Summer = Dip and Cheap Live Music

On Friday I participated in some decidedly summery activities: the eating of dip and attending a street festival.

Weeks ago I found out that Los Campesinos!, a quite good band from the UK (whose song "You! Me! Dancing!" you may have heard in a Budweiser ad) would be playing at the Taste of Randolph festival in Chicago.  Admission to the fest was only $10, which was right within my budget of an unemployed gig addict.  I'm a fan of LC!, though I can't admit to knowing all of their songs or all the words to the songs I do know (to be fair, their songs have a LOT of words, sung very quickly).  I first discovered them at Lollapalooza in 2009 and hadn't seen them since.  Friday morning, I remembered that they would be playing THAT NIGHT.  I texted Megan to see if she would like to see them with me, and she said yes, despite never having heard of them.  I think we were both craving some sort of cultural activity that normal 22-year-olds would do on a Friday night.

Megan came over a couple hours before we left for the festival and we made a recipe I had found online for Edamame Feta Dip.  After some laborious shelling and food processing, we had this bright green deliciousness:

Add a bag of tortilla chips and black bean salad, and you have a nutritious(ish) meal perfect for hot weather.

We left for Taste Of Randolph, sufficiently stuffed so we would not be tempted to buy food at the fest.  After some good old CTA transfer confusion, we arrived, not too far from Harpo Studios (I've been here for 4 years and had never seen it).  I had never heard of this particular festival before, but its popularity became apparent as we slowly weaved our way through the crowd to the stage.  We were about 20 minutes early, and had a relatively good view of the stage, besides the usual mountain of tall people in front of us (it's for this reason that I often try to get to shows early so I can stand in front of the stage, view unobstructed).  As LC! set up, we nearly had heart palpitations from the bass drum booming through the crazy-loud speakers.

The crowed cheered enthusiastically when Los Campesinos! took to the stage and launched into "By Your Hand", the big single from their latest album.  LC! has 7 members (five guys and two girls) and they all have such energy on the stage.  They played for about an hour I think.  I knew probably about a third of the songs, unlike the group standing behind us who sang along and occasionally attempted to mosh.  I'm all for enthusiasm and dancing, but in my opinion, intentionally crashing into your fellow concert-goers is just bad manners.  But that's just par for the course, and I consider it part of my training for Lollapalooza.

Playing with the fish eye effect. 

The band seemed to be having a great time.  The lead singer, Gareth, told the crowd this was their first show of the tour and when the crowd cheered, he questioned why.  LC! were all in especially good spirits, all decked out in their England soccer jerseys because England had won 3-2 against... well, I can't remember, which makes me a prime specimen of American soccer--er, football--ignorance.  Gareth observed that Americans are really into sports, but only sports that no one else in the world plays.  Fair enough.

The band sporting their England jerseys

One of the reasons I like LC! is their tendency to write songs that sound really happy and jubilant, until you listen to the lyrics, which are, quite frankly, depressing and hopeless.  I love happy-sad songs.  Unlike typical sad ballads, LC!'s music makes me want to dance around like a crazy person, lots of jumping and shimmying and whatnot.  I sang along with the crowd to my favorite songs, like "You! Me! Dancing!", "We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed", and "Death To Los Campesinos!"

Sadly, the show came to an end and we made our way out through the festival crowds.  I hope some of the attendees who were unfamiliar with LC! were left with some new music to Spotify when they got home.  And even if they didn't love them, you really can't complain about $10 to see a fun band outdoors to kick off summer in Chicago.

(Of course I took loads of pictures, to celebrate the return of my camera.)

Clearly this is his favorite position at the mic

The night ended with a hellish CTA experience due to construction on the track, giving us 2 hours in an un-air-conditioned L car and making me fear I would be stuck at Howard forever, which no one ever, ever wants.  But we survived and when we got back to my apartment we watched a cute-to-depressing Lifetime movie called "Listen To Your Heart" about a songwriter who falls in love with a deaf girl and then freaking DIES.  I don't care if I spoil the ending for you.  I'm sparing you the heartbreak.