Headliners the Killers served up fan favorites, Skrillex got a stage named after him, and Future x Metro Boomin drew so many fans that the audience was asked to take five steps back, twice, during their set on Lollapalooza 2024’s penultimate day on Saturday in Chicago’s Grant Park. Killer Mike, Deftones, and Four Tet were also among the highlights from Day Three.
The Killers Are Here to Serve You
“You’ve got to give the world irrefutable proof that you are who you say you are,” said frontman Brandon Flowers at the start of the Killers’ headlining set. Later, he labeled his band part of “the service industry.” He’s right. The Killers optimized everything for audience enjoyment: inviting a young fan onstage to play drums during “For Reasons Unknown,” covering Chicago power-pop heroes Material Issue, and playing the part of karaoke band for festival-goers to belt “Somebody Told Me” and “Mr. Brightside” back at them. Flowers even played air guitar to his own band, hamming it up the way Las Vegas boys do. The Killers can sleep soundly knowing fans left with sore throats and songs stuck in their heads. – N.C.
Future x Metro Boomin Go In Like That
Future x Metro Boomin dropped collaborative album We Don’t Trust You in March, and by April, the LP single “Like That” featuring Kendrick Lamar set off a beef between Lamar and Drake (others, including J. Cole and Rick Ross, also entered the chat) that would dominate the rap music news cycle on through the month of May. While that beef seems to be on pause for the moment, fans rushed the area to catch the penultimate song in their set list that launched a bevy of diss tracks. While their album collabs (they dropped We Still Don’t Trust You in April) featured several collaborators, Lolla was devoid of surprise guests, and the set focused on their separate and collective work, including “Type Shit” and “Luv Bad Bitches.” Future’s own “Fuck Up Some Commas” and “Low Life” and their cover of Young Thug’s “Relationship” were also among the standouts, inciting crowd rap-alongs and packing their headlining side of the festival. – A.L.
Skrillex Stuns the Crowd with Dubstep Anthems and Tasteful Remixes
Dubstep veteran Skrillex leaned into the genre that made him a household name, dropping bass-defying tracks “Xena” and “Rumble” off of his 2023 album Quest For Fire. As flames plumed from the stage, mosh pits began to spawn. Thrashing, understandably, ensued. Skrillex performed on the Sonny stage; the Perry stage was renamed after Skrillex’s first name in his honor for the day. Skrillex paused to acknowledge the stage’s ties to Lollapalooza founder Perry Farrell, adding that he wanted the stage’s name to remain dedicated to Perry. Skrillex also thanked the fans at the front rail, who attended his noon opening show: “you guys haven’t fucking moved,” he said, before slipping into a throwback set of head-banging, early 2010’s tunes like “Bangarang” and “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.” Fans voraciously fist-pumped to Skrillex’s new and early material, and chanted “one more song” as he walked offstage. – K.R.
Killer Mike Conducts Saturday Service
The outspoken Killer Mike took time during his set to talk social justice and community, a thread that weaves through his music and life as a social activist. “My name is Michael and my heroes are Alice Johnson and Fred Hampton,” he said, giving props to the people who inspired him to organize. “We about to have a revival.” Fresh off the release of Songs for Sinners and Saints, the “epilogue” to 2023’s Michael, his set featured gospel-flavored tracks from the new effort. Joined by the Mighty Midnight Revival and DJ Trackstar, Killer Mike served as the preacher taking the crowd to church while delivering standouts such as the organ-buoyed “Run” (“Free Young Thug” he said of the song’s collaborator) and “Talk’n That Shit!” He also brought out surprise guest Eryn Allen Kane for their collab “Scientists and Engineers.” “I hope you leave today loved and cared for,” the Run the Jewels member said towards the end of the set, giving an uplifting sendoff to his spiritually moving performance. – A.L.
Deftones Look Like Kids Again
The recent reappraisal of Deftones is led, in part, by TikTok and Gen Z, which seems responsible for the Sacramento band staying young at heart. Merging nu-metal, post-hardcore, and shoegaze, they pummeled through moody Nineties hits with chest-rattling volume, but that energy was all euphoric. Frontman Chino Moreno looked downright gleeful: hopping across monitors and doing high knees around the stage with a huge grin contrasting his bellows. No matter how heavy the songs, Deftones and their fans (who, at one point, had four mosh pits going simultaneously) were simply happy to be there — even when Moreno apparently chipped his tooth in the crowd during “Needles and Pins.” More than 35 years in, Deftones still found beauty in their artful brooding. – N.C.
Four Tet Sets the Table for Collaborator Skrillex
Four Tet, one of electronic music’s foremost innovators, provided the appetizer for Skrillex’s dubstep set. The veteran DJ abandoned his ambient soundtrack for a bass-heavy show, playing MPH’s “One Sixty” and a mashup of Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me Maybe” with dubstep newcomer Hamdi’s “Never Let You Go.” While sparingly performing songs from his 12th full-length album Three, which was released in March, Four Tet turned the volume up on the dubstep-inspired remix of Billie Eilish’s “Lunch” and Fred Again collab “Baby Again.” During Saturday’s show, he set the table for the headlining collaborator with “Butterflies” off of Skrillex’s Quest for Fire. – K.R.
Friko Channel the Indie Rock Spirit of Lolla 2007
In an era of indie rock skewering country or pop, local duo Friko are proudly reviving the emo-adjacent sound of the aughts instead. Joined by a guitarist, bassist, cellist, and violinists, singer-guitarist Niko Kapetan and drummer Bailey Minzenberger threw themselves — at times literally — into the music, with louder songs “Chemical” and “IN_OUT” teetering on post-punk. Friko wrung such raw, strained emotion from their songs that if you closed your eyes, you’d be forgiven for thinking Bright Eyes were playing. After their closing cover of Radiohead’s “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi,” peers from Hallogallo — Chicago’s unstoppable youth scene, which birthed Horsegirl and Lifeguard — showered Friko in cheers, as if spotting celebrities. —N.C.
Dora Jar Is the Class Clown Everyone Actually Likes
With how bubbly and impetuous Dora Jar’s indie pop songs are, perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that she’s just as quirky in person. Hiding behind a comically small curtain, Jar protruded a foot, then a hand, and finally her face to the tune of “She Loves Me” before parading around the stage, speaking in cartoonish voices, Polish, and dolphin squeaks. While “Polly,” “Multiply,” and “It’s Random” got the crowd dancing, Jar’s personality earned their respect. “We’re always performing, all of us, you realize that?” she asked. It was encouragement to prioritize authenticity, weirdness, and spontaneity — something Jar’s first-ever festival performance did with ease. —N.C.
IVE Shake it Up With Live K-Pop Arrangements
South Korean girl group IVE ran their massive world tour like a well-oiled K-pop machine. Lollapalooza fans, however, witnessed a rare change-up on that route: a five-piece live band. While IVE sang and danced to “Accendio,” “Eleven,” and “Heya,” the electronic-forward songs were elevated by jazzy, refined arrangements. That technically left room for possible mistakes, but in the hands of IVE, it only ushered reappreciation. “My hair gone, but I love you guys,” laughed Yujin, mildly embarrassed, following a wardrobe malfunction from dancing so hard. Those moments of unpredictability made IVE’s set uniquely memorable on an already unforgettable tour. – N.C.
Nia Archives Brought Jungle to the Mainstream Nia Archives, who three years ago played jungle mixes to a 30-person audience, now stood before hundreds of arm-flailing, shoulder-shimmying fans cheering her on. The “new gen junglist” slammed the gas on her hour-long set, queueing sped-up remakes of Charli XCX’s “365” and A$AP Ferg’s “Plain Jane,” and grabbed the microphone to perform “So Tell Me…,” “Cards On the Table,” and “Silence Is Loud” off her debut album of the same name. Since releasing her EP Headz Gone West in 2021, the 24-year-old artist has been on the rise, launching her curated club nights “Up Ya Archives,” opening for Beyonce’s Renaissance tour in London, and a 2023 Coachella performance. Her Saturday Lollapalooza was just as electric, keeping fans bouncing to her standout track “Forbidden Feelingz,” bringing a renewed energy to the electronic music subgenre. – K.R.
Jay-Z performing at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis in Paris.
Jay-Z Deserves the Super Bowl Halftime Gig
Where’s the love? Jay-Z asked that question 25 years ago, in the chorus of one of many songs in his catalog that still move audiences today. If he performs “Heart of the City” as part of his Super Bowl halftime show next February, those indignant bars are sure to be a highlight: “First the Fat Boys break up, now every day I wake up, somebody got a problem with Hov…” It would be an appropriate choice, too — because then as now, any time Jay-Z notches a new achievement, people find a way to complain.
The jokes and nonsense started almost as soon as the first rumors trickled out that Jay, whose company Roc Nation has executive-produced the Super Bowl halftime show since 2019, might be choosing himself to headline next year’s show. “Jay-Z just Dick Cheney’d himself for the Super Bowl,” Puck‘s Matthew Belloni quipped on X last week, alluding to the time that the late prince of darkness, who’d been asked to run the vice-presidential search committee for George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign, put himself on the ticket. (Super hip and current reference, and not at all apples-and-oranges.) Others pointed to TMZ reports that pop stars like Harry Styles and Justin Bieber had been asked first. “How are they the frontrunners, and he end up in the front?” Cam’Ron, who’s delighted in trolling Jay for many years, wondered aloud on his podcast. “Out of all the people on the roster, they couldn’t pick nobody else?” asked Cam’Ron‘s co-host, Ma$e.
These critiques miss the point, which is that Jay-Z is one of the best choices for a high-profile gig like this. He’s a superstar with a comparable level of name recognition to any other A-lister in music. He has a deep stack of classic songs going back decades. And he’s a highly skillful live performer who knows his way around a stadium stage, as he’s spent this year reminding people on his Jay-Z 30 tour. He tore down Yankee Stadium three nights in a row this summer; just last week, he rocked SoFi Stadium, which happens to be the same place where the 2027 Super Bowl is being held. He held the crowd’s attention with ease at all of those shows, and though there were plenty of glittery guests — that’s a given at a Jay show, and it will surely be true at the Super Bowl, too — he did it mostly through the force of his own magnetic energy. Let’s state the obvious here: Jay-Z is really, really good at rapping. We’re talking about one of the slickest, sharpest talkers in the history of words, someone who made it to the top through a sustained act of myth-making, then kept going. Are we seriously asking whether he can handle a 15-minute televised performance?
And yeah, there’s a touch of self-congratulation in the way he appointed himself. So what? Praising his own gifts is arguably Jay-Z’s greatest talent of all. He made a fine art out of self-applause. He told his story again and again, retracing the steps from Marcy Projects to the corner suite, and he made us believe. It would almost be insulting to the audience if he didn’t give himself the gig at some point.
Pop culture observers in recent years surely remember the backlash to Super Bowl headliners like Kendrick Lamar and Bad Bunny — all of it at least culturally conservative, and much of it frankly just racist. The blowback to Jay’s announcement is mostly coming from other quarters, at least for now (let’s just wait to see what the right-wing swamps make of this one). But it’s disappointing in a different way. Jay-Z has spent his career expounding hip-hop as a mainstream commercial force. He’s not a businessman, he’s a business, man. But he’s also an artist. He’s made huge amounts of money, and gotten himself into the rarefied rooms where he even has the ability to give himself a gig like this, by spinning his experiences into compelling narrative art, one verse at a time. Let’s not lose sight of how impressive his life’s work really is. Jay-Z is not some random C-suite bro, and he’s definitely not Dick Cheney. He’s one of the greatest rappers of all time, by any measure. He’s earned that Super Bowl spot.