AFI – photography by Carlton Beener

Saturday at Lollapalooza was a big day for some local LA bands. The Soft Pack opened the massive second main stage at 12:30, practically morning for most people there but they had a decent sized crowd. The Sony Bloggie stage saw both Warpaint and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros later in the afternoon.

The Morning Benders played at noon on the Bloggie stage and were a great way to start the day. The XX would be one of a few groups of the weekend that should have been booked to a larger stage. The still decent size area for the Playstation stage was overflowing before their set even began with people lined up to get in throughout their set. While they sounded great, their subdued performance style felt a little lacking, maybe it just got lost amongst the more hyper sets of the day. Against Me and AFI both took over the Adidas stage, sandwiched between Rogue Wave and Slightly Stupid. Gogol Bordello, who should be required to play every festival played the Main stage between Blues Traveler and Social D.

Not to be outdone by the theatrics of Lady Gaga the night before, Green Day brought their own 3 ring circus. Their set was the longest of the weekend at two and a half hours, running past the 10 o’clock curfew which Mr Armstrong dared production the whole night to try and pull the plug on them. In typical Green Day fashion there was fireworks, explosions, stage diving (from a 10 foot high stage) and crowd participation. Lots and lots of crowd participation. Meanwhile, on the other side of Grant Park, Phoenix was playing to another massive crowd, the biggest in their Career for the band whose music seems to be everywhere now with no sign of slowing down.

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