Red Hot Lolla

by carolyngoldschmidt on jun 03, 2011

My first trip to Lollapalooza was in the summer after my junior year of high school. I wasn't the coolest kid in my class, but I had recently discovered my incredible passion for live concerts, so when I heard that the Red Hot Chili Peppers were headlining Lolla I knew I had no choice but to camp out in front of their stage all day. One of my goals in life then and now is to get as close at possible to Anthony Kiedis. The day RHCP were headlining was one of those brutally hot Chicago days and shade at Lolla was few and far between. I was still living in the suburbs so for three days my cousin and I took the El from the end of the line all the way to Grant Park. We didn't care who else was playing on the Bud Light stage that day because we had already committed to claiming our spot and not moving until the proverbial curtain fell. As the day wore on and water was running out, all the devout RHCP fans stuck together. We fought off the Ben Kweller hippies together, shared our food and drink with each other, and stayed strong. As the day wore on we started begging the security at the front of the stage for some water as the collective dehydration set in. The Chili Peppers were getting closer and the crowd was getting bigger. By the time Queens of the Stone Age took the stage, little 16-year-old me was smashed up in between enormous, sweaty, dudes. The back of the crowd would push forward and the front of the crowd would push back. I was one layer of people behind the barricades, and after a while I didn't even have to try to stand because I was involuntarily being propped up by all the people around me, my feet were barely touching the ground. Being a 110 pound sixteen year old girl I had not had much experience in a mosh pit setting, but I wanted to hold my own for as long as I could to get my glimpse of my rock idols. Part of the way through the Queens of the Stone Age set I realized that even though I was feet from the stage, I would not be able to enjoy or even really watch the Chili Peppers because of the chaos I was caught in. I had been trampled and kicked by crowd-surfers all afternoon and eventually figured that was my only way out before I passed out in the crowd. Luckily, I was standing by some very nice, burly men so all I had to do was raise up my hand and I was on my way. I was lifted up above the crowd and pushed to the front where I was lifted down by security and sent off to the side. For a moment, I was flying above Grant Park. In the process of being passed over the crowd I lost one of my flip flops but managed to hold on to my shirt and bag. We ended up watching the Chili Peppers from the side, and it was still amazing. I rehydrated and enjoyed the show and my proximity to Anthony. At the end of the night, I really did not want to get on the El with bare-feet. I scanned the ground for a few seconds and soon enough found one flip flop to supplement the one lost to the crowd. As I was walking in my mismatched sandals, someone I had met yelled at me from a little bit away waving the match to my newly acquired shoe. So I ended the day with a new, albeit too small, pair of sandals, a lot of new friends, and a great Lollapalooza story.

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