Danny Brown at Lollapalooza 2016 - Thursday
photo by Brigid Gallagher

Lollapalooza 2016 - Day 1 pics (Lana Del Rey, Last Shadow Puppets, J. Cole, Kurt Vile & more)

photos by Brigid Gallagher

Detroit rapper Danny Brown gathered the largest crowd I had seen up to that point to lose their minds to his high-octane bangers. Before he launched into his mile-a-minute flow, Brown’s house DJ Skywlkr (who just dropped skywlkr joints) pumped out an incredibly solid set which existed purely to generate hype before the rapper took the stage. Despite a handful of groups walking past me during Skywlkr’s opening set, the crowd whipped into a fervor the moment Brown shouted his high-pitched excitement into the mic. Even with the imminent release of Brown’s Atrocity Exhibition the rapper only performed songs that had been revealed prior to his set, the most recent of which was “Let It Rain” which got a massive response from the crowd despite its lack of constant bass drops.

Lollapalooza is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and the onetime traveling fest kicked off its now four-day event at Chicago’s Grant Park which it’s called home for some time. As usual, there was a threat of rain and things got off to a late start as festival organizers monitored a nearby thunderstorm. Other than that, day 1 was smooth sailing, with performances by Lana Del Rey, The Last Shadow Puppets, J. Cole, Kurt Vile and the Violators, Danny Brown, The Arcs, Daughter, and more. Pictures are in the gallery above. The quote above is from Zack Baker’s review on BV Chicago, which you can read HERE.

In addition to the big stage action, there were more intimate performances happening in the Toyota Music Den which BrooklynVegan is hosting along with Stereogum, Vibe and Spin. Thursday featured sets by Pinegrove, Sunflower Bean and more. BV will be at the Toyota Music Den all Lollapalooza weekend. Do stop by if you’re at the fest.

Day 2 of Lollapalooza has Radiohead, Future, M83, A$AP Ferg, Foals, Frightened Rabbit, Modern Baseball and more, some of those will be livestreamed.