Maximum Performance

Narrow Stairway To Heaven: Death Cab For Cutie Live EP

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 17:37:04 -0800

Death Cab For Cutie fans are insatiable. ...

Lollapalooza '08: And Now For Sunday's Non-Kanye Bands!

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:04:51 -0800

Kanye West and his well-publicized punctuality problem may have been on everyone's mind Sunday, but before he hit the main stage (almost exactly on time!!), plenty of other awesome bands adhered to their own earlier timeslots.

Lollapalooza '08: Kanye's Post-Bonnaroo Homecoming

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 05:22:58 -0800

By now, most of you reading this know what happened the last time Kanye West played a festival.

It was last June, at the Bonnaroo fest in Tennessee, and Kanye's show began two hours past its scheduled timeslot, at almost 4:45am. To semi-borrow a line from Kanye's "Stronger," the audience members were waiting for him since Prince was on Appollonia, since O.J. had Isotoners...or so it felt at the time. ...

Lollapalooza '08: The Flaming Lips Become Celluloid Heroes

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:25:07 -0800

There were several very valid reasons why I chose to take two valuable hours out of my time-crunched Saturday Lollapalooza schedule to watch the on-site screening of the Flaming Lips' sci-fi cult movie.

Lollapalooza '08: Getting Uffed Up On Saturday

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 07:55:17 -0800

Lollapalooza Saturday began at the crack of noon, or more specifically the crack of 1:30pm (hey, that's early by rock 'n' roll standards), as I walked through Chicago's Grant Park gates to the strains of U.K. electrorockers Does It Offend You Yeah?'s partystarting statement song, "We Are Rockstars. ...

Lollapalooza '08: All I Hear Is Radiohead Gaga

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 06:58:16 -0800

Friday at Lollapalooza in Chicago's Grant Park was all about one of the hands-down best festival bands on the planet: headlining attraction Radiohead. I, like pretty much all 70,000 people at the fest, spent the entire day waiting for Thom Yorke and company to hit the main stage. But then when they did, I barely saw them and I was unable to get even one photo of them in all their glory. ...

Lollapalooza '08: Doing It For The Kids

Sat, 02 Aug 2008 04:42:23 -0800

Much has changed about Lollapalooza since eccentric Jane's Addiction visionary Perry Farrell founded the festival in 1991. It used to be that the fest came to the fans, in the form of a coast-to-coast rock 'n' roll road revue. Now it's a three-day, one-location affair in Chicago's Grant Park (Lollapalooza is taking place there this weekend, starting Friday August 1st). ...

Download On The Down Low

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:18:50 -0800

Rock festivals, fun as they are, can frankly be tiring. They're usually either marrow-freezing mudbaths (Glastonbury, Woodstock '99) or heatstroke-inducing endurance tests (Coachella, Warped). And either way, they're so shoulder-to-shoulder crowded that a Who-in-Cincinnati-style incident seems possible at any given moment. So L.A. ...

Hard-Partyin' At Hardfest Summer

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:01:12 -0800

When I arrived at the first annual summer Hardfest--last Saturday's electrorockin' all-night dance party taking over two carney-crafted stages in downtown Los Angeles--I felt like I'd stepped onto the set of an American Apparel ad shoot. ...

Who's Who At VH1's Who Rock Honors: The Review

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 02:00:45 -0800

Only the Beatles and the Stones are ahead of the Who when it comes to influential and important bands of the 1960s and beyond. These bullseyed British invaders practically invented the mod, punk, and rock-opera genres... ...