Lollapalooza: We Came To Rock, And We Rocked

Ah Lollapalooza.... I attended the travelling music festival of the 1990s in '92 and again in '94. In the late '90s the festival fell apart. Perry Farrell revived it in 2003, but lack of interest led to its cancellation the following year. Now, here in 2005, we have the festival once again. This time, however, it was recast as a one-time-only 2-day event in Chicago at Grant Park. Seeing as I love both Chicago and many of the bands playing, I couldn't miss it. It was also a fantastic chance to hang out with good friends, all of whom I miss greatly.

Day 1

Not too hot. A little warm and humid, but nothing unusual. The rain later that afternoon helped keep the temperature down.

To kick off the festival, I really wanted to see ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, but alas, we didn't make it to the park in time. By the time we all got up, went to eat Mexican food, and headed downtown on the El, we were a bit late and missed Austin's own stage-destroying wunderkinds.

Note: I just used "wunderkinds" because I think it's funny.

Instead of Trail of Dead, we started off the show with Liz Phair. Though she was panned by pretty much every reviewer, Oren, Julie, and I enjoyed the set.


Oren and Julie look adorable framed by the Chicago skyline.


Next, we went up front for some Cake. Great set. Don't know what Greg was talking about.

After Cake, we went over to Blonde Redhead. Not a band I was familiar with before the festival, and I really dug them. Definitely my new band find of the weekend.

You know, I like Pixies and all, but I've seen them three times in the last ten months, and I don't need to see them again.

During Pixies, the Chicago skyline started to look really good.

Finally, we finished up the day by chilling on the grass and listening to Weezer.

That evening, we repaired to Piece Brewery and Pizzeria for (guess what?) pizza, beer, and...LIVE BAND KARAOKE. It's karaoke, but with a live band. Awesome. My favorite was the dude with the Don Clinchy haircut, buttoned-down oxford shirt, and Dockers who rocked the house with his Axl Rose impersonation on Welcome to the Jungle. Wow. That guy was gooood.

Not to be outdone, our Greg and Christie mowed them down with their version of Mudhoney's Touch Me I'm Sick.

Day 2

Damn it was hot. 102 deg F (that's 38.9 deg C for my metric-system-saavy readers). Hottest day in Chicago in 10 years. Still, for whatever reason, it wasn't as hot as the Austin City Limits Festival last year, even though the temperature was higher. I chalk that up to the blazin' Texas sun.

A bit of an earlier start today, but we still didn't make it into the festival until about 2:30. We started with Louis XIV, whom I liked a lot. I've been enjoying their album that I picked up a week or two before the festival, and I like them even more now that I've seem them live. They'll be in T.O. in September, and I'm planning to check 'em out.

After Louis XIV, we decided to take a break and listen to Tegan and Sara . Poor Tegan (or Sara - can't remember which one) couldn't handle the heat and passed out in the middle of their set. Ah Canadians... ;)

Greg, Angie, Oren, and Julie took off to a bar, and Christie and I caught the Drive By Truckers. She described it to me as Southern Gothic Lynyrd Skynyrd. Pretty much dead on.

Next came The Arcade Fire, the band I was most looking forward to seeing. I'm happy to report that they didn't disappoint. Their set was the highlight of the festival for me.

Even though most of them are from Montréal, The Arcade Fire handled the heat just fine in their waistcoats and suits.

Lead singer Win Butler (who is from Houston!) took a tour of the crowd at the end of the show.

Afterwards, Greg and Tony led us through the crowd to check out Spoon.

Spoon was in great form, and it's good to see a local Austin band having success and sounding so good.

Wrapping up the festival, we lounged on the grass and listened to The Killers.

Christie and Angie are tired but happy at the end of Lollapalooza 2005.

But, it's not over yet.... Because we were with Greg, some random event had to take place. This time, it was Tatami Mat Wresting (TMW).

Greg and Oren battle for the first TMW title of the day.

Later, I challenge Greg for supremacy on the Tatami Mat.

At that point, the gang was tired, a little embarrassed, and ready to head home for the evening.

Lollapalooza I

Lollapalooza is going really, really well. The bands have been fantastic, it's easy to get to, and the backdrop of downtown Chicago is fantastic. In fact, you can see yours truly comment on that in a Chicago Sun-Times article.

Off to Chicago

I'm heading to Chicago this afternoon for Lollapalooza in Grant Park. Will be hanging with Greg, Angie, Oren, and Julie, so it should be a giant blast. I'm looking forward to checking out Austin favorites ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead and Spoon, as well as catching Pixies for the third time in the last year. And as always, I'm looking forward to seeing some bands that I've not heard live before, including Montréal favorites The Arcade Fire. Now, if Wilco will just make a surprise showing to close out the festival on Sunday, we'll all be set.

Also, there will hopefully be some White Castle action in there as well to round out the weekend.

Money Transfers

You might think that Canadian and US banks are hooked up pretty well. You'd be wrong. Canadian banks might as well be in Thailand. This is problematic becuase I'm paid into my US bank account, but I have to pay some bills out of my Canadian account. This means that I regularly have to transfer money between the accounts. The standard way to do it is a wire transfer, but that can cost around $40 becuase of fees on both sides. If I were to deposit a personal check from my US account into my Canadian account, there's a 30-day hold on the funds. That's just ridiculous.

But, I have found a solution: PayPal. With my Canadian PayPal account, I can link it to both bank accounts and then move money between them via PayPal. And so far, it's looking like it'll be free. That's more like it.

Mexican Food and Summerlicious

Tried my first Canadian Mexican food last Friday when a friend from work and I went to dinner. We first tried to get Persian food at Pomagranates, a place Omid and I had tried to go when we first got here but that was closed at the time (it was Monday, and lots of places seem to be closed on Monday). Hungry and ready for some gormeh sabzi and tahdeeg, we drove over to College Street to find that Pomegranates was yet again closed, this time for what looked like summer vacation.

I then mentioned that I'd wanted to try Jalapeño, which seems to be the best-reviewed of the Mexican restaurants here. So, we headed back down to King West to give it a shot. It turns out that Jalapeño is participating in Summerlicious, which is a local food festival where good restaurants set aside a certain number of tables each night to serve a low-priced prix fixe menu. Even though we didn't have reservations (pretty much a necessity during Summerlicious), we were able to get a seat indoors and order off of the prix fixe menu, which turned out to be the only menu they had. For $20 you got an appetizer, entree, and desert. Not too bad.

The real question of course is whether the food was any good. And you know, it wasn't half bad. Jalapeño wouldn't survive very long in a Mexican-food-saturated Texas city, but it made a reasonable showing with some interesting homemade salsas (one of which was very similar to the Ninfa's green sauce) and a decent plate of chicken enchiladas with a tomatillo sauce. I bet the restaurant does even better with the seafood selections and dishes like the cochinita pibil. Certainly not an impressive meal, but better than I expected. I shall likely return to Jalapeño in the future.

Updates Coming Soon

I know, I know. I've already fallen victim to the disease of letting my blog lie fallow. I have a few updates to make but just haven't had the opportunity. Also, I'm off to Chicago this weekend for the Lollapalooza festival, and I'm sure I'll have lots to report from there.

All Hail Poutine

Tried my first poutine yesterday, a local Quebec dish of French fries, brown gravy, and cheese. I don't really need to say much more. Mmmm.

What the hell is "Thon"?

Another grocery store story for today....

Most all products here have labels in both English and French. On a lot of items, the English label is on one side, and the French is on another. That means that I'm forever turning cans around to find out what's inside. Hence, I had to turn around the can of thon to learn that it's a can of tuna.

My favorite is Toilet Duck: Le Canard du Toilette. Cracks me up.

Canadian Joke

I heard a Canadian joke last night, relating to how law-abiding Canadians can be (see previous post on crosswalks). Here it is:

How do you get 10 Canadians out of a swimming pool?

You yell, "Hey, Canadians, get out of the pool!"

Didn't say it was a great joke ;)

Toronto Streetcar Tip

Toronto streetcars have two doors: one and the front and another toward the back. You're supposed to enter through the front door and exit through the back. One thing that's a bit confusing for new riders (i.e. me) is that the back doors don't open automatically. You have to step down the steps to cause them to open.

Yesterday on the way to my first guitar lesson I went through two stops that I had called for without knowing how to open them. Of course no one around me bothered to tell me what to do, even though my bewilderment was obvious. I then pushed my way to the front of the crowded car with guitar in hand to ask the driver what was up. Some of the people on the car didn't appreciate my pushiness and let me know it. Anyway, the driver then told me what to do. Luckily we were then at the end of the line, so the car was about to turn around and go back the other way.

Now I know, and if you find yourself on a streetcar in Toronto, you'll know what to do.

Canada Day, Part Deux

Celebrating Canada Day at the Ontario Provincial Legislature.

The Canadian flag flies proudly on its nation's birthday.

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day everyone! For today's posting I finally have some pictures of the view from my condo.

Here's the main view if you look straight off of my balcony. That's Lake Ontario and the Gardiner Expressway.

Looking to the left, you can see one of the Toronto Islands between my building and the neighboring one.

Across the street we can see the hole in the ground that will become another condo tower. Unfortunately, it looks like it's going to completely block my view :(

Looking to the right we have the Queen West neighborhood, which is a pretty cool place.

And finally, the view straight down. Yeah, my balcony is actually kind of a scary place to be.