Banned of Horses

I actually saw Band of Horses twice during Lollapalooza. The first time was at the Kidzapalooza stage where they played three songs on Saturday, including "Nature," which they say will be on Yo Gabba Gabba next season.



Caught them again on Sunday after Lou Reed. Now, Lou Reed is Lou Reed, so he can start 15 minutes late and go 20 minutes over and nobody's going to complain. He's Lou Reed, he was in the Velvet Underground. You're not Lou Reed, and chances are you weren't in the Velvet Underground. Got it? So, when Lou Reed goes 20 minutes over, there's not really much Band of Horses can do.

So, Band of Horses finally gets the chance to rock out, and they do obviously, 20 minutes later than planned because Lou Reed wanted to read the lyrics to "Walk on the Wild Side" from his teleprompter. Band of Horses is great at rocking out, they bring it, all the way 'til 8:30, which is when Jane's Addiction is about to start.

Perry Farrell said that this year he was going to get a helicopter, and sure enough, starting at about 8:25 you could see a helicopter circling around downtown. Then once 8:30 came around it got closer and closer. I keep pointing it out to Juan, we keep laughing like "oh man, what the hell, Perry."

Now, what does Band of Horses do? At 8:30 they're wrapping up "Funeral." There were still a lot of people around the stage, and apparently everyone knew the words. Who'd've thunk it.

Then they kept playing.

Like, whoa.

"Should we play some more?" And the crowd goes wild.

"How about another?" Yes please.

They played for a good 20 more minutes. Jane's Addiction even started their set while Band of Horses was still playing.

Now look, Lou Reed can go 20 minutes over and nobody else is going to start their set. Band of Horses goes over, and Perry Farrell, the man who created this festival, is going to start. I'm sure in the middle of the stages there was some incredible [pejorative] sound bleeding, but where we were standing all we could hear is Band of Horses. Sure if we turned around we could see Perry and Dave Navarro on the jumbotron, but who wants to look at that when Band of Horses refuses to stop rocking the fuck out?

Chances are, Band of Horses is never getting invited back to Lollapalooza, considering the played over the headliner, who happens to be the dude who invented this thing. But really, it doesn't matter. This time, this one time, this night, they had the best damn set. It was the best set of the day, if not of the weekend, for me. Festival-affirming, right there. Way to go, Band of Horses. On this night, you were fucking heroes.

Gotta love Sub Pop recording artists from the pacific northwest who have beards and are named after quadrupeds.

Right?

[that's Fleet Foxes. They are also on Sub Pop, they also have beards, and they were also good at this festival]