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.

by Steven Roberts

My fellow MTV News teammates 
and I arrived in Chicago yesterday and we've started to settle into our rooms at the Hilton - yup we got 
HBO - preparing for Lolapalooza. The three-day festival features performances by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Killers, Snoop Dogg and Tool among others. There are also a variety of other bands performing throughout the weekend. And luckily for us our hotel is located on 
Michigan Avenue, conveniently across the street from Grant Park where Lolla is held.

It's so convenient that every band seems to be staying here 
too. There are guys walking around lugging their equipment and checking into their rooms. The only thing is we can't seem to make out who any of them are. I 
mean we're sure they're in a band. They wear tight jeans, tattered t-
shirts and have long, unkempt hair, but again, that's generally every 
rock band.

We get back from dinner last night, and the hotel lobby is full of guys who look 
like they're in a band. I'm the hip-hop guy here, so I'll admit I'm not that familiar with some of the smaller acts, but I'll be damn if any of you guys can recognize Portugal. The Man or Animal Collective casually walking by either. So we're standing around going "oh that's the 
guys from..." "Yeah they look really familiar," and "there goes 
Vampire Weekend."

I actually saw Vampire Weekend open for the Clipse about 2 years ago at Columbia University, so I would recognize those oxford shirts and boat shoes anywhere.

I guess the cool thing about Lolla is that by the end of the weekend we'll up on a whole host of new bands. So Monday when we see them walk by we can say "good show."

Kanye West, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead ... Senator Barack Obama? The Democratic presidential candidate has booked the same area in Chicago's Grant Park that hosts several of the stages at the annual Lollapalooza festival, and if early estimates hold, the crowd in his hometown on the evening of November 4 could best the daily totals put up by the granddaddy of alternative-rock festivals. Maybe the Lolla attendees who were bummed that Obama didn't show up in August should have stuck around.

It's still unknown if attendees wishing to join the party will need to register online to get a ticket in advance, but Obama's team has already begun prepping the park for what is expected to be a "massive" rally on election night, according to the Chicago Tribune. Security will likely be tight for the event, with the area fenced off, much as it is for Lollapalooza, and attendees going through metal detectors. The Obama campaign has promised to pick up the tab for such expensive measures.

Organizers are expecting a crowd of 100,000 or more, rivaling the 75,000 daily totals for Lolla, which is spread out over an area twice the size of the one in which Obama will be setting up. No other details about the rally have been released yet.

The campaign of Republican rival Senator John McCain has not yet announced where it will be on election eve.

By Bryn Bennett, lead guitar player for Bang Camaro

(Editors' note: MTV News asked Bang Camaro to help us cover Lollapalooza and they were happy to oblige! The band's Bryn Bennett wrote this blog; Alex Necochea shot the video.)

"Load-in is at 8:15am?!" This is terrible news for a rock band. We travel around the country in stinky vans, make no money and don't take showers for many reasons. One of them is so that we don't have to wake up at 7 a.m. like the rest of corporate America. It was Lollapalooza though, and Radiohead was going to be sound-checking at the same time, so I guess this early wakeup was worth it.

We pulled into Chicago from Boston at about 1 a.m. on Friday, had a few cans of beer and some of us did our best to fall asleep. Others of us attack life with the same vigor as a cat attacks a mouse, sometimes with the same bloody results.

(Watch Bang Camaro "interview" the Black Lips, plus get medieval after the jump!)
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Back before they were the latest sensation to bubble up from the blogosphere, the Black Kids were just, well, kids. And growing up in sleepy Jacksonville, Florida, they didn't get to witness a whole lot of rock (Jax ain't exactly the first place bands book shows when heading down through the Sunshine State). So, when Lollapalooza rolled through their town, they were understandably excited.

The only problem? They usually didn't have enough cash to pick up tickets, so they were forced to come up with more, uh, creative ways of entering the festival: they snuck in. But this wasn't your usual bum-rush-the-barricade operation (as displayed by, oh, thousands of Rage Against The Machine fans last night), it was an intricately choreographed routine they dubbed "the double diversion."

These days, they don't need to sneak in to much—they're on the bill for practically everything, after all—but they were kind enough to demonstrate the finer points of the double diversion for all of you, which you can see after the jump.
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We started the third and final day of Lollapalooza with a toddler-friendly interview with Gnarls Barkley on the steps of the Kidzapalooza stage (in between sets from the Homemade Jamz Blues Band and the Jimmies, of course).

Cee-lo and Danger Mouse spoke about the mind-melting video for "Who's Gonna Save My Soul," and DM's upcoming projects (sorta ... "I've got stuff in the works, but nothing I wanna talk about," he mumbled), but what they really wanted to discuss was the set by they had just witnessed by the aforementioned Homemade Jamz.

In fact, they were so impressed that they brought 9-year-old drummer Taya Perry -- truly the finest mini kit-master in Tupelo, Mississippi -- onto the stage to take part in the interview. Because, after all, Gnarls loves the kids.

(Watch Gnarls after the jump!)
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It's been a long, long time since I danced in public. But if there was ever a time to bust out some of my solid gold moves, the final afternoon of Lollapalooza was it. The day dawned hot and steamy, and not just because of the sizzling heat. Chicago's own Kid Sister continued what appears to be a growing tradition on the South Stage (despite their sponsorship of the stage, AT&T's service has gotten half a bar from just about everyone I've spoken to, so I'm ignoring their naming rights), following in the heels of fellow Chi-town MC Lupe Fiasco, who killed on those boards on Saturday. (Sunday’s closer will feature the King of Chicago, Kanye West, taking what will now be known as the Home Stage.)

Sister, accompanied by three female dancers in futuristic football gear and face paint, sashayed across the stage in a flirty summer dress and got the crowd bouncing to summer jams like "Pro Nails," at one point bringing out a seven-piece crew of female backup dancers who were painted gold head-to-toe.

(Check out Kid Sister and her dancers after jump!)
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by Jared Piccone of innerpartysystem on Saturday, August 2nd

When you become a full fledged touring band, the things that used to move and excite you early on, like actually playing for a crowd, can unfortunately sometimes become a lower priority on the self-satisfaction scale. For instance, we've been on tour for quite some time now. Don't get me wrong, playing in front of a crowd that gives a s--t about your music is the ultimate rush, but when you start to do it day in and day out, you get numb to it sometimes. You need a refreshing experience. Something to remind you why you started doing this in the first place. That was Lollapalooza.
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by Jules & Katie of The Ting Tings

We arrived in Chicago on Friday the 1st un-fresh from a St. Louis over-heated gig. Chicago was boiling too, but in the excitement of being at Lolla we drank & stayed up too late. On Saturday morning, the weather sympathized & turned down the dial 10 degrees, still sunny but with a cooler breeze... thankfully. Us Mancs not used to these blistering heat waves. Our main stage time of 12.45 midday was probably the earliest we've ever played to an audience & being a new band in the USA, we thought no one would get up from their spin head beds to make it on site till later in the afternoon. Shocked & amazed to see around 8-10k people turn out for us & then sing along, wave 'n dance. Playing to that enthusiastic crowd made our day! With the city panorama propping them up, has to be one of the festival highlights this year, no doubt!
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