Black Kids Prove They're Better Than the Buzz at Lollapalooza

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The natives were restless on Sunday afternoon at Lollapalooza, and who could blame them? They had already spent two days on the sun dancing, drinking and rocking out — clearly, their reserves were tapped. Salvation came in a stellar set from indie heartthrobs Black Kids, who took their U2-goes-to-the-disco tunes and let them bounce adroitly across Grant Park. The shimmering chords of "Hit the Heartbrakes" and "I've Underestimated My Charm (Again)" let the voices of frontman Reggie Youngblood and keyboardists Dawn Watley and Ali Youngblood dart to the surface with '60s girl group harmonies and call-and-response dance chants. Sometimes buzz kills a band dead, but the Black Kids have the chops to groove well past the usual expiration date.

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Song Stories

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The Joy Formidable | 2011

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”

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