Festivals are concerts on Hard Mode. Acoustics and attention work differently outdoors, distractions abound, and no matter who you’re seeing, most of the crowd probably came to see someone else. Veteran performers of coffee shops and clubs are met for the first time by indifference, and they can surprise themselves by leveling up — or bombing — in ways they never imagined.
And sometimes it rains.
Occasionally during Lollapalooza 2026, Hard Mode got cranked up to Legendary. Rain pockmarked the grounds and tested the audience’s resolve, as well as how much they liked their shoes. The schedule shuffled, and for three of the four days pretty much everyone in Grant Park had to stay on their toes.
This was my sixth straight year covering Lollapalooza, and as always my goal was to see as many different artists as I could for 15-20 minutes. I’ll get to the column’s regular features like Best in Fest a bit later, but let’s start with what we learned about the organizers, the audience, and yes, the performers, in the most challenging Lollapalooza since Covid: the Year of the Grant Park Mini-Flood.
Lollapalooza Kept the Ark Floating
Thursday had some lovely weather but most of Friday the clouds spit on us. Friday evening and Saturday that turned into downpours, and fields of already-damaged grounds washed away.
Photo by Joshua Druding
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Organizers pushed back opening the gates twice, landing on 3:00 PM. I entered through the media gate 10 minutes beforehand and saw black hoses coiled on the ground and a Badger hydrovac truck parked next to Club Magenta. In the lawn in front of T-Mobile, a skid steer pushed piles of wood chips over open pools of water.
At exactly 3:00, the speakers blasted the theme song from Star Wars: A New Hope. At 3:00:01, a single influencer at the main gate turned an entire crowd into sprinting lemmings.
The young man and his camera operator ran past me onto Columbus Drive — I assumed for the bragging rights of being first, since we still had 30 minutes before the opening sets. But everyone from that gate followed suit, galloping as if they were three hours late to the show. Lolla staffers kept asking “Why are they running?” loud enough for the running kids to hear them.
At the north entrance, everyone walked like well-adjusted adults.
And organizers pretty much pulled it off. They similarly managed Lil Uzi Vert’s sudden cancelation “due to weather” — and on their birthday, what a coincidence. They did show up later for Major Lazer. Meanwhile, Zara Larsson took his pre-headlining slot, which was probably to the liking of the main crowd this year hyped for a run of female powerhouses: Lorde, Charli xcx, Olivia Dean, Tate McRae, plus K-pop, J-pop, and lots and lots of gay pop. (Don’t worry, rock and hip-hop are coming in Best of Fest.)
Photo by Joshua Druding
Lollapalooza also made an honest-to-god improvement that pretty much everyone can agree on: The new midway is a godsend for families, a good time for party hards, and even a fresh photo op for influencers. It’s easily the biggest improvement to the Lolla experience post-pandemic. Is it original? Look, the kids riding the Ferris Wheel, shooting the basketball game, or eating deep-fried Oreos don’t care if this midway was obviously inspired by the midway of a fellow Chicago institution, Riot Fest.
Besides that, Lolla found some solutions for the recurring problem of nobody buying booze. Alcohol real estate near the main stage gave way to another bodega, the sunscreen-and-snack shop that premiered in 2016 but could be hard to find. Organizers also added a traveling bodega cart, and expanded the ice cream carts that debuted last year.
Fun, new amenities, a bit of whimsy among the relentless commerce, and a pretty good job dealing with what the insurance industry used to call an Act of God? Lolla killed it this year.
Best in Fest
Turnstile, photo by Joshua Druding
Best frontman goes to Viagra Boys’ Sebastian Murphy making his Lolla Chicago debut. He growled at us, “Hello Coachella,” and only got funnier from there. His shirtless belly sticking out, his upper ass cheeks flapping majestically with each stomp across the stage, he absolutely tore through “Man Made of Meat,” and then said, “Thank you, fellow 19-year-olds.” Murphy also mocked the Platinum viewing section, asking, “Why is everybody so far away from me except for these nine rich assholes?”
(Best festival buddy goes to my colleague Jonah Krueger, whose setlist research let us start at Lorde, check out a main chunk of Viagra Boys, and be back in time for “girl, so confusing remix” and Charli xcx’s expected surprise appearance. As opposed to the communal Clairo-Doechi pilgrimage last year, I think we’re the only two people who did this particular trek, and I also think it might have been the ideal way to experience Thursday night.)
Best technique goes to the clockwork Clipse, who turned in a late-period Scorsese kind of performance. Pusha and Malice worked all sides of the stage, never ran out of breath, and used pretty much every trick in the veteran’s book to keep the whole wide audience engaged.
Best ensemble goes to Die Spitz, who started after rain delay at 3:30 on the dot with bassist Kate Halter walking out on her hands. All three vocalists gave muscular performances, and instead of commiserating for the rain and the muddy mosh pit, they negged us with, “You’re being lamer than Coachella. Don’t embarrass yourselves.” A wildly talented group, I found myself caught up watching all of them at different times.
Best mosh pit goes to Turnstile, whose live performances are never worse than a B+. And additional kudos to the house camera man who got into the massive pit with those lunatics; it made for great shots on the projector screens, though I sure hope it wasn’t his personal camera.
The Rain Test
Slayyyter, photo by Joshua Druding
When it starts to rain, audience members ask themselves, am I happy here, or would I be happier somewhere else?
