Lollapalooza '09 Guide: 30 Hot Bands, Three Jam-Packed Days

All festivals come packaged with them the necessity of choice, but few festivals make those choices as difficult as Lollapalooza, once again anchored by Perry Farrell's Jane's Addiction. With eight stages full-up for 12 hours over three days, you may find yourself having to ask some pretty ridiculous questions, like "Lou Reed or Snoop Dogg?" "Andrew Bird or Of Montreal"? We've done our best to eliminate some of those dilemmas below, but for the headliners, even we're not gonna make that call. Here's our guide to risk-minimization at Perry's big party.

Friday

11:15 a.m.-12:00 p.m. - April Smith
It's possible you haven't heard much about April Smith but all that is about to change. This Brooklyn singer-songwriter combines country and swing, making crackling songs that wink and smile and sway. She's got a rich, plummy voice, and she lays it on thick over a taut guitar strum, making for music as long on charm as it is on melody.

12:00-12:30 p.m. - Other Lives
Moody, piano-based art rock isn't always the best fit for a festival, but Other Lives make their haunting balladry so bewitching it's hard to recommend seeing anyone else. Their debut album is full of strange, haunted songs, vocalist Jesse Tabish's delicate tenor floating ghostlike above the arrangements. It's difficult to believe the band isn't from Britain, but ... Oklahoma.

1:00-1:45 p.m. - The Knux
Lolla's hip-hop offerings are slimmer than in previous years, but the Knux do a fine job of compensating for the oversight. Their rhymes are quick and adroit, and they're delivered over the booming backbeats that have all the fury and potency of grimy rock & roll — a few songs are even built around grimy guitar lines. For a festival that specializes in searing riffage, the Knux are a natural fit.

2:00-3:00 p.m. - The Gaslight Anthem
A no-show at All Points West, expect Gaslight to compensate for the absence by bringing their blistering, unbeatable brand of heart-on-sleeve blue-collar rock to Chicago. Gaslight are everything you go to rock music for: steely determination, pie-eyed optimism, a sense of perseverence through endless defeat and a confidence and conviction that life can — and will — be better. The perfect band for such beleaguered times, don't be surprised to find them fronting the big stage a few years from now.

3:00-4:00 p.m. - Bon Iver
Quiet often doesn't play well at festival shows, but if there's anyone who can pull it off, it's Justin Vernon, a.k.a. Bon Iver. Vernon's songs are tiny and folky, but there's something about his wavering croon that draws an audience in — like a wise, kind-eyed old wanderer gently beckoning you to follow him into his cave. Vernon's songs are soothing and soleful, and might be just the thing to cool off a steamy afternoon.

4:15-5:00 p.m. - Eric Church
Church never quite topppled the mainstream the way fellow country stars Keith Urban and Brad Paisley did, which is a genuine shame. Church's song's have more rock bluster and raw nerve than both of those artists combined, and his canny knack for turning country tropes inside out, making a loving mockery of the music's conventions, makes his albums endlessly rewarding. Live, Church is not-to-be-missed — a full-force rock show that comes out guns blazing and remains wild-eyed and fully-charged for the duration.

5:00-6:00 p.m. - Fleet Foxes
The new patron saints of indie folk, Fleet Foxes have effortlessly translated their pastoral songs to big stages. The trick is emphasizing those harmonies: eerie and almost monastic, they sound spectacular sweeping out over a large field, a little bit of Appalachia arriving in the middle of Illinois.

6:00-7:00 p.m. - The Decemberists
The Decemberists have the reputation for being overstudied eggheads, but ever since they discovered prog, their live shows have become engaging, jubilant affairs. Their music is complex to be sure — they're fond of 6-plus-minute story songs with weird codas and bridges — but they deliver them with such determination it's hard not to be won over. On top of that, they've become crack musicians, stitching up songs with nimble solos and favoring skilled instrumentation as much as razor-sharp writing.

7:00-8:00 p.m. - Of Montreal
Everyone wants a show to tell their friends about the next day — "You won't believe what these guys did!" Of Montreal put on that kind of show. Kevin Barnes and Co. employ all manner of costume and prop to make for one of the weirdest, wildest, winningest shows in pop music, serving up bubbling and oddly-angular synth-pop with maximum flair and panache. Barnes is not averse to entering on horseback or wearing a prince's 18th Century garb, so what kind of shenanigans they'll pull in front of such a large audience is anybody's guess.

8:00-10:00 p.m. - Depeche Mode vs. Kings of Leon
That Depeche Mode managed to transcend their of-the-moment status two decades ago to emerge as one of the most enduring and dependable stadium acts is one of pop music's nicer surprises. Chalk most of that up to the charisma of David Gahan. He's a wild, energizing frontman, and he hurls himself into his band's dark, doomy songs with unparallelled conviction. You may think of them as an '80s band, but five minutes of their live show will convince you that they are one for the ages.

Fittingly, they're up against Kings of Leon. It's doubtful there will be much of an audience split, but the Kings' gradula transformation from gritty Southern rock to the kind of pealing anthems plied by U2 shows the same canniness Depeche Mode demonstrated around the time of Violator. Needless to say, the Kings are well-practiced in owning large audiences, and that their soaring songs should be the perfect close for Day One.