Arctic Monkeys and Homegrown Chicago Emcee, Supa Bwe, Among Highlights For First Day Of Lollapalooza

Arctic Monkeys headline perform the Grant Park stage for the opening day of Lollapalooza on Thursday, Aug.2nd, 2018. Photo courtesy of Cambria Harkey/Lollapalooza 2018

Day one of Lollapalooza to open the 2018 edition of the world-renowned festival that takes place in Chicago’s famed Grant Park was kind of slow, but featured some really great performances from the likes of the Arctic Monkeys, homegrown Chicago emcee, Supa Bwe and plenty of rage.

Arctic Monkeys, who was playing and headlining Lollapalooza for the second time in five years, definitely knows their way around the festival and how to put on a pretty good show.
Which they did on a cool Summer evening, after what was earlier a scorching hot day.

It may not have been as great a performance as their last Lollapalooza performance five years ago, but it was still a pretty good performance for the most part. Which seen the group start with the overly fussy, Four Out of Five, from their recent album, Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino, before going into one of the most popular records to date, Arabella.

Luckily for fans who haven’t really been feeling the groups new album, outside of, Four Out of Five and the title track, they mostly stayed away from that. Leaning more on what’s still their most popular album to date, AM. With records like Do I Wanna Know? and R U Mine?, their most popular records still till this day.

It’s when they leaned into those and their older songs like, Crying Lightning, Brainstorm, The View from the Afternoon and Snap Out of It, when they were truly at their best. Doing it with a finesse and muscle that you wish they could’ve throughout the whole performance rather than only part of it. It was a pretty solid ending to what was a slow and not so great first day lineup.

One which also seen local Chicago emcee, Supa Bwe, who was also making his Lolla debut tell the crowd to form a moshpit not even two songs into his performance at the BMI Stage. Telling the small crowd that, “I’m from Chicago,” as he retook the stage. “In 2011, I got caught jumping that fence, was taken to medical, but I escaped. I appreciate being here so much.” Appreciation is something you can have anywhere, no matter how big or small your audience is. Which the local emcee proved as the small, yet dedicated crowd chanted his name. Lollapalooza is one of those festival’s where there will be plenty of screaming, moshpits, trying to maneuver your way to the front of crowds by fans and that definitely was proven time and time again Thursday, as it will be throughout much of the four days.