Starring Rahman, Raja, Shripi & Dappan koothu @ Lollapalooza

Lolla never ever ceases to surprise.

I happened to make my now ritualistic pilgrimage to what was once the hot bed of alternate rock/inde rock. Lollapalooza has a come a long way.

Today, I did listen to LCD Sound-system which the closeest to a rock band/music. The best part of the day was M.I.A aka Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam beats. Wikipedia says

"Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam (born on July 17, 1977 in Hounslow, London, England)[1] is a rapper, singer and visual artist of Sri Lankan Tamil origin. She is best known by her stage name, M.I.A.. Her style contains elements of grime, hip-hop, ragga, dancehall, electro, and baile funk."

I beg to differ. What I heard today were beats lifted out of Tamil songs including two 10 minute pieces of dappan kootha (the second one being the slow jam version). It was exhilarating as well as hilarious to hear. The Caucasians had no clue how to adapt to the cycle of ever-changing beats. My roomie was in his elements though. His version of contemporary Tamil free style dancing did raise a lot of eyebrows .

As as aside, Dappan koothu is a very simple art form, designed with drunken people in mind. It consists of violent pelvic thrusts, contorted facial expression including the "folded" tongue and hand gestures to amplify the pelvic thrusts. My roomie did all this and more, and soon the crowd had cleared around us.

M.I.A's performance is probably one of the worst I had seen at the Lolla. But the surprise factor made up for tacky antics. The DJ was the saving grace and he could probably make an apprentice in one of Chicago's house clubs if he tried a lil harder.

The other standout performance was Daft Punk. The lakefront might not have seen such an audio-visual treat ever. This French duo brought house to the house capital of the world and left with their reputation enhanced. Hats off to them.

One last note. Water wasn't as expensive as last year(it retailed at a palatable $2 a bottle). Food was ridiculously expensive. I paid $4 for a slice of pizza that was smaller than a Domino's slice. The crowd this year was much younger and there were much less hippies (probably due to a dearth of rock bands), and by extension, much less pot smoking. The weather was very hot today. Its supposed to be hotter over the weekend. The only saving grace is that the hotter it gets, the more bikini tops and micro-minis on display.

And you got to visit this....http://www.miauk.com/ and http://youtube.com/watch?v=W9a1hGwWRP8