This is what summer is for

I so childishly wished this weekend would never end.

Things almost never go right when I bring people back to Chicago with me. I always extend an invitation to a friend or roommate because it's not that far and we are, of course, welcome to stay at my parents' house that offers the luxuries of food and cats and easy access to the Blue Line. The last few times, however, have been either dissatisfying (getting stranded in Rogers Park while intoxicated in the middle of the night), or distressing (one friend got her car windows smashed outside my folks' house), and of course, there's that one time that friend-of-a-friend was selling ecstasy out of the spare room during Lollapalooza three years ago.

But this was perfect. My two roommates and I lived like kings on burgers and guacamole and potato salad and fresh fruit, spending the long days at quite a few impressive performances and too much of the night trying to get a stupid northbound Ashland bus.

Highlights? The National was the best. No, they were amazing. I wish I could watch them like that every night of my life. It was solid, loud, perhaps Springsteeny, lush, heavy, and it was great to see someone like that Matt Berninger commit himself so intensely to the music. Guess we'll see if the audio turns out, but I'm afraid it will be peppered with some really cool conversations between me and my friend Chris from high school.

I guess I can back up here. By the time we got to Union Park on Friday, Yo La Tengo had just started, so we hovered on the periphery and spent most of their set trying to find our various friends. They seemed alright (the band, not our friends. I don't like friends), and we sort of hovered on the periphery for The Jesus Lizard, which was a set that seemed to please a lot of aging hipsters of the agier and grungier varieties. Built to Spill was pretty good, though I have to admit I was distracted by some kind of joyful orgy situation happening between two girls and a guy over to the right of us. We all were. Whatever they were on, we wanted it.

We returned around maybe 3 Saturday afternoon. The Pains of Being Pure of Heart were a little disappointing because not only do they have the dumbest name ever, but their vocals didn't live up to dense harmonies on their recordings (read: the girl maybe can't actually sing). Yeasayer was the next one we caught, which was another high point, maybe actually peaking when the intensity of their music rose in perfect unison with the onsets of rain followed by sunshine. I've never seen so many happy people in the rain. Beirut was lovely, and The National, well, really did it for me that night.

Beirut and their many, many instruments

We didn't make it back to the Park until a little after 2:30, which pissed me off because I really wanted to catch Blitzen Trapper, a band that has become a recent favorite of mine. Of course, this was the day security decided to actually search our bags, so while I contemplated quickly stuffing the whole cheesy-and-onion-roll affair into my face before entering, I decided to cut my losses and catch more of the show. I was not disappointed. Women, however, was lame. The Thermals were okay-- I thought their best was a cover of Nirvana's "Verse Chorus Verse", but the big crowd-pleaser was Green Day's "Basket Case". Come to think of it, I don't know if they played any of their own music. The Walkmen were great, M83 was quite the party, and Grizzly Bear alternated between some really excellent complex layers of sound and melody, and some really boring jam-out times.

Then the entire crowd shifted eastward toward the Aluminum Stage, and there we waited for the Flaming Lips to emerge from the go-go dancer's giant light-up vagina. Oh, it was the Flaming Lips alright, and though they're not, like, a band I listen to on a regular basis, the exuberance and general gratuitousness of the performance blew me away. There were balloons, confetti, confetti cannons, balloons filled with confetti, the famous giant hamster ball thing, dancing frogs, dancing gorillas, dancing go-go dancers, and of course, the effervescent Wayne Coyne. They weren't too bad as a band, either.