positive attributes Lollapalooza had to offer. Chicago is a great city for venue selection and it definitely has fantastic weather for this time of year. I also thought the staff was very organized considering the magnitude of people this concert attracted, more than 80,000 folks. The promoters, I would imagine, really pushed for a recycling/cleaning effort. I saw volunteers and concertgoers with plastic bags picking up cans and plastic bottles all over the place at all times of the day. That was very nice to see. Another great thing about the festival was the fact that the food was reasonably priced and really good. For once I didn’t have to pay $5 for water.
The idea of this festival was great. I mean, there was a good line up of musicians and new ones to be discovered. However, I will say this idealistic, pure concert experience I was hoping to have, one where you truly connect to the music and connect with other people with your same appreciation for this form of artistic expression, well, how can put this, was non-existent. Personally, I have chosen not to consume alcohol ever again and really don’t care what other people choose to do with their life, but when those decisions affect others, I start to have a problem with that. There was so much excessive drinking and drug consumption going on, to the point where people were being very vulgar and rowdy while performances were going on. It was so sad to see our youth in such a negative light. There was no respect for others nor themselves. As a woman, I felt ashamed to see these young and pretty girls acting in a reckless way. At my hotel, I saw people passed out in the hallways or being overly obnoxious. I guess this made me think about how obsessed our society has become with products that make us lose our inhibitions or increase our desire to be someone else. Why are we afraid of being ourselves, I mean our pure selves? Why do we spend so much money on these things that actually hurt our bodies?
Again, the idea of the festival was amazing but the actual crowd it attracted was disappointing. I doubt I will ever be back.
