I've Got It!
Ahhh the weekend long music festival. While I expected to wander here and there in our lovely summer sunshine discovering new music, it was the old sounds that rediscovered me. I could offer up my whole recap of Lollapalooza's takeover of my home this weekend OR... i could tell you how happy it made me just to see Yo La Tengo again. Let's take the easy way out and go with Yo La Tengo.
There is something so ridiculously endearing about watching a band with no gimmick, no great big stupid hair or 8" tall silver glitter platforms. There is something so charming about three normal looking people who create music so far from ordinary playing at a massive festival that is entirely spectacle. I wouldn't say Yo La Tengo were the only musicians out to wow the crowd with their music alone1, but there weren't many more treating it as an art and not a "show"2.
Le sigh. Listening to "Painful" era Yo La Tengo makes me wish I owned a car, so I could drive aimlessly through the Chicago suburbs feeling 16 all over again.
1 Thank you Patti Smith.
2 There is absolutely nothing wrong with "the show" if that's what you're after but by Sunday afternoon I was tired of so much spectacle with very little substance.
Buy some: Yo La Tengo