“All I got is these broken clocks / I ain’t got no time/ Just burnin’ daylight…” SZA’s syrupy voice shifts through the packed crowd as they echo, “Still love, and it’s still love, and it’s still love” into the washed out void above. Phones sway as starlights in the night sky, and the universe spins, euphoric at one moment and despairing at the next. She’s dancing in a fur jacket that sways as she moves. The neon lights on the stage are blurred through your tears. You sing, “Nothing but love for you, nothing but love for you…” Your voice is lost in the tight horde at Lollapalooza’s T-Mobile Stadium.
Earlier that day, our seven-member Lollapalooza friend group split up into two sections. Each of us only saw four to five artists throughout the day. We agreed: Quality over Quantity. A full show over a half show.
RAYE
Raye was such an amazing performer! I wasn’t much of a fan of hers prior to the show; I only listened to parts of Prada and Escapism on TikTok. Despite my dubious fan status, I somehow managed to sneak up to the barricade, aided by my small stature and ability to squeeze through narrow spaces. What I loved about Raye’s set was how chatty she was with the crowd. She was such a warm and loving person. She even stopped her show to allow a person who fainted due to heatstroke be carried out.
That’s another thing; the heat on Day two was brutal. The sun was uncharacteristically bright, like a slightly yellow fluorescent bulb. We got ice cream a few minutes before going to the venue.
The fact that Raye paused when someone fainted was monumental, because tons of people faint due to heatstroke at summer music festivals and not all artists take a moment to pause. The fact she took some time away from her set to see if the guy was alright was so amazing. It was a brief departure from the festival’s general carelessness– making folks pay for expensive Liquid Death water in order to get a water bottle in case someone forgot theirs. Most of the popular artists at Lolla do not have that privilege– imagine Chappell Roan trying to pause for everyone who got heatstroke in her horde, or address the multiple crowd crunches at the front of her massive stage. Tito’s (the stage Raye was on) was a small area, fitting at most 150 or so people.
Raye yapped so much, and her singing voice was equally as bodacious. At once operatic, jazzy and the voice for perfect pop single– Raye was a star. She could scat like the jazz greats and bring the crowd into her story. She spoke out against sexual violence before her cover of “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” by James Brown. With each little excerpt she gave before her performances, she drew me in, as if she was uncovering a secret. By the end, the entire crowd was enraptured by her talent. Their phones shot up the moment Escapism played; the people pavloved by TikTok, (myself included).
I looked beyond my own phone screen and watched her come alive on stage. Her little black dress, she was spittin’. Her voice had so much authority, so much strength– she never lets go of that intensity. The lyrics were so present, as if we were the main character “in the back of nightclub, sippin’ champagne.” With the last “Back to the Bentley, to the hotel, back to my old ways…” she turns, lets the track slip by, and bursts in joyous laughter. “Thank you everyone!” She beams in her bright British accent.
9.6 Bentleys out of 10
VICTORIA MONET
Remember when I said we’d catch full shows over half shows? That promise was broken immediately. My friends and I were caught in yet another horde, as the people who watched Raye tried to make their exit and those who wanted to see Sexyy Red jumped in. They were crazy. Frat boys in Hawaiian shirts and somehow drunk and high white girls mobbed their way to the barricade by the Bud Light Stage as a DJ hyped up Sexyy Red’s arrival. She wasn’t even on stage yet! We didn’t know how famous Sexyy Red was, and she ended up having a ginormous crowd,the people watching her performance mushroomed out of the field where both Bud Light and Tito’s stages were situated. By the time we left the crowd and regrouped, Victoria Monet’s set had already begun, all the way on the other side of the festival ground on the T-Mobile stage.
Needless to say, after a quick break at a juice stand, I went mad trying to catch the last few songs of Victoria Monet’s set. With the invocation of her hit song, “Moment” I bulldozed my way to the front, driven by nothing but an overpriced, but tasty hibiscus lemonade. The lyrics floated above us like an incantation:
“So let me take away your pain, give me all of your emotions
Land it like a plane on my back if you can’t hold it
Life is but a dream that you manifested slowly
So fuck a fantasy, this your motherfuckin’ moment”
While I jumped about in the front, my friends saved a place for me on a staircase near the front of the field. We learned our lesson from Hozier’s set: higher ground = quality show. When I came back from the crowd crush near the barricade, I showed my friends the videos I took of the Victoria Monet. Her voice was incredibly stable despite the complex choreography; not to mention the looks she served. She wore a fiery two piece set with sparkles and chains, along with long red boots. Her stage presence was phenomenal, she’s such an underrated star within the music industry and the 14 minutes I had to watch her was simply not enough. She was the moment, and I wish I had more.
7.9 Hibiscus lemonades out of 10
RENEE RAPP
“It’s not my fault you’re like in love with me or something!” Cady Heron squeals in the background, while the new Regina George spins around on the T-Mobile stage in a pink jersey, baggy pants and sunglasses. Renee Rapp is the embodiment of my Regina George head canon; she grows up playing lacrosse, then in a twist of events she becomes a masc lesbian and a singer performing on the Lollapalooza stage.
She exuded such a natural confidence on stage, tilting the mic towards the audience, but not in an obnoxious way or as if she was tired, but in a genuine way of connecting with the massive crowd. She’s so charming’ I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a crush on her by the end of the set. Before her song “Pretty Girls”, Renee Rapp remarked, “Guys… I see a lot of you. I see quite a few of you. And a lot of you look very, very, very, very, very pretty. Very pretty,” my heart fluttered. It flopped onto the ground, and burst into millions of pieces.
After that song, Renee Rapp summoned Chance the Rapper to the stage. She gave him a cute little hug and they sang his 2016 hit “No Problem”. The crowd went absolutely berserk. I loved seeing a tiny Renee Rapp skip around the stage having so much fun..
“Poison,” was an absolute banger, and it was a euphoric experience to sing along with my friends. “In the Kitchen,” was such a vocal stunner! Even though it was from Renee Rapp’s bisexual era (she’s declared herself a lesbian since then), she engages with it in such a genuine and emotional way, I couldn’t help but tear up. The singer said the man she wrote it for didn’t have much of a reaction; she laughed about it, saying that he should’ve said he had no taste and it would have been easier. What caught my attention was her stunning vocals, emanating throughout the whole field like a heavenly gospel choir. Definitely a song to ugly cry to.
Next, she performed “Tummy Hurts,” another bisexual era song, but she somehow lesbianfied it to the max. When she knelt down and leaned back in the center of the stage… I swear I was going to have her child.
Her last song was “Snow Angel,” an odd pick for a summer music festival, but it was still so emotionally resonant. A simple song about a girl having her heart broken by a boy in the wintertime was transformed into something so powerful, into something greater than it was before. I have seen so much growth through Renee Rapp’s discography, and as a queer person who once struggled with their sexuality–and still does from time to time, it means so much to me that we have queer artists who are open about who they are. Open about changing their identities if something doesn’t fit anymore. Open, not only about queer joy,, but also about their struggles getting to that point. The point where they can take a deep breath and declare, “I’m ____” (lesbian, bisexual, gay, trans, nonbinary… whatever fits the blank).
9.8 pretty girls out of 10
SZA
SZA’s show was insane. It had the largest crowd out of all the sets I went to over the past two days. My friend and I were both shorties squeezed together on the outer ledge of the stairs leading down to the T-Mobile Field. After we declared our post, many other people took advantage of the stairs as well, including some of my friend’s classmates who ran from Lauvey’s performance on the other side of the festival. As Renee Rapp’s performance wrapped up, people began to take up the empty hills near the stairs as well. People slowly filled the venue, and my friend and I, being the vertically-challenged people we are, were having difficulty seeing. A security guard came over and said not to take up the center of the stairs, as people had to go up and down in case of emergencies. No one listened.
We were on the very edge of the stairs from the beginning. He patrolled a second time. Then a third, this time with cones. After that, people made sure to stay to the sides. Then one guy hopped up onto the ledge…then another. Well, I thought, that is surely a safety violation too. Then, I looked at the back of some redhead, blocking the stage, blocking the place where SZA would dance. I pulled myself and my friend up onto the ledge, now blessed with a bit of higher ground. It was like Hozier’s set, except instead of being free to go up and down the pole as I pleased, I was sandwiched between my friend and a stranger, as well as some people who tried to squeeze themselves in, taking huge steps up from the grass, and almost tripping all of us several times. A few songs in, the stranger screamed at them, “We’ve been waiting here for hours, and y’all think you can just take our spots?”
Despite the crowd-crush, I loved SZA’s set. Sometimes, I felt like I was floating, watching SZA in real life with my friend, screaming the lyrics so loud I lost my voice. The setlist was top-tier, a sprinkle of SZA’s popular songs– “Kill Bill”, “Saturn”, “Good Days”, and some underrated classics– “Drew Barrymore”, “Low”, and “Ghost in the Machine”. I loved how she capped her list with songs that don’t get as much attention, such as the intro, “Seek and Destroy.” This anthem is such a stellar opener,it’s the moment after she murdered her ex on the S.O.S. album, the moment after she ruins everything. Many critics see SZA’s music as being “too negative,” or being “too repetitive,” with their recurring themes centering breakups. With this first song, SZA looks straight at them and says: “All the hurt I know, is used to heal my soul”. I think she deserves to be honest.
I loved the fashion and stage sets as well. There was an Ice Age-esque set in the beginning, complete with an icy staircase, giant icicles teething from the top of the stage, and SZA’s fuzzy fur jacket, which shook as she danced. It complemented her so well. A third of the way through, the set changed from the frozen world of S.O.S. to the earthy and electronic vibes of Ctrl. SZA wore a peach-pink picnic blanket two piece, the portrait of the cottagecore aesthetic. Her performance of Good Days was heavenly, but Ghost in the Machine just scratched something in my brain. The empty AI vs. the naturalistic environment, the high-tech audio and graphics on stage vs. the sheer human power of the crowd. The scream singing vs. the phone flashlights, the pixelated performance videos vs. a single girl in the crowd eating a pizza,waving it above her head. There is only so much a video can capture. Sure, I might have 1880p video of SZA’s performances at my fingertips (the Lollapalooza Chicago performance is unfortunately behind a paywall on Hulu), but nothing can compare to actually being there, to the energy of the crowd and the artist in real life.
Time ran as she zoomed through her discography, hit after hit after hit. “Blind”, “Shirt”, then a verse off “Kiss Me More”. She interspersed her hits with samples from other artist’s songs. My favorite was Prince’s “Kiss”, yet another genre SZA absolutely mastered. I also loved the sneak peak we got of her new album with the song “Crybaby,” a lovely fairytale-like track punctuated by the sounds of frogs in nearby wetland, and SZA’s siren-like vocals and how it spilled into her song “Garden (Say it Like Dat)”. Her voice glided over the field, as she mounted a giant plastic ant. The performance reigned supreme over the studio version. The lyrics radiated with the wisdom of someone much older than the SZA who recorded it back in 2017. It was an absolute treat for the lesbians, the singer and her guitarist in an intense back and forth all throughout, culminating in an powerful denouement as SZA sang:
“You’ll never love me, but I
Believe you when you say it like that (Say it like that)
Oh, do you mean it when you say it like that? (Say it like that)
Oh, I believe you when you say it like that (Say it like that)…”
She resists saying “You must really love me,” at the very end– the quiet curveball thrown in at the end of the studio version, and instead belts out the breakdown, “I can’t give you love, I can’t,” and the electric guitar amped up, and both performers went insane as the guitarist leaned back on stage and SZA belted her heart out. Pure magic.
“Garden,” was immediately followed by “Drew Barrymore”. Everyone sang along, “Warm enough for you, outside baby? Yeah–Warm enough for you outside, inside, me, me, me, me.” At the moment, the chorus felt like a warm, cozy hug and kindled fire both outside and inside. The stretch between “Supermodel/Special,”“Open Arms,” “Nobody Gets Me,” and “Saturn,” bulldozed me emotionally. “Supermodel,” is one of my favorite SZA songs, so when I heard those opening chords I went feral. I was sad it was so short, framed by SZA saying, “fuck these shoes!” and taking off her long heeled boots. I don’t know, her taking off those cream-leather monstrosities and setting them aside, despite what anyone thinks of her in that huge crowd– that comes from a place of authentic confidence. The declaration was the opposite of “Special,” a track about insecurities, about being made by what society may think (trends that come and go, male validation, etc.).
“Nobody Gets Me,” was another anthem, the sheer volume of the people singing around me was so touching. There was no outright screaming, just genuine connection to the song. I’m typically a bit annoyed at the singer’s voice being enveloped by the voices of those in the audience, I thought this was the song to hear in concert. SZA’s voice was so heartfelt yet powerful, vulnerable yet so, so strong.
When her time slot was up, SZA sang “Saturn,” a tune about alienation, loneliness and being stuck in one’s head. “Intrusive thoughts, they paralyze, Nirvana’s not as advertised, got to be more, got to be more…” The singer remarked that, “I don’t usually play this song, but I feel very comfortable with y’all.” All 12,000 of us, somehow, some way, most of us drunk or high or behind our phone screens or wet-dog levels of sweaty. After the track ended, the stage flashed with the letters: “The End”. Then at curfew, she declared, “F— it let’s play it!” Was she allowed to go overtime to ease foot traffic at the festival? Or did she just not care about going over curfew and being fined? Either way, SZA’s love for her fans radiated throughout her set.
She followed the somber “Saturn,” with a “Rich Baby Daddy,” cover by Drake featuring Sexyy Red and herself. “Bend that ass over (Baow), let that coochie breath (Yeah),” emotional whiplash at her finest. Her last song “20 Something,” was a low-key track, a last thank-you to the crowd. She improvised “Sitting in the front, god bless you, god bless you,” and “People sitting in the back way back, god bless, god bless, god bless you, I love you!”
20 Something out of 10
CONCLUSION
Ultimately, Lollapalooza was an experience I could never let go. After the two days we experienced at the music festival, my friends and I replayed our concert videos and playlist and sighed. Nothing could beat live music. Nothing could beat Raye’s yaps, or Victoria Monet’s stage presence. Nothing could beat Renee Rapp being the charismatic masc lesbian she is, singing wholeheartedly now, a song about a man, a song about her younger self. Music is alive, and it moves through time and people as they evolve, as the artists at Lollapalooza strive to share their experience with an audience. Art can’t be captured on a phone, through the radio– it must be experienced, lived through. The crowds were sweat, blood and bones; there was a connection between the people and the artist, the artist and people. Through our videos we saw a glimmer of the original moment– from the SZA shoe situation, or Renee Rapp’s “very, very, very, very, very pretty,” but it wasn’t the same. I’ve tried my best to write about it, single out every artist and describe my experience in and out of crowds, what I think that says about the music festival as a whole. I’ve tried to quantify my experience through ratings and money spent, collect qualitative data through detailing the lights, sounds and sensations, but nothing compares to actually being there.
In the movie “Dead Poets Society”, Robin Williams remarks, “Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance…” and music, “These are what we stay alive for.” Live music is one of the many avenues where art can flourish, and the medium where life is the most apparent– if not by the sheer number of people, the passion with which we supported our favorite artists. We were lost in the music but found in the crowd.