It’s onerous to clarify what it’s about Lollapalooza makes it sit proper within the US musical pageant candy spot, but it surely undoubtedly does. It’s not as influencer-focused as Coachella, however everybody’s nonetheless dressed of their festive greatest, taking photographs in entrance of a towering fountain in the course of Chicago’s Grant Park. It’s additionally only a quick stroll from a metropolis transit cease similar to New York Metropolis’s Governors Ball, however not like the Huge Apple pageant’s line-up, which veers in direction of a youthful viewers excited by DIY bed room acts and TikTok viral hitmakers, Lollapalooza has one thing for everybody, drawing in as many bunnies wanting to see NewJeans dance to ‘Hype Boy’ as hip-hop heads trying to rap alongside to ‘If You Know You Know’ with Pusha T.

It’s additionally nothing like Bonnaroo, the place followers camp out with a purpose to see their favorite acts, forgoing showers even once they’re encountering a number of mud puddles on a Tennessee Farm. Right here, you may nonetheless end up balancing to your life in a puddle of mud – very like followers did throughout Purple Scorching Chili Peppers closing set on Sunday (August 6) however at Lollapalooza – however you’ve got the sleek possibility of rinsing your self off at a resort close by afterward.

Maybe it’s the mid-west hospitality of festival-goers that makes it stand out amongst different fest, like the girl who instructed NME  “You look so good” on the identical day of The 1975’s headline set on Friday (August 4). She appears to do not know she is lifting lyrics from one of many band’s largest songs, ‘Robbers’, contemplating she’s carrying Kendrick Lamar merch and the rapper is about to play hits from ‘Mr. Morale & The Huge Steppers’ to an overflowing crowd concurrently the Manchester band.

It could possibly be founder Perry Farrell’s penchant for highlighting new genres and making historical past with the pageant’s alternative of headliners, whether or not it’s Karol G’s show-stopping reggeaton efficiency as the primary feminine Latina headliner to tackle the fest or Tomorrow x Collectively’s sharp and youthful, rockstar status-confirming set as the primary South Korean group to high the invoice after proving their credentials on a smaller stage only a yr earlier. Nonetheless, the pageant doesn’t wander too removed from the place it got here from as a Jane’s Dependancy farewell tour again in 1991, with burgeoning rock acts like LoveJoy drawing giant crowds to the identical stage Lollapalooza veterans RHCP shut out the pageant on.

However even within the midst of acts giving their greatest on the pageant, there’s nonetheless an undercurrent of imperfection that makes all of it approachable and actual. Lollapalooza isn’t making an attempt to be something it’s not, and by returning every year with a brand new plan to prioritise variety in sound in addition to a steadfast dedication to highlighting recent acts (like on its BMI stage, the place up-and-coming acts like Annie DiRusso and Magnificence College Dropout are met with followers who sing alongside to each single phrase) the pageant proves its dedication to only placing the music first, and the followers Lollapalooza attracts in mirror that effort.

Sunday night time is the proper manifestation of this, as Lana Del Rey takes over the Bud Mild stage. Ladies in white attire and crimson coronary heart sun shades are crowded beneath her within the post-rain mire, their faces coated in black mascara tear streaks and their legs splashed with dust. As cameras pan the group, exhibiting their smiles and cries on LED screens, what makes Lollapalooza so particular begins to grow to be clear. It’s messy and clear, immaculately deliberate however with house for chaos. Very similar to the followers that swarm again into town after pageant gates shut, their drained and excited our bodies dashing to their beds or off to the following present underneath the clear traces of Chicago skyscrapers, Lollapalooza embodies the disarray, magnificence and promise of music in 4 thrilling days.

Del Rey embodies it too as she sings about life and demise and love in a white classic costume, and the group returns the phrases of ‘Summertime Disappointment’ again to her like a choir. She jokes about being dragged off the stage due to curfew (once more) because the final minutes of her set play out. Similar to Lolla, the efficiency is messy and clear, immaculately deliberate however with house for chaos, and as she closes the pageant’s 2023 providing down with “Hope Is A Harmful Factor For A Lady Like Me To Have”, it’s protected to say she – and the pageant – are proper there in that candy spot.