Birthday/ Lollapalooza hangover

So if going to The Aviary and the Beer Camp Across America wasn't enough, we continued birthday celebrations into the following week. Monday was a delicious dinner at Tapas Valencia, followed by a surprise party for the birthday boy.  I've never organized a surprise party before and it turned out wonderful! So much fun was had. Maybe too much fun and beers and pinball that lasted waaaay too late into Tuesday night (or early Wednesday morning) but who's keeping track?
Wednesday night we went to "Jazzin at the Shedd." It was fun seeing the animals in a more relaxed environment. I mean we walked around lamenting on how sad the animals looked with wine and beer in our hands. It was fun, really.
My favorite attraction at any and all aquariums are the Jellies!
Piranha!
The sawtooth shark even came out for a rare swim around the tank.

Thursday was a much needed rest day only to be followed by 3 days of LOLLA.
We kicked off the start of Lolla in proper fashion- with shitty Bud Straw-ber-itas. Cheers y'all.

Only to be followed up by my worst nightmare. A near panic attack at the first show.

I hate crowds. I hate people bumping into me. I get ragey. And I should have known better than to stand halfway back in the Iggy Azalea show. Suddenly we found ourselves completely surrounded with more people pushing to get to WHERE?!? because there was NO ROOM! I felt like I was drowning. I had to get out.
Iggy Azalea set And we pushed our way through the crowds to get out.

More Iggy

After my freak out moment at the Iggy set, we decided to stay out of the crowds and enjoy the music and headed to a much less rowdy Interpol concert set.

We saw Lorde from a safe distance. She was AMAZING!
Next we saw Sander Kleinenburg. I liked their electronic music a lot.
And to wrap up day 1, we saw the Arctic Monkeys.

Day 2 came up waaaay too fast.
We watched: The Districts and Jungle. Both of which I've never heard of prior, but were good.
Then we listened to some Wildcat Wildcat before heading to RatKing.
Ratking was full of energy. We enjoyed a few of their songs before heading to watch Kate Nash.
We had VIP tickets. THANK YOU L. Which meant ALL THE DRINKS AND FOODS, a covered viewing area, and air conditioned bathrooms. Oh, it also meant we could use the shuttle service to get from one end of the park to the other. We only used the shuttle service once.

SO FUN ON THE SHUTTLE!

We saw Gramatik in a monster dust cloud and ran into Pete B.
We caught some of Nas before finishing out the day with Spoon.

Day 3 was probably my favorite.
We started out watching Kongos. They had a huge crowd which was surprising since it was so early in the morning.
Just as Kongos were finishing, we were finishing up our drinks and tacos in the VIP area to head out into the herd to watch the next group when it started POURING FREAKING RAINING.
Like torrential crazy downpour. I was so bummed because after researching Bomba Estereo in the morning, I really wanted to go up to the stage to watch them perform. I figured, the crowd would not be nearly as crazy for this Colombian rap/pop/electronic group as other groups performing. 
And it rained and rained and rained. And Bomba Estereo was killing their set with some awesome tunes. including an awesome verison of "Pump up the Jam."

And with 10 minutes to go the rain stopped and we went up to the stage.
The energy of this group was amazing. Their music was so fun.
Bomba Estereo was my favorite act out of the 3 days.
I was initially bummed that I only recognized 5-8 bands out of 100+ on the Lolla lineup a month ago.

But after researching many of the bands, and going to the Lolla concerts I found many more groups to add to my play lists.  It seems like a festival like this would be a great place to discover "new to you" bands. At least it was for me. I know Bomba Estereo will make me cycle faster and eventually run faster with their sick beats :)
Sunday was full of rain, and after watching Cage the Elephant and some of the Avett Brothers, the sky opened up again and showed no signs of stopping. We decided to take off and go home.
It was an amazing weekend with wonderful friends and great music and too many sweet memories to write down.

And I learned that despite my extreme aversion to crowds and wanting a seat in an air conditioned theater, that Lollapalooza is super fun.  Gosh, the people watching, the diversity of the bands, and the whole atmosphere is just something so crazy cool (and super difficult to put into words to effectively describe the experience.) You just have to go and experience it with an open mind.
Until next year, Lolla.