"I'm Gonna Haul Ass To Lollapalooza! (Here we go again)"

The grounds of Grant Park were the same this year as they were two years ago. There weren't enough garbage cans, but there never are for these concerts, are there? You can put out as many giant bins with event employees standing in front of them (to make sure the garbage really goes in the can), but your farmland or race track will still look like the smoking area of a high school afterward, with chip bag debris and prophylactic wrappers shuddering in the hot breeze.
And then come the sea gulls!
At Lollapalooza, young women dress in less-than-nothing--the sort of outfits that concerned fathers have nightmares about. The rest of us fellows love 'em, though (the scariest part), and I can't stress enough how lovely it was to have some more hot Chicargo days in which to admire all of these supple young vixens from days that have long since passed Peter and I by. 
Not Grant, though. He was getting dozens of "oohs" and "ahhs" wherever we went. I paid more attention this year and I noticed that the truth of the matter is this: People just don't tend to bring their toddlers to massive outdoor rock festivals. If you do find yourself bringing your toddler to a massive outdoor rock festival, I recommend ear protection, plenty of sun screen, and cool outfits for the kid so that you seem that much more hip. It worked for us.
Some buxom woman came by and she was just entranced by our little trooper. I was blown away. I kept thinking, "Jesus, she can't love kids this much, can she?" She more-or-less ignored us, apart from the occasional question, and picked and pawed and cooed at Grant, who was loving it.
If we're all being frank and beans here, we were loving it too because this woman had huge breasts in a bikini, and Grant kept squealing and reaching for her, and I continued to think, "He's going to catch that top with his hand and rip it off, and that's going to be incredible."

I tried my best to concentrate on general conversation with her friend while keeping the corner of my eye nice and peeled. I probably wasn't as discrete as I was trying to be.
Sadly, the best case scenario didn't happen, and they eventually moved on, leaving us to watch Metallica as bachelors, which was still just fine. It's the best way to listen to Metallica anyways, probably.
I saw a guy go into a Port-O-Potty with two women while several of us stood in line to pee. I turned to the guy behind me and said, "That was unexpected" as others jeered and complained that the guy had cut in line. That's missing the big picture, if you ask me.
One chick got tired of waiting for them ("What the fuck!?") and ripped the door open to discover that one of the girls was vomiting in there. Port-O-Potties are kinda like the garbage can; unmanageable.
If you have to stand guard while your buddy changes a diaper, I recommend going over by those trees where no one is. Y'know the ones, near the children's stage. We listened to a pre-teen band there who were surprisingly tight.
I almost lost my party at one point due to my being irresponsible. That was pretty unsettling. The sheer concentration of the populace really kinda pops out at you when you can't find the one and a half people that you're looking for. This is particularly the case if you have some refer with a guy from...Milwaukee? Minnesota? Somewhere with an 'M'. That was during Gogol Bordello, one of the few bands I have an album of.

I scanned the countless passers-by as I waited for Pete to materialize (he's level-headed and he has a good sense of direction. He'll show) and thought about losing your party at a place like this. It happens all the time; the 'wild' one of the group gets too fucked up on the mickey of Fireball he managed to sneak in, and suddenly he has disappeared. Everyone in the group pauses to buy a corndog, and when they turn away from the stand, the guy is gone, never to be seen again. These people then wake up in the park and wander there for weeks, only to emerge malnourished and fired from their jobs. Bad news, losing your party.
We managed to hang tough together, though, and I suppose we had a great time.
Grant found a stick he really liked and while Peter changed his diaper I really thought Grant was going to take his eye out with it. He also had some close calls with complete strangers, since he was waving it about, fascinated, while people surged closely by.
"Watch yer stick," Peter kept saying while I subtly suggested he should maybe wear his sunglasses while changing Grant for the time being. .
We saw a squirrel! That was neat. You see squirrels in parks, but in the midst of so many people it was kinda bizarre.
Peter said, "Fat squirrel eating hot dogs all weekend," and I wrote it down to put it in the blog later.
On our final evening the sun began to set on a very intense and cloudy sky. Pete maintained all day that there was supposed to be a fuck-tonne of rain that evening, likely cancelling the whole thing. I was skeptical all day, even when a massive downpour postponed all acts by an hour while I was napping. By the time I woke up, everything was dry again and the sky was cloudless. Despite this, I dragged us to a bunch of places for a rain poncho, since I was too stupid to pack my slicker.
I bought three.
I thought about them in my backpack as the sun descended on what would be our last night. The wind was humid and billowy, with the clouds thick and angry, like the eyebrows of someone who should be plucking more.  

(The second photo was taken while it was nice outside.)
As the vibe turned ominous and the headliners began, I thought about what a disaster it would be if rain dumped itself in buckets on us--not to mention lightning. All of those people running and shouting for their friends, splashing up footsteps as they try to get to shelter. The fragility of the situation kinda hit me then, as I thought of these 100,000 people all gathered here and what they would look like plopped into the middle of the November Rain music video. Such a small thing like a downpour/hail storm or a well-placed explosive can turn a massive group on its head so quickly. It instills awe when you think about it, among it.
We were fine though as we listened to Florence & The Machine. (Flo got all of the camera-time, by the way. I have no idea what The Machine looks like.)

The storm came later, when we were safe in the hotel. 40mph winds with rain and hail. The television interrupted itself to tell us this. We watched twigs of lightning flicker and belch all over the city's skyline as it pelted down. I wondered where the homeless dudes went while this was going on, as a children would wonder of bees.

By the way, I saw one girl wearing a t-shirt that said "FESTIVAL ADDICT".
I'm no expert on them myself, but I know that festival addicts don't wear shirts that say 'festival addict'. Instead, they wear a lot of face paint with a lot of bangles, or a full-length shark costume.