Green Day, Maneskin Highlight Final Day Of Lollapalooza 2022
Lollapalooza 2022 - Day Four - Sunday July 31, 2022 - Grant Park, Chicago
The fourth and final day of Lollapalooza 2022 was something the festival has not seen in its seventeen years in Chicago. It was mayhem starting six hours before the festival even started when fans of the K-pop group BTS lined up to see one of the first solo performances by J-Hope later that evening. When fans for Dua Lipa appeared in the early morning hours of Friday, Lollapalooza pushed a notification to the app the next day asking fans to not line up before 10am since the festival does not open doors to eleven. The BTS Army did not get the memo and by 12:30 on Sunday afternoon, 20,000 of the fans were waiting in front of the Bud Light stage that would not occur for more than eight hours. There was an intensity in the park I have never witnessed and the lines to the artist merchandise tent and the food and drink vendors experienced deep lines closest to the Bud Light stage. The other big news of the day was that the city of Chicago and C3 Presents finalized a deal for Lollapalooza to remain in Chicago for another ten years, through 2032, with an option to extend the deal for an additional five year after that as well. Despite all this news and coverage, the fourth day of 2022 featured some of the most surprising and best performances of the festival.
Hannah Wants 1:30
It doesn't matter if it's early or late, there is always a crowd at Perrys dance stage and DJ Hannah Wants was overseeing festivities. The British DJ from Birmingham delivered energetic beats early in the day before she headed over to Spybar for an after-show DJ set.
Audrey Nuna 2:00
Audrey Nuna delivered a high energy set that had the crowd singing and swaying. The R&B singer and rapper from New Jersey danced and jammed hard and those in the crowd were won over. Her music is genre melding trap/pop/hip-hop/R&B that paired with her energetic stage presence made her irresistible to resist, especially on the soulful "Blossom" which left the crowd speechless.
Buffalo Nichols 2:15
You could attend Lollapalooza and setup camp at the BMI stage for four days and you wouldn't just get your money's worth, but you would witness some of the rawest, purest, and most exhilarating talent on the planet. Buffalo Nichols took to the stage to deliver his bluesy guitar jams that feels like something out of the Chess Records vault. Born in Milwaukee, Nichols channeled a hundred years of blues music into his Sunday set. Performing songs from his self-titled album from 2021, the crowd watched on in rapt attention as he gently performed the songs allowing them to breathe as his tales of heartbreak, despair and hope invigorated the crowd. Gary Clark Jr. first performed at Lollapalooza a decade back before his star shot into the stratosphere and while Nichol's brand of blues isn't as flashy, it sets a mood for reflection and the search for salvation, but rest assured, this won't be his last major festival; Buffalo Nichols is a star in the making.
Hot Milk 2:35
The stage at Tito's had overflow from the Bud Light stage where the J-Hope fans would be waiting for another 6-hours, but the good news is the Manchester, England band Hot Milk performed a blistering set. The alternative pop-punk set crackled with "Glass Spiders" and "Teenage Runaways" as highlights while vocalist Han Mee and guitarist Jim Shaw played off one another while bassist Tom Paton and drummer Harry Deller providing the galloping rhythm under the Chicago sun.
Claire Rosinkranz 2:50
The teenage California native brought a good dose of pop-punk to the Discord stage. Making her mark during the pandemic on TikTok with the viral "Backyard Boy" which has nine-digit streams on several services, but instead of being overwhelmed by the attention, she doubled down and continued to writer and create. Her Sunday afternoon set was full of high energy including "I'm too pretty for this" and "Frankenstein".
Djo 3:20
Joe Kerry is beloved as Steve Harrington on the smash Netflix show
Stranger Things but he also has a band, Djo, who performed at Lollapalooza. Anticipation was high and Djo provided a very chill mid-afternoon set, that glided on airy psychedelia and slow jams.
LOLO 3:45
Canadian pop-rock artist LOLO made not just her Lollapalooza debut but her major festival debut as well at the BMI stage. Taking cues from the pop-punk acts Green Day, and Avril Lavigne, she performed several irresistible songs including "THE FLOOR IS LAVA!", "junkie", "hurt less" and a cover of the Wheatus song "Teenage Dirtbag". The 2022 version of Lollapalooza featured many young women making their way up and this is a trend that needs to continue as they provided some of the most exciting and revealing sets of the fest.
Maneskin 4:15
The Italian glam rock band had a prime set time for the closing day of the festival, but this doesn't always translate into a positive, but the band didn't just live up to expectations, they shattered them bringing old school rage and fury to the stage for an hour tipping it had to the more hedonistic times when rock n' roll ruled the world. The fourpiece band won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2021 for Italy with the song "Zitti e buoni", which opened their Lollapalooza set. The band performed a good number of original songs including "Supermodel," "We're Gonna Dance on Gasoline" and "Touch Me" which featured a snippet of the Who's "My Generation tagged on at the end. The band's set was a tribute to the decadent days of the past and the band even tipped their hat with covers by The Four Seasons ("Beggin'") and the Stooges ("I Wanna Be Your Dog)". The band immersed themselves in their performance and even entered the crowd a few times, heightening the already off-the-charts momentum to the next level. Vocalist Damiano David was all smiles and chatted up the crowd, "For us Italian, it's a dream come true". The early even crowd
adored them and he even pointed to an emotional fan who has been crying and he told her "You are a pro fan, everybody start crying". This may have been the first time many in the audience saw Maneskin but it's unlikely it will be the last.
Beach Bunny 5:15
When Beach Bunny performed on the first day of Lollapalooza in 2019 with their jangly guitar chords evoking summer romance, heartache, and endless summer nights, they gave notice they were an act to watch closely. The four-piece Chicago band was greeted with family, friends and fans welcoming them or their biggest crowd yet. Lili Trifilio is a hometown hero whose audience is continuing to grow, especially considering their latest album
Emotional Creature which just came out ten days before their Lollapalooza performance. The sincerity with which Trifilio performs and constructs her songs is something that should be more than commendable but to love. She goes headfirst into her art with no apologies. Trifilio even brought her brother out on stage to play guitar and had the crowd chant his name, Steve, repeatedly. The band is rounded out by guitarist Matt Henkels, drummer Jon Alvaradoand bassist Anthony Vaccaro who add glimmering dimensions to the crowd jumping "6 Weeks", "Prom Queen", "Oxygen" and the raucous set closer "Painkiller", which had a good portion of the audience on their neighbors' shoulders. Beach Bunny delivered one of the most self-assured sets of the festival.
Promo For Pyros 6:20
After the breakup of Jane's Addiction, Lollapalooza became a larger-than-life festival in 1992 and the acts who performed at the fest for the remainder of the decade defined alternative music. Farrell's follow-up band, Porno for Pyros never received the acclaim or success of Jane's, but they were a force on the alternative music scene between 1993 and 1996 and their single "Pets" went to number one on the US Alternative Airplay chart. Their reunion includes all four members of the debut album (Farrell, drummer Stephen Perkins, guitarist Peter DiStefano, bassist Martyn LeNoble) and guitarist Mike Watt from the second album as well. Their set covered twelve songs from their two albums and one notable cover, the country blues song "When the Levee Breaks" popularized by Led Zeppelin. The cover alone would have been enough to turn heads, but 1994 Lollapalooza headliner Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins showed up to jam with the band as well. Farrell and Corgan are set to co-headline an arena tour this fall with Jane's Addiction and the Pumpkins and Farrell made an appearance in Highland Park the night before Lollapalooza opened for Corgan's benefit for the July 4th Highland Park shooting.
BANKS 7:30
BANKS brought hip-shaking danceable, synth-driven songs to the Coinbase stage during the penultimate sets of the festival. Performing songs from her fourth album,
Serpentina, she wasted no time on the one-two punch of "Misunderstood" and "Meteorite" entrancing the audience. On "F**k With Myself" she showed her glittery electronic dance music can connect and didn't need big beats to be effective or moving.
Green Day 8:15
Green Day is one of our greatest rock bands. For the better part of thirty years, they have delivered time and time again reinventing themselves. When the band was on the 1994 Lollapalooza, I am not sure anyone could have envisioned the band delivering one of the best albums of the following decade (
American Idiot) and nearly two decades later coming off the biggest tour of their career, Hella Mega, with Fall Out Boy and Weezer in support. Having just completed their European jaunt and returning to America, the band setup shop at the legendary Metro club on Friday nights for a diehard fan's dream come true with plenty of deep cuts and rarely performed songs, however, inside Grant Park and despite being up against J-Hope, Green Day delivered another knock out performance to a crowd willing and ready to follow them into battle.
With intro music from Queen, the Ramones and Joan Jett, they primed the crowd before the band members emerged from the shadows running to the stage in their respective places with Billie Jo Armstrong, in a Metro shirt, tore through the opening riff to "American Idiot" with the same vengeance and wrath from eighteen years ago. While a lot of the media reports and hype around day four will be focused on J-Hope's show, make no mistake, 2022 was the return of indie and alternative rock to Lollapalooza while Green Day solidified with their twenty-one-song set. While not radically different from their show at Wrigley Field in 2021, the band takes no prisoners at every show. The setlist was an onslaught of hits that everyone in the crowd was singing along to; "Holiday", "Boulevard of Broken Dreams," "Longview," "Welcome to Paradise," "Hitchin' a Ride." "Brain Stew," "St. Jimmy," "When I Come Around," "Waiting," "21 Guns" and "Minority" and that just covered the first half of the show. Then there was "Know Your Enemy" when the band pulled a female friend up to sing the bridge and then on the Operation Ivy cover of "Knowledge", they brought a fan named Abby up to jam and gifted her the guitar at the conclusion of the song. Green Day has an ability to throw a party while bringing their music into the ring for the fight of their lives. Every night they're onstage, Green Day take someone's breath away and remind the rest of us how potent and profound their music continues to be as one of the definitive live bands on the planet. In 2022, their music continues to be a rallying cry and acts as scripture for those steering the lost highways of life in pursuit of a better tomorrow.
J-Hope
It's been said no one artist has ever sold more tickets for a single day in Lollapalooza's history than BTS's J-Hope. Even as the festival was winding down and fans from other stages were heading for the exit, the crowd at J-Hope's stage at the north end of the festival stretched out to the street, a rarity for any performer at the festival. Closing out his set with "Chicken Noodle Soup" and "Future" (from his recently released album
Jack in the Box). The J-Hope performance gave Lollapalooza a one-of-a-kind event akin to Beyonce's Coachella performance a few years back making it one of the first of its kind at Lolla. When he closed his set, a stream of fireworks went off behind the stage and the lights came on bringing the 2022 edition of Lollapalooza to a close until it returns in August 2023.
Lollapalooza will return to Chicago August 3rd to 6th in 2023
Anthony Kuzminski is a Chicago based writer and Special Features Editor for the antiMUSIC Network. His daily writings can be read at The Screen Door. He has seen over 1,000 concerts in his life, has far too many CD's and has covered Lollapalooza in-depth for more than a decade. He can be followed on Twitter
