Lollapalooza 2012: Day 1 in pics (Black Sabbath, Passion Pit, M83, Afghan Whigs, Metric, SBTRKT, Tame Impala and more)
photos by James Richards IV
Black Sabbath / M83 / the crowd, Lollapalooza 8/03/2012
A bell tolls, a bass guitar moans, and Ozzy Osbourne sings. “What is this that stands before me?” the former archnemesis of John Cardinal O’Connor intones with chilling deliberation. Black Sabbath – three-quarters of them, anyway – are back to reprise the doom-ridden, Beelzebub-baiting classics from the ’70s. Osbourne sounds in good voice initially, slicing through Tony Iommi’s granite-hard guitar riffs and Geezer Butler’s nuclear-strength bass. He even lays down some credible blues harp on “Wizard.” But, as if to prove he isn’t lip-synching, Osbourne struggles to nail some of the high notes in “War Pigs.” No matter, Sabbath was never about sex appeal or perfection. They were dead-end working-class kids who had no use for the romanticism of the flower-power era, and instead peered into the abyss that awaits us all. The songs, which just happened to invent an entire genre of music, still sound magnificent, from “N.I.B.” to “Iron Man.” [Chicago Tribune]
Lollapalooza, the mother of indie U.S. festivals, is happening this weekend at Grant Park in Chicago. Friday (8/3) kicked things off with such bands Black Sabbath, Afghan Whigs, Passion Pit, The War on Drugs, Tame Impala, Metric, and Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs. If you’re not in Chicago but would still like to have the Lollapalooza experience, just skip showering, turn off your A/C, crack open a beverage and watch the festival’s livestream on YouTube.
More Lollapalooza Friday pics are below.
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Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs
Black Angels
War on Drugs
Tame Impala
Blind Pilot
Afghan Whigs
Metric
SBTRKT
The Head and the Heart
Passion Pit
M83
Black Sabbath