Lollapalooza 2006 Wrap-Up: Top Five Moments

It's going to take several days to recover properly from our weekend in Chicago at Lollapalooza. We are sunburned, dirty and gloriously hung-over. All is as it should be. But as we look back on the last three days a few moments stand out as consummate Lollapalooza 2006 awesomeness. Here they are:

1. The Raconteurs covering "Crazy." Kanye did it later in the weekend but Jack's take was the best. The Raconteurs also win the prize for being the most intimidating band at the festival — they stride around like a well-dressed gang of hoods looking for trouble.

2. Patti Smith's surprise appearance on the kids' stage. She could have sung lullabies or something but instead performed a searing new protest song and nonchalantly announced she's proof "any asshole can play guitar" to an audience of confused six-year-olds and their visibly uncomfortable parents.

3. The ice cream man. He spends his life giving away free ice cream but saves the Reese's bars for himself. Awesome.

4. The packs of toddler hipster kids sporting day-glo mohawks they got from a booth at Kidzapalooza.

5. Be Your Own Pet. Lead singer Jemina puked onstage, grinned, then announced to the crowd, "Well, I just puked so we might as well do another song." The band's rock dad, Thurston Moore, video camera in hand, watched on proudly from the side of the stage.

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
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  MOVIES 'Great Gatsby' Is a Crushing Disappointment
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  TV Why You Should Watch 'Happy Endings'
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  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

More Song Stories entries »

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