Entertainment

/

ArcaMax

What we saw -- and heard -- at Chicago's Lollapalooza over 4 days

Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tribune on

Published in Entertainment News

CHICAGO — Lollapalooza 2025 is now over at Grant Park.

This year’s festival showcased an impressive blend of breakthrough acts and established favorites, with headliners like Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter and Tyler, the Creator. It was an exciting year for artists who’ve found their creative stride, from Grammy-nominated R&B powerhouse Durand Bernarr to genre-defying sensation Amaarae to mega breakout rapper Doechii, a hip hop superstar in the making.

Here’s a summary of some things we saw — and heard.

Day 4: Sabrina Carpenter closes out Lollapalooza

Day 4 opened in Grant Park under sunny skies, lower air quality alerts and a final lineup of music across the festival’s seven main stages.

Headliners were Sabrina Carpenter, making a day-closing stand for Lolla’s strong female lineup on the T-Mobile stage, and New York rapper A$AP Rocky on the Bud Light. It’s been nearly 10 years since A$AP Rocky last played Lollapalooza.

Other notable artists for the day included Finneas, the singer first famous in 2016 for teaming with sister Billie Eilish; Dominic Fike; a second Lolla for the Latin and jazz-infused indie band The Marías; and two concerts by Rebecca Black, the first a DJ set on the Perry’s stage.

Day 3: K-pop sing-along and a set by Winnetka Bowling League

Clear skies, lake breeze. Headliners for Lollapalooza Day 3 were more of a trio, with Australian electronic group Rüfüs Du Sol closing the day on the T-Mobile stage, K-pop girl group TWICE on the Bud Light and singer Mk.gee commanding his own strong following for his Saturday-capping set on the smaller Grove stage.

Other artists Saturday included indie-pop singer Clairo, Young Miko, Two Friends, Marina, Doechii and JPEGMAFIA. The Chicago Youth Symphony closed the Tito’s Handmade Vodka stage Saturday evening. Plus there was the surprise addition of Chance the Rapper with a 15-minute set on the Perry’s stage at 5:50 p.m. Chance has a new album, “Star Line,” due out on Aug. 15.

TWICE, the first-ever K-pop girl group to anchor the festival, drew K-pop fans sporting trademark accessories inspired by their favorite idols — bright colors, fur armwarmers, hair tinsel and baseball card-sized photos of their TWICE favorites.

“You can definitely tell when someone’s here for a certain singer,” said Bridget Sikorski,

Day 2: Olivia Rodrigo was Friday’s fest favorite

Friday was Olivia Rodrigo day at Lollapalooza as the festival opened for Day 2 in Grant Park.

Rodrigo was the T-Mobile mainstage headliner to close out the night, on the opposite end from metal band Korn on the Bud Light stage.

There was a sea of Rodrigo’s signature purple at the T-Mobile by noon on Friday. Some of her most dedicated fans, many wearing purple cowboy hats, made it a point to line up early to get the best view..

 

Day 1: Tyler, the Creator — and the first country headliner

Lollapalooza opened Thursday in Grant Park for its annual four days of crowds and music, with a lineup through Sunday heavy on female artists — Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter are both end-of-day headliners, with Gracie Abrams and Clairo also among the early crowd favorites.

Official headliners for Day 1 were Tyler, the Creator and Luke Combs, who closed out the night on the T-Mobile and Bud Light stages, respectively. Combs made Lollapalooza history as the Chicago festival’s first-ever country music festival closer.

At the main gates at Michigan Avenue and Ida B. Wells Drive, concertgoers got up with the sun to be first in the entrance chutes before the festival opened at 11 a.m.

Siblings Jacob Fuentes and Sofia Pogue traveled from Texas; this was the first concert ever for Sofia, 13, they said. Tyler, the Creator is her favorite artist. “I like a lot of music but I feel like I like (Tyler’s) the most,” she said.

Crowd safety has grown in importance

Lollapalooza can be seen as a safe haven — a place where music lovers go to catch all their favorite artists in one place. But along with that excitement comes crowds that can swell to outsized numbers for more popular artists, at a time when crowd safety has taken on a new sense of importance.

Some of that awareness this summer is due to the documentary “Trainwreck: The Astroworld Tragedy,” which was released on Netflix in June and quickly became popular. The documentary details the events leading up to the crowd crush that killed 10 people at rapper Travis Scott’s Astroworld music festival in Houston in November 2021.

As the festival was winding down Sunday, only two arrests had been reported, as well as the lowest number of medical transports for a Lollapalooza. Committee. Some of the decrease in medical transports was due to better on-site care, safety officials said.

Hybrid battery powers main stage as more festivals embrace clean energy

For the second year in a row, Lollapalooza powered its largest stage with a hybrid battery system, marking a growing trend of big-name music festivals transitioning away from diesel-based generators.

When the Chicago staple introduced its hybrid battery-powered stage in 2024, it became the first major U.S. festival to power its main stage with a battery system, which supplements the stage’s generators with energy stored from the electric grid. This system reduced the stage’s fuel consumption by 67%, and avoided 26 metric tons of carbon emissions, according to data from festival organizers.

This year’s system was expected to provide 1.5 megawatt hours of storage, the same capacity as last year. The system powered the T-Mobile stage.

________


©2025 Chicago Tribune. Visit at chicagotribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus