Here is what I had a chance to see at Lollapalooza 2008 on Day 3:

Iron & Wine (partial)

- Ugh.  Hippies.

Flogging Molly

- The radio personality that introduced Flogging Molly said that they were the “greatest live band ever”.  I am not willing to go that far…  But I really dug the set!  I never really “saw” the stage as we were camped out in our super secret area to the side of the stage, but I could hear them perfectly.  It was tough, it was melodic, it was “Irish”…  It made me want to see them again.  Soon.

Blues Traveler (partial)

- I caught the last 3 songs of their set as I was walking down to the AT&T Stage.  They did a ripping cover of Cheap Trick’s “I Want You To Want Me”.  And they held out on doing “Hook” until the end.  The band was as tight as ever and there is no one that can call John Popper’s harmonica skillz into question.  It made me want to see more — without the apparent social stigma there is attached to seeing them.

Gnarls Barkley

- I was pleasantly surprised.  I only knew one song coming in.  The same one that everyone else on the planet knows.  And I was concerned that a lot of their other stuff is too, um, soft?  Ballady?  I was wrong.  The soft stuff maintained an edge from the singing and the great bass grooves and the up temp stuff was as good as could be expected.  They played “Gone Daddy Gone” — the Violent Femmes song — early in the set and I think that helped them set the right tone with a crowd that could have been easily lost.

Mark Ronson

- I have listened to a bit of his stuff — mostly the “popular” and re-imagined covers.  He is more a producer slash band leader.  It was all guest vocalists — bridging many different styles.  As he pointed out many, many times — this was the last date on their 16 month tour.  And he was very fond of the “f word”.  It was high energy and I am sure I would have been pogo’ing my ass off if I had been down front.

Kanye West

- Everyone I knew at Lollapalooza went to go see Nine Inch Nails.  Except for me.  I had seen NIN before — even if it was 17 years ago.  *shudder*  Kanye was AWESOME.  *insert more positive adjectives here*  From the second the lights went down to the moment he said good night, it was a spectacular set.  He saved his biggest singles for the end, but it did not matter — the crowd, myself included, was enthralled, moving to the beats and bobbing our heads.  He went off on what seemed to be an impromptu freestyle slash screaming to the heavens soliloquy dedicated to his late mother that left few dry eyes as far as I could see.  And if my decision to go see Kanye was not cemented by any of that, it was definitely cemented when he did a cover of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’”.  Kanye was the highlight of the weekend for me.