The Black Keys played the opening day of Lollapalooza in Chicago on Friday in a set that Time Out Chicago reports featured the band's signature "folky-blues, [which] breaks into blown-out acid riffage." Metromix Chicago says that hometown band Wilco's Saturday set showed that the city "has a lot to thank Wilco for." Over the next two weeks, each band will make its way to Brooklyn's popular McCarren Park Pool, which, as the New York Times reports, will transition back to its original use after this summer's shows.
Lollapalooza 2008 has come to a close, and a few of the performers, including Amadou & Mariam, are already looking ahead to this weekend's All Points West festival outside New York City.
Lollapalooza opened at Chicago's Grant Park on Friday, featuring a set by The Black Keys that Time Out Chicago vividly describes this way:
With a tiger rug under his kit and floor toms on both sides, Patrick Carney pounds, slogs and thumps. Auerbach’s guitar work remains the Keys’ raison d’etre—he picks folky-blues, breaks into blown-out acid riffage, and at one point kneels in a kind of prayer position during a simmering quieter number.
Metromix Chicago says, "This two-man engine was relentless in their live performance, playing old favorites mixed with the more polished hits from their new album, Attack and Release."
David Isaacson, found and editor of Indiemuse.com, writes for the Examiner that he was pleasantly surprised at his own Black Keys initiation:
I am somwhat familiar with their music and have been at several festivals they have played, but have always passed on seeing them, which I now realize was a big mistake. This show was great. Don't make the same mistake as me, if you haven't given them a listen, change that.
Isaacson reports from Jeff Tweedy's solo set that night and concludes, "Chicago has a big crush on Tweedy and he is pretty fond of his hometown of Chicago as well."
The city's appreciation for Jeff and his Wilco bandmates continued the next day in a full-band performance that Billboard calls "enjoyably loose." Metromix reports that "we have a lot to thank Wilco for. They treated the hometown mass to a stimulating set filled with old favorites and select tracks off their latest record, Sky Blue Sky." Stereogum has coverage from the set, including photos of the band's colorful and much-discussed Nudie suits.
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Both The Black Keys and Wilco continue their summer tours, including stops for each at Brooklyn's McCarren Park Pool—The Black Keys this Thursday, the 17th, and Wilco next Wednesday, the 13th. The Pool, originally built during the Depression as a public swimming pool, has become a much-loved outdoor venue for fans and performers alike over its short rebirth as a performance space in the past couple of years. Now, as the City prepares to restore the pool to its original purpose, the New York Times reports on the venue's final season. You can read about the Pool's history and its future at nytimes.com.
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