Surfacing in short silver shorts and a brightly colored shirt to the largest crowd I’ve seen all day, London-born Sri Lankan homage paying rapper M.I.A. took to the Bud Light stage and rocketed through her first few songs flawlessly, only to get into “Pull up the People” and stop short: “that one sounds better in the club.” In her short time onstage, M.I.A. bellowed a wolf-like scream from deep within, bolstered by her unique pitch. During new track “20 Dollar,” which samples the Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind,” the flaunting singer’s voice underwent further glitches, sputtering out. But M.I.A., who stated she lost her voice in L.A., stated she was “doing her fucking best.”
But the crowd didn’t seem too disappointed in her loss of voice, which was barely evident, as the opening beats of “Bucky Done Gun” incited raised hands and a surge of dancing to the updated version of the song.
By the end of the night, M.I.A.’s voice had become audible hindered and exhausted, exemplified with her new hit single, “Boyz” and its shaky delivery. Even after almost giving up and quitting early, she played until the end of her timeslot, visibly pushing her throats limits, and toward the conclusion of her set, climbed the rafters and pumped the crowd atop a stack of speakers.
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Next up on the AT&T stage was Satellite Party, the musical outlet for Lollapalooza’s founding father, Perry Farrell. Stunningly, the band cut through a string of Jane’s Addiction songs, opening with “Stop” as well as a few old Porno for Pyros dusties.
Farrell was his usual self, talking to the crowd in his all-knowing, mysterious manner. He even fell on stage, which looked accidental, but he played it off as part of his dance routine. In between songs he even took a shot at the Chicago’s Sun Times for, at least according to him, not supporting Lollapalooza’s return in 2008.
Though the band’s originals weren’t accepted nearly as well as Farrell’s old hits, Satellite Party cranked out “The Mountain Song” and “Been Caught Stealing,” to wild crowd approval. But one Satellite Party original that stood alone was the funk rock jams of “Hired Life Easy,” which moved the feet of the, oh, some 30,000 onlookers.
