It ain’t broke: Broken Social Scene. All photos by Angela Smith.
By K. Tighe
Day Two, Aug. 2, of Lollapalooza posed an interesting question: how big of a Wilco fan am I? You see, the schedule of a festival was built to split the day’s sold-out, 75,000-plus crowd, between two headlining stages on opposite ends of Grant Park: Wilco takes the North End, with Rage Against the Machine bringing up the South. Initially, I considered this one a no-brainer: this is Wilco headlining a sold-out show in their hometown – end of debate.
My cohort and I claimed prime territory during Broken Social Scene’s 6:30 set. BSS’s set was unsurprisingly incredible, laced with rock ‘n’ roll guitar moves, boundless energy, and even some political banter, “You’re not just voting for America, you’re voting for the world.” From our prime BSS ground we could here Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings loud and clear – and we even had a great view thanks to the jumbo screen flanking the PlayStation 3 stage.
Jones gave another sassy showing, pulling men up from the audience to croon to – and to horrify security a bit. Jones even chose to tell us a bit about her history, but first, “I gotta take my shoes off. You know what? Let me get these earrings off, too.”