With 3-Day Passes completely sold-out for the 2012 edition of Lollapalooza, your remaining options to check out part of the festival are rapidly drying up. 1-Day Passes for the Saturday, August 4th date, headlined by Red Hot Chilli Peppers with The Weeknd, Franz Ferdinand, Frank Ocean, Delta Spirit, Santigold, The Temper Trap, Fun., Alabama Shakes, and GIVERS offering a boatload of daytime goodness, are also recently sold-out.
Unless you are flush enough to pick up tickets for Friday, August 3rd and Sunday, August 5th, you may be wondering which of the two remaining 1-Day Pass options should you select?
The Case For Friday, August 3rd
The biggest 'what do I do?' conflict for headliners is Friday, with the explosive blues of The Black Keys and the chance to catch the reunited metal legends Black Sabbath playing simultaneously. With how long the closing sets are, we recommend starting at whichever you are less interested in and head to the other whenever you have had your fill of the first. Assuming the order of the bands on the Lollapalooza site is somewhat in chronological order, you should be able to catch the shaggy, melodic sound of The Shins, and electro-pop outfits Passion Pit and M83 in the lead-up to the end of the day; all excellent choices.
Things start getting a little muddier in the day's midsection. You are unlikely to catch all of Canadian rockers Metric, the alt-country cool of Dawes, stellar jam band outfit Dr. Dog, the gritty blues of UK's Band Of Skulls, looping indie pop geniuses Yellow Ostrich, and singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten without first cloning yourself, perhaps more than once. Nobody really wants to deal with the clone of their clone, go watch Multiplicity if you don't believe us. The earlier portion of the schedule might strangely include American Idol cast-off Haley Reinhart, whose poppy first single makes her appearance a head-scratcher, but early day sets from Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit, exceedingly talented singer-songwriter Kevin Devine, and killer folk rockers Dry The River stand out as great reasons to get to Grant Park early on Friday.
The Case For Sunday, August 5th
Jack White closes the festivities with what should be a weekend highlight, given his killer songbook and brilliant debut solo album released last month. If you choose Sunday and miss this set, please check yourself in at the nearest asylum for the musically insane. Florence + The Machine and At The Drive-In leading in to White's set are both fine, but your decision on which to catch should really just be a matter of which are closest to the stage White lands on.
Sunday seems to have the most eclectic collection of artists, with the swirling bliss of Sigur Ros a must see, but with the indie pop of Sweden's Miik Snow and genre-crossing hip-hop of Childish Gambino also worth ignoring just about everything else to catch. Bluesman, Gary Clark Jr. might be tough to make with the ragged throwback rock n roll charm of New Jersey's The Gaslight Anthem and awe-inspiring folk of Iceland's Of Monsters And Men sandwiching his name on the artist list for the day; making it likely that at least one will overlap Clark. Earlier in the day, surfer rock leaning indie mainstays The Walkmen, sparkling bluegrass outfit Trampled By Turtles, and dual-drummer rockers White Rabbits are definitely worth a look, but the early portion feels a little light. Not that the lower listed names are not worth catching, but they do not quite jump off the page the way Friday's early offerings do.
The Verdict
Sunday will likely offer a bigger bang, with Jack White's set likely giving you your money's worth alone and Of Monsters And Men serving as a delicious cherry on top, but the top-heavy list of artists leave the earlier day options are a bit thinner. In the end, despite the obvious potential for some maddening schedule conflicts on both days, it seems you will drive yourself a little less crazy and get a little more milage out of Friday's offerings. The chance to start your day with something as explosive as Dry The River, and the steady flow of artists worth putting serious milage on your shoes for, then ending with a coin-flip between The Black Keys and Black Sabbath makes Friday, August 3rd our pick for anyone looking to catch just one day of the festivities.
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