One of the perks of being in a rock band is the opportunity to travel the world and entertain your fans in exotic locations. Of course, the downside of all that traveling is that you are susceptible to every nasty virus, bug and epidemic the globe has to offer, not to mention exhaustion and a good chance of serious injury.

And so, we give you a shockingly long list of the recent walking wounded.

» Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler: The 61-year-old front man of the veteran hard rockers took a tumble of a stage in South Dakota last week and though no official word has been given on what injuries he sustained, they are rumored to include a broken collarbone.

» Kasabian singer Tom Meighan: The leader of the techno-rocking British band has been quarantined after being diagnosed with swine flu in the midst of the band's current Far East swing.

» Placebo's Brian Molko: The gender-bending singer reportedly fainted onstage at the Summer Sonic show in Japan on Sunday and was carried offstage after suffering from an unexplained virus he picked up on the road.
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by Steven Roberts

CHICAGO -- It's day 2 at Lollapalooza 2009, and despite the rain yesterday, the Chicago festival kicked off in style thanks to performances by Depeche Mode, Kings of Leon, Bon Iver and Crystal Castles. Today, the sun is out in full effect, so we decided to catch up with a few fans around Grant Park and ask what some of their favorite sets were from Friday. Not surprisingly for a festival that has everyone from Tool to Bon Iver on the bill, the answers were all over the place.

Speaking of Tool, a bunch of that dark rock band's fans were filing into the park as the gates opened, and they were dead-set on reserving their spot for tonight's headlining performance. Many of them were also fans of Depeche Mode, and they had rave reviews about that classic English synth pop band's headlining performance Friday night.

The Walkers traveled all the way from Vancouver, Canada, and they were happy they saw Depeche Mode perform. "Their new song 'Wrong' is just awesome," said John. His companion, Larissa added, "that was meant to be live."

The Kings of Leon co-headlined on the opposite end of the park, and there were just as many fans still buzzing about their performance. "It was really fun, everyone was singing along, dancing and it was a good time," said Danielle, who traveled with friends and family in a 13-hour car ride from New Jersey.

And finally there were the fans that watched Kid Cudi close the show at Perry's dance zone. Perry's is an area set up where DJ's can spin, essentially creating an all-day rave in the middle of the festival grounds. Grant and Nathan, both 16, said that they spent all 12 hours of their day there, and Kid Cudi capped off their amazing day. Nathan was still blown away - or on something, it was hard to tell.

"It was crazy, yo. He was unbelievable live," he said.

CHICAGO -- The fans in the front of the line at Lollapalooza's official start came from far and wide to land a choice spot for their favorite artists at one of North America's premiere music festivals. Oregon, Maine, London, Texas, Ontario, and France were just a few of the locales we saw represented up front, but the very front of the line was manned by two Depeche Mode superfans who came three hundred miles in order to stake out a spot right up front and they didn't plan on moving away from the main stage where DM was set to play all day long.

But they weren't the only pair brought to Grant Park by their love of the famous goth-rockers; just a little further back in line, a coed duo had just made acquaintances over their love of '80s legends Depeche Mode (and fellow '80s stalwarts Morrissey and The Cure), and they planned to buddy up in order to make it through their whole day parked in front of the main stage waiting for their faves to close out the night's festivities.

Kings of Leon proved to be the other crowd favorite in Friday's line-up, with every non-Depeche Mode fan in the crowd citing the now-superstar rockers as the band to see (DM and KOL play head to head against each other tonight on separate stages - should be interesting to see who draws the bigger crowd). Hipstery bands were also represented by the more fashionable types - with Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes and The Decemberists all getting call-outs from the crowd.

Unfortunately, as the fans rushed in, so did the bad weather. It got dreary right as the music got right underway, and has been raining steadily since - setting up for a cool and relaxing day in front of the Chicago skyline.

By Rya Backer

As a production assistant, my duties on the 29th floor vary. A lot. So when it was confirmed this morning that Depeche Mode would be headlining Lollapalooza, I was brought back to a few weeks ago, when I did nothing for days but watch archived interviews with the British new-wave act — a task that had to be taken care of for MTV News Canada.

After watching hours upon hours of the band, or just the lead singer, Dave Gahan, talk about everything from fashion to their feelings on Erasure, I feel like I kind of know the guys, and there's so much to know about them. Let's just say their "Behind the Music" episode was deep — rife with drugs, bandmembers hating each other and subsequently quitting, and worlds of other gory rock-and-roll cliché details. But they've also sold more than 100 million records, and their sonic style is credited with influencing bands as diverse as Franz Ferdinand, Radiohead and Linkin Park.
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