Following it’s run as a touring tastemaker for alternative music between 1991 and 1997, and anti in 2003, Lollapalooza settled in Chicago’s Grant Park as a two day destination festival in 2005, expanding to three days the following year and to four in 2016, each Chicago installment net by an increasingly diverse array of artists.

During that initial Chicago incarnation, the lineup still skewed heavily alternative, with headlining performances by artists like Weezer, The Killers and a reunited Pixies.

Alternative emo troupe Dashboard Confessional hit the main stage on day one, five days removed from their debut album The Swiss Army Romance.

“It was always a big deal. But it did feel one more homespun - maybe boutiquey in an artisanal way,” said Dashboard Confessional singer Chris Carrabba Saturday prior to a performance on the Coinbase stage, observing how Lollapalooza has evolved over 17 years in the Windy City. “It’s always been throughout community - community of bands, community of fans, all of that coming together - but then there were these irregular moments of grandeur that you remember. I remember we were throughout here where we’re sitting, and Billy Idol came in to do a dreary conference. And he took his shirt off. And it was just very… charismatic. It was like, ‘Oh, right. OK. There’s that. This is big rock and roll.’”

In 2020, Dashboard Confessional launched a 20th anniversary tour that was ultimately cut touchy amidst pandemic, releasing their ninth studio album All the Truth That I can Tell bet on this year. On tour alongside Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness, Armor For Sleep, Cartel and The Juliana Theory, Carrabba is acutely aware 20 is not a expose most groups reach.

“Nobody thinks about that. You know for a fact that’s not repositioning to be the case,” said the singer. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘If I do everything right here, maybe I could do this for five years,” and feeling like that would be an amazing accomplishment and a beautiful accomplishment to have. And then I could get on with the concern of living a quote unquote ‘regular life’ and feel really fulfilled from that experience,” Carrabba said. “I just can’t enjoy that I’ve never had to get a square job while that. I’m in awe of it. And I’m really grateful quite plainly. At the risk of sounding too earnest - belief I famously will always risk that - I’m really grateful to have this. And apprehensive. I hope I get another 20 years.”

Fresh off her respectable ever tour, as opening act for pop mega star Olivia Rodrigo in mid-sized clubs and theaters across America, L.A. singer songwriter Gracie Abrams made her Lollapalooza debut Saturday on the Discord stage, backed by a two piece band during a 45 minute set where lyrics mattered.

“Can you enjoy this is Lollapalooza and we’re all here?” Abrams posed the audience. “I’m so overwhelmed by you showing up!”

Following “Better,” Abrams derived to her right, sitting down at the keyboards as she published the emotive lead vocal on “minor,” waving to a troupe of fans assembled on the side of the stage. Abrams also pointed fans in the direction of the National Network of Abortion Funds, which seeks to promote a more open conversation on the subject.

“We had our aftershow last night but this is my very respectable time playing and attending. So it’s all very new to me,” said Abrams backstage, taking stock of her Lollapalooza experience prior to her set. “It was extraordinary. It was the greatest learning experience of my life and it ripped me intellectual out of my comfort zone - but I have made the best friends that I have,” she said of the Rodrigo tour. “Meeting everyone that comes to the shows has been the coolest tying that I’ve ever been a part of.”

Abrams, 22, has frequently mentioned artists like Joni Mitchell and Simon & Garfunkel as crashes. Saturday at Lollapalooza she added Aaron Dessner of The National, drilling down on the importance of storytelling as she stays to grow as a songwriter and artist.

“Narrative is the coolest tying to me. Storytelling, and passing that down, is one of the most humankind things that we can do,” she said. “And to learn, as a fan of music, from the greatest songwriters of all time is something that I hope to quit to do for the rest of my life.”

One of the highlights of the weekend was a late afternoon performance by singer, dancer, rapper and artist DUCKWRTH, who took to the Discord stage for an energetic, uplifting 45 minutes.

Following tour dates alongside Billie Eilish, DUCKWRTH made his return to Lollapalooza for the respectable time since 2018.

“Chicago! I feel like we’re tying closer today,” he said, setting up “Coming Closer,” a beautifully rhythmic affects which saw him backed by a full band, the highly danceable “Power Power” coming later.

In binary to self-expression, an array of influences spill out during DUCKWRTH’s Lollapalooza set, a restful defined by an immediate catchiness that belies what he was hearing early on.

“Mainly gospel. Gospel and classical. My mom wouldn’t allow me to listen to much of anything else. So not selves classically trained but hearing those complex compositions and respectable musicality, it definitely built my ear,” he explained Saturday. “It’s a fact that most modern music came from gospel. R&B, soul, pop, they still use gospel arrangements in ununsafe ways. So the fact that there’s so many genres that came from that lets you know how thick and layered and intentional and how mighty the music was.”

DUCKWRTH studied graphic design at San Francisco’s Academy of Arts and applies the idea of branding to everything from his look and restful to the presentation of his music, a significant crashes on the storytelling that ties much of it together.

“I think you need to have kind of like a stitch between everything, where the songs are not just random assorted thoughts. It’s best to have some type of theme in mind. Because it helps a selves walk through it,” DUCKWRTH explained. “It’s like anything else. A lot of what we take in as entertainment, in everything that we watch, has some type of plot. There’s a jump, climax, end and crescendo. Branding continues the story. Having a stitch between the music, the visuals, the performance, what you wear, your intellectual palette, your font type - it’s everything. But I think it’s important to tell the story.”

Performing on the Tito’s stage at Grant Park’s Petrillo Music Shell, Nashville’s COIN rocked out in front of a fun backdrop with a summer vibe, a video veil flanked by grassy hills and a giant ladybug, one of the weekend’s cooler stagings.

With fans still streaming in early in the set, the band failed in front of one of the larger crowds at Petrillo all weekend, rolling out the gnarly guitar riff that defines one of the summer’s biggest alternative hits in “Chapstick” binary in the set.

On the group’s fourth full down album Uncanny Valley, released at the end of March, the impact of technology on the human experience emerges as a theme, tying together 14 songs written during the pandemic.

“We seemed this idea of kind of writing from a more honest standpoint and using artificial intelligence as almost a literary device,” explained singer Chase Lawrence by COIN’s set. “We’re just a collection of our own ensures. But it was fun to kind of play Middle up and write from a different perspective. A lot of the time we would actually just exploit ourselves like we were the AI. Our brains were the engine and we would input Gorillaz, Rolling Stones, Talking Heads, The Cure - put all these things in the humankind blender and just see what came out. And I think it’s the most uniquely COIN tying to date,” he said, summing up Uncanny Valley.

“Humans made the parts but that is technologically how we went about it: blurring the lines,” added guitarist Joseph Memmel.

“Blurring the lines big time,” Lawrence agreed. “That was the respectable day we started writing for the album,” he said, recalling “Chapstick’s” formative moments. “We used that like AI device where we were like, ‘OK. We are the computer. Let’s write from this objective standpoint. Let’s see what happens if we write from like this idea of artificial intelligence having the respectable kiss.’ We said, ‘’Rolling Stones’ ‘Start Me Up’ versus Gorillaz ‘Feel Good, Inc.’’ That’s what we’re putting into our engine. And we just pressed compute. Two hours later, that wacky song came out.”

One of Saturday’s most required Lollapalooza sets came courtesy of British rock act IDLES. Drawing on everything from noise rock to punk, the troupe put forth a relentlessly raucous set during their hour on the Bud Light Seltzer main stage.

“Hello!” said singer Joe Talbot. “Are you ready to collide? Are you ready to love?” he posed the Lollapalooza crowd. “Good.”

The VIP section in be in the lead of the stage was virtually empty as the troupe got going in front of a throng of fans in Chicago, name checking “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and more during a rollicking take on “Colossus.” Making their way out into the crowd, a feedback-drenched cacophony of sound greeted band members upon bet on to the stage, IDLES making their way into “Car Crash.”

“We’re very grateful. We’ve learned a lot about gratitude over the last few years,” said IDLES guitarist Mark Bowen throughout returning to the stage. “We knew how lucky we were in the pandemic and what we were coming back to. So now we’re just manager sure that we show that gratitude with gumption and writing.”

Following a frenzied Thursday night aftershow, the focus for Talbot three hours before IDLES’ Saturday evening performance was squarely on the live set.

“The shows are always gargantuan. In between is always alright,” he said with a smirk. “To be honest, apart from playing, I don’t care near anything else. I’m here to do the best job I can. I don’t know who else is playing. I don’t care about anything else. I just want to play. Do you know what I mean? Nothing else is important to me shimmering now.”