Lollapalooza (part uno)

I don’t blame you if you decided not to plunk down serious cash on Lollapalooza this summer. I’m not a huge fan of music festivals, but this year’s hullabaloo turned out to be a fantastic convergence of a whole bunch of bands I want to see, a friend visiting from out of town for the festival and the need for one last weekend of jollification in Chicago.

Mind, I didn’t shell out for the $850 VIP passes, but I still cringed a little when I pushed the button. And I didn’t even get tickets for the whole weekend. The task of paying to see live music acts is, after all, becoming increasingly tricky.

If you didn’t pay to see the acts in the festival, you might be able to catch a few of them at Lolla after-shows. Some of them are still not sold out. NBC Chicago has been keeping tabs on what are shaping up to be the best after-parties. (There’s some overlap here)

As it gets closer to go-time for the after-shows, take a look on craigslist. Sometimes people will be trying to shed tickets for less than face value close to concert-time, if they’re not really hot tickets. I decided to search for Andrew Bird tickets for Schubas tonight (even though I’ll see him at the festival tomorrow) to see if there were any deals. Tickets that sold (and went fast) for $40 a piece are now going for $200 to the $400 range, but then Andrew’s a Chicago favorite.

The Decemberists pre-show tonight looks a little more reasonable, with most tickets going for close to face value at $40. Though some of the requests come with caveats, like guessing the seller’s favorite Decemberists song.

So, if you’re looking to hear some sweet songs this weekend, look to the after shows and to Craigslist. I’ll let you know how the festival goes and how much I end up shelling out for bottled water down at Grant Park.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 6th, 2009 at 2:55 pm and is filed under Chicago, Commoncents, Freekend, Tunes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.