@AndyShore My second hometown festival this year that I cannot attend. Thankfully, there are plenty of our friends and readers there to represent. Just because I’m not there, doesn’t mean I haven’t put any thought into who I’d be seeing if I was. This is a line-up full of my favorites, and far surpasses FYF Fest (which I will be at tomorrow). To all who attend, have fun with Umphrey’s McGee, Grace Potter and Lupe Fiasco for me. I’m there in spirit.

Friday

North Coast doesn’t ease you in on Friday. Enjoy the dance party of Pretty Lights and I’m sure Chemical Brothers will be back on more than just another one of those other “Block Rockin’ Beats.”

Be sure to get into North Coast by 2:00 to catch Great Divide. It'll be tough to leave, but definitely catch some of the end of New Mastersounds. Those dudes are funky. Cozy up to the stage after that and hold down a good spot for Grace Potter & the Nocturnals. If you've seen them before, you'll understand what I mean. If you're seeing them for the first time, you can thank me later. From there it's a back and forth of can't misses with the New Deal, Jay Electronica, De La Sol, and then, so much more than the cherry on top, Umphrey's McGee. I just watched their new short film The Tabernacle this afternoon. I'm totally in awe of these guys every time I seen them play (and it's somewhere in the 60s I believe).

Saturday

Sunday

Sundays are sleep-in days. Roll in at 3:30 for Dirty Dozen Brass Band. These dudes are sure to bring the N'awlins funk to North Coast. Speaking of funk, go see my fellow MOT, Mayer Hawthorne & the Country. Eat some dinner and get up close for Lupe Fiasco. The dude is a performer, and the star of my favorite photograph that I've ever taken.

@ZackTeibloom There’s something special about a weekly residency. It’s how Festival Crashers got to know Ezra Furman so well and we couldn’t be happier about that. Thankfully we have a residency starting up tonight, as Hot Club of Cowtown begins a 5-week run at Continental Club. Don’t know them yet? Well, they’re a three-piece band with violin, guitar and stand-up bass and they all sing. Singer and violinist Elana James describes them as similar to early string bands. Like Norah Jones w/ some Wayne Hancock. Comparable to Caroline Chocolate Drops.  Still not sure what to expect? She insists you have to come see them to really understand. Bob Dylan saw them live opening for Willie Nelson and brought Elana on tour. The only woman to tour with him in 30 years. Convinced yet? It’s only $5, which also lets you in on happy hour specials. Jools Holland had the band on twice and this NYE gig was pure fire:

James told me that they tour so relentlessly because it’s the only way to get people’s attention. If you start to describe bands they sound like, you lose the attention of the average music fan. But see them play and a whole world opens up to you.

“It’s so hard to describe what we do,” she said. “It’s why we tour our asses off for such a long time. It would be great if we could relay that this is everyone’s music. Not just for people who fought in World War 2.”

She says they’ve never dumbed it down or sold out or put bells and whistles on their show to get more mass appeal, insisting it’s great as it is. I asked if they played covers and she corrected me, “standards.” Classics like “Georgia” and “Someone to Watch Over Me” and “Pennies From Heaven” and “I Can’t Believe You’re in Love With Me.”

Come see a few standards tonight @ 6:30 p.m. to Continental Club on 1315 S. Congress.

• Follow Hot Club of Cowtown on Twitter
• Be Hot Club of Cowtown’s friend on Facebook

Full disclosure: I’m running the social media for Hot Club of Cowtown now. I truly enjoy their music or I wouldn’t be doing it. I didn’t say anything I don’t think is entirely true. Enjoy the show!

@ZackTeibloom After an easy crash on day one of Lollapalooza and an exhausting run around on day two, I was regretting the crash for day 3. Brett was a fun crash partner for two days of crashing, but my wise young crashing friend acquired a free Sunday pass from a guy on the train, leaving me to crash alone.

It rained in the morning, prompting me to leave my sunglasses and sunblock at home and take a sweatshirt and a hat. I’d regret that later. I did the same walk around as the day before, and there was no crashing to be had. The rain and lack of people trying to get in at once made the expertly placed security ready for all crashers. That’s why god invented the pass back.I decided it was probably best that I didn’t get in to crash, since I needed to hit up an ATM and get some breakfast. I stop by Starbucks for some Oatmeal and a smoothie to recharge for day three and get a text from Mix Master Laura that she needs a place to store her bag so she doesn’t have to carry it around all day. I figure we can run it up to Jeff’s apartment a few blocks away, have a quick sandwich, head toward the fest and she can pass back her wristband.

That all goes according to plan, until we learn another reason why you don’t want to mix crashing and sandwiches. Besides it making you over think the crash, you get sloppy. I notice I’m getting missed calls from numbers I don’t know and eventually decide to answer. Right as Laura and I part ways, she realizes she left her phone charging in Jeff’s apartment. We decide to meet by the media entrance and pass back there.

I walk all the way around to the media entrance as Laura keeps calling me from a different random number, until I find her standing next to a row of port o potys, with her wristband. There are cops everywhere but we stand by the fence talking for a couple minutes and she hands it through the chain link fence. I re-attach the wristband, using the little bit of stickiness it has left and make my way to the entrance Brett crashed the day before. The best part about this entrance is the guy guarding the door has no scanner and can’t tell this pass has been used before.

I do the “over show,” which is what you want to do when you have the pass, but there’s something off about it. If it’s a home made stamp or an off-colored wrist band, or one that doesn’t scan. You want the guard to think you have nothing to hide. You going up to them startles them and they just wave you through. Trust me on this one. Anyway, I was grateful to be in and I got a text a few hours later from Tatar who wanted to see Soundgarden, so I met him up and passed him back the pass too and we did an impromptu victory dance. After three days of crashing a fest in a row, it only seemed appropriate.

@ZackTeibloom This is a win-win in my book. We help festival guru Big Bri get to North Coast on Sunday and bring his fiancée since they have to miss Saturday for someone else’s wedding. He has agreed to bring bacon pancakes for the first 50 people he runs into going to the fest on Sunday, so even more win! Betsy may not bring bacon pancakes (and I may have made up the part about Big Bri bringing them as well) but she has Umph love from way back and we respect that. And she asked nicely.

Winner #1: Big Bri

This has been my first festival-less summer since I hit Bonnaroo 2003.  When I first heard about North Coast, I had to change my pants (twice).  Some of my favorite bands in my hometown.  The best mix of jambands and electronica (do people still say electronica?) I’ve seen put together.  What could possibly go wrong?

Well I happen to have a jerk friend who scheduled his stupid wedding on Saturday (the best day of the fest) and wouldn’t even change the wedding for me.  So I pouted and put off buying tickets, sour due to this great couple and their poorly scheduled holy matrimony.  I’m rambling.

If I get the tickets for Sunday, I’m most excited for Flying Lotus and Lupe.  I’d have to check out Maps and Atlases, Dirty Dozen, and Benny Benassi.  For the headliners, I’d probably bounce between the two shows.  I’ve seen Disco a few times, but it’s never really stuck.  I will be bringing my Fiancée, Sam, who has to return to NYC for grad school on the following Tuesday.  If I spent all day at a fest without her two days before she left, I don’t think that’d go over very well.

Also, if I had tickets for the Sunday show I’d be able to buy late night tickets for the Omega Moos, who are by far my favorite fake band ever.  It’d require me doing the wedding fairly sober, but worth it in the end.

Wait!  I’d eat bacon to power up for Sunday’s show.  Specifially, bacon pancakes.  Like this: Yes, creative answer!

Winner #2: Betsy

I want those Saturday tix! I didn’t think I’d be in town so I didn’t get any, but now I will be here and UMPH is calling my name. As you may or may not know, I consider myself an original Umphrey’s fan, with my first show being alllll the way back in 2000. All my original cohorts will be at Saturday’s show (Swides, Charlie Brown, you know the rest!) and I know their experience at North Coast wouldn’t be complete without their token female counterpart. Me. I really wanna go!!

Also, I am really looking forward to finally hearing Moby do a DJ set. I’ve been hooked on his emo-country albums forever, so it’ll be nice to hear him do something totally different.

Please guys, please?!

You got it.

@ZackTeibloom Our friends at North Coast Must Festival (Labor Day Weekend in Chicago) have given us a pair of tickets to give away for Saturday and another pair to give away for Sunday. Andy and I discussed the festival in our new Podcrash and gave you a little guide for what shows to see and why it seems like the fest was made just for us. I mean, Umphrey’s McGee (our favorite prog-rock jam band), Grace Potter (our favorite female-led band) and Lupe (our hometown hero)? Too. Much. Fun.

If you want a pair of tickets for Saturday or Sunday, you’re gonna have to drop some knowledge on us. You have two options. As always, the most creative answer wins:

1. Tell us how you’ll make the most out of your Saturday or Sunday ticket. What shows will you go to in what order and why? Paint us a picture of what that day will be like and tell us the special person you’re bringing with you. If we like your story, we’ll make it happen.
2. Sunday is always the hardest day of the festival (if you’ve been going hard since Thursday or Friday.) How do you beat the case of the Sundays? What do you eat/drink/take to prepare? How do you make the most out of the day and not let the heat and blisters beat you? Seriously, we need these tips. We crash (energy wise) by the last day.

You have until Thursday August, 26th at noon to enter. E-mail your response to: Zack@festivalcrashers.com and make sure you let us know what day you want to go. Happy festivaling!

@AndyShore Put all of our favorite bands into a line up and throw a festival in our hometown. You know we’re going to talk about it. Zack and I run through the stellar line-up of North Coast Music Festival and talk about why Lupe Fiasco should be a headliner (it’s his hometown too!).  Speaking of festivals and Chicago…Zack also reflects on some of the highlight of Lollapalooza 2010. We close with Zack telling us about his recent photo shoot. Thanks for listening to the Podcrash. Like the blog, with more laughing.

Listen to The Podcrash here.

@ZackTeibloom This doesn’t happen at every other festival. I don’t know why. It’s just a Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo thing from what I’ve seen. And it’s different at Bonnaroo. When the night ends, the crowd spills out right in the smack of downtown and there is a magical buzz. A whooping buzz. Sure the “Bonnna-rooo!” chants come out, but that’s in the middle of Tennessee in a muddy farm. This is Michigan Avenue. One of the classiest streets in the country. And it’s happened like this every night this fest has been in Chicago. A good, healthy festival energy.

@ZackTeibloom If at the exact moment Blues Traveler is playing “Run Around” and a lane opens up that would just be a 40 yard dash running around the check in and you still can’t crash, it’s a sign you’re in for a long day of crashing. We tried every entrance before our opportunity finally presented itself Saturday. On Friday I had @snoogans913 crashing with me. Saturday I brought Smoosh along as well. A menage a crash. Not the most ideal situation. Especially on a day where the crowd didn’t seem to come in packs.

Brett got their early and told us to meet him at the side entrance. Not a good call. Five blocks out of the way and far too much security. Could we just walk in the entrance despite their being more security than people? Not so much. It felt like we each had our own security guard watching us. Did it stop me from trying three times? Of course not. I got escorted away mumbling about media check in. Having verified that entrance as a bust, we walked three blocks in the wrong direction as Snoogans and smoosh talked about jumping a fence on Lakeshore Drive.

“I don’t do crazy tactics. You don’t jump fences!”

It was ugly early on, I’m not gonna lie. 20 minutes later we’re at the main entrance and it’s just as rough. I finally notice that there is an exit row, which is usually crashing gold, but damn they have a guard at both ends of it. I sit on the fence of one exit row and start inching my way towards the entrance and get half way there before the guy guarding the entrance just points at me. OK, I get the point.

“That guy knows what we’re doing and he doesn’t like it. I don’t know what the next plan is.”

At this point, we’ve been dicking around for an hour and facing dead end after dead end. I notice that at the VIP check-in on the far right of the line, the security guard has left. That means if I can get around that checkpoint, it’s a 40 yard sprint and I’m in. What I didn’t expect, was that the non-security guy checking people in would spring to life and get into a defensive stop the second I stepped around his tent. He was shockingly fast. Thankfully Brett saw the whole thing and we recorded this video:

All along I thought the best place to try was the media entrance. It’s just one guard and they usually don’t care what’s going on. It took way too long to get there, but once we did it was golden. After just a few minutes of waiting around, some head honcho security guy appeared to be letting in an entire family with no wristbands. It was clear from listening to them talk that they were friends and getting a favor. Smoosh noticed what I noticed, which was that this big shot security guy was getting the lowly security guy guarding the gate to just allow anyone with him inside. We sidled up to their party and waltzed right in. Brett somehow was sleeping, but I’ll let him tell how he got in:

As always the lesson is to just be patient. You’ll get in eventually. Wait for your opportunities. They will come. Thanks for sticking with me, Snoogans and Smoosh. Since Snoogans got someone to give up a wristband and Smoosh is golfing, I’ll be flying solo today.

@ZackTeibloom Green Day is the kind of show that skews the grading system. They did it all. I mean everything. The amount of artists who have that many moves in their pure entertainment repertoire is limited to The Flaming Lips and Girl Talk. That’s about it.

I’m choosing these words carefully on this next sentence, because this thought wouldn’t escape me throughout their two and a half hour set: Green Day is the most effective band at consistently pleasing a crowd I have ever seen. Were they the best musical act I’ve ever seen? Probably not in the top 25. They have a deep song catalog, and they know what they’re doing with it, but it was all in the performance.

With a lot of bands you can see a handful of songs and feel like you got the point. At least that’s what you need to convince yourself, so you can make it through Lolla without feeling like you caught everything. Not the case with Green Day. Every minute was a chance to pull out one of their well worn performance aspects. They lean heavily on audience participation and pull it off so well because Billy Joe knows who to bring up, what to tell them and exactly how much sway to give them. (Read and watch the 5 best moments from the show if you haven’t yet.)

They paced the set expertly with songs from every era. The “Longview,” “Basket Case” and  “When I Come Around” Dookie classics mixed with “American Idiot” and “Warning” and “Insomniac” and, of course, ending with “Time of Your Life.”

But it was more than the originals. They tried a bit of everything. There was an 80’s rock montage featuring a riff of “Highway to Hell” and others before a decently long take on “Sweet Child of Mine.” And honestly, what more could you ask for than a medley of “Shout” & “Satisfaction” & “My Kind of Town” and “Hey Jude” back into “Shout” with most of it being done on their backs?!

When you know a 9.7 Phoenix show is going down on the other side of the fest, it’s hard to stay, but I could never justify leaving. Green Day was so damn entertaining. And at the end of the day, that’s what I want. I never thought I’d say they were twice as crowd pleasing as Lady Gaga. It’s shocking how much better they were. Ra Ra.

Performance: 20/20 What was there not to love? As a friend of a friend said while leaving “It’s everything I’d ever want from a rock show. And maybe a little more.” The pyrotechnics, the visuals, the songs, the fireworks, the medleys. They pulled out every trick. Even borrowing a couple (like the toilet paper shooter trick from Wayne Coyne and Girl Talk. It all worked. Except the t-shirt gun. I say that now, but I’m not wearing a shirt. Other bands should take notes. A lot of notes.

Crowd Engagement: 10+/10 Are you kidding? The crowd was the show. I gave it it’s own post it was so incredible. Read it. Watch the videos. I swear it’s worth it.

Ambiance: 5/5 I waited 45 minutes for this show and suffered through Slightly Stoopid, but once that ended it was all gravy. I was next to Brett and Josh and they were both being made out with by a 40-something woman from New Orleans who was so excited someone had finally shared a sandwich with her. Possibly the only time I’ve ever been glad I didn’t have my own sandwich at a fest. Glad I sat that one out. Seriously though, a little moshing and we never considered leaving at any point in the 2.5 hours.

Set List: 8/10 There’s a lot of newer Green Day songs I don’t like. I was worried that could be a big problem. It wasn’t really. They space the set so well and always have the crowd participation so insanely interesting that there are few lulls. And if so, just make a New Orleans festival goers day. Or watch it and laugh. If you’re like me, you’ve listened to a shit ton of Green Day in the 16 years since Dookie came out and it was all anyone could talk about. Their song catalog has built up rather nicely since then.

Misc: 5/5 They had the longest set time of anyone all weekend and went over! Who are they, Pearl Jam? If I said they were far more entertaining than Pearl Jam would you be mad?

Overall: 48/50 or 9.6/10

Green Day did such a spectacular job of getting the crowd involved that this section needed its own post. I captured three of my favorite moments, but there were 5 crowd participation moments that you couldn’t help but love.

5. The Cute little girl in pigtails

Billy sounded a little creepy at first when he said, “I want someone young. I want someone fresh. A fresh little boy or girl” but it couldn’t have been sweeter once she was on stage.

4. Everyone on stage!

This one really didn’t turn out that well. There were 15 creepy people on stage all trying to out-retard one another. The first dude on stage had gross bleached hair and planted a kiss right on a slightly fazed Billie Joe. It was amusing to see this collection of failure attempt something “clever” like hitting the cymbal with their bare hands while the band pretended not to be annoyed. At least we got all the fail out at once.

3. “Hey Jude”

This medley is all kinds of awesome all the way through, but when they go from “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” to “Hey Jude” at the five minute mark we go to sing-a-long town. Not a place I like to ever leave.

2. The breakout star on “Longview”

This kid nailed it. Sorry there’s no video for this guy, but the random guy from the crowd he chose to sing pretty much all of “Longview” ran around and owned the stage better than 75% of the front men I’ve seen this festival. He moved like he’s spent his life on stage in front of 75,000 people, jumped off the speakers, pumped the crowd up and at the end Billie Joe gave him a guitar. A breakout performance to say the least.

1. The Stage Dive

“Put down your cameras. Everyone put down your cameras. Come over here. He’s gonna do a stage dive.” You always hope a stage dive will go this well. They rarely do.