I saw Lady GaGa for free
well, ok, I heard her for free
08/06/2010 11:52 PM
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I'm too much of a fuddy duddy to go to Lollapalooza. Even though it's just a few blocks from my house, I just can't see myself there. But I do like Lady GaGa. So when my friends, the Wards, suggested coming over tonight and walking around the perimeter of the music bash at the south end of Grant Park, specifically Hutchinson Field (where Barack came out the night he won and spoke to the world), I said OK.
We got there just a few minutes after eight, and Roosevelt Road wasn't very crowded. Lots of barriers--and workers guarding the barriers--but it was comfortable being behind the Lady GaGa stage while on the Museum Campus pathway--and we could hear her belt out "Telephone" pretty well. Then we walked to the east of the field, across the Outer Drive, with the lake and the sailboats behind us, and still not all that many people were there to hear the concert for free. There were probably more bikes than rock fans. From that angle, across the outer drive brisk with cars, we could even see the video screen and we could hear Lady GaGa saying some choice words to her little monsters.
After a while, it got very dark--and my friends walked north along the lakefront and I settled in calm and alone at a table at the water's edge, facing both the Field Museum and the Shedd Aquarium. Tour boats glided slowly in the distance, lit inside their cabins with dim incandescents--and it looked like a Victorian summer lake community. All of a sudden a booming and strikingly colorful fireworks display began overhead in honor of Bears Family Night at Soldier Field. It interfered with Lady GaGa singing either "Bad Romance" or "Just Dance." In the distance, I couldn't tell.
On the way home, I walked over the 11th Street Bridge and could hear "Poker Face" behind me. There was huge applause, too. I was satisfied with the Lady GaGa concert--the price was right and it played beautifully against the backdrop of a relatively peaceful, quiet and very lovely lakefront.