A Feel-Good Finale: Day 4 Lollapalooza 2017

On Day Four of Lollapalooza, rapper Machine Gun Kelly delivered one of the most aggressive sets of the entire festival. Kelly, who appeared wearing a silver jacket, skinny black jeans and loafers, clearly enjoyed his first-ever performance at Lolla. “Middle fingers up,” he shouted at the start of a rowdy set that included a tribute to Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington, who committed suicide earlier this year. Kelly, who paid tribute to Bennington with a rendition of the Linkin Park tune “Numb,” said the gray skies provided the right atmosphere for him to honor the singer. “I wish the 15-year-old me could have seen the 27-year-old year me and known that I would be playing Lollapalooza,” Kelly said at one point in the set, adding that he was “a Cleveland kid” from a city that was a mere five-hour drive away. His rapid-fire raps in tracks such as “Trap Paris” and “Bad Motherfucker” displayed impeccable timing and had a real fierceness to them. He also capably handled “Bad Things,” his big radio hit, by asking the women in the audience to sing the parts that Camila Cabello performs on the studio version. They obliged, and the tune soared.

 Dance pop divas Charli XCX and Tove Lo also delivered strong performances. Charli XCX, who wore white bell bottoms and a mid-riff baring T-shirt as she sauntered onto the stage with a drink of some sort in her hand, treated the Lolla stage like a club as she sang tunes such as Icona Pop’s “I Love It” and Iggy Azaela’s “Fancy,” both of which had featured her. Her two band mates danced more than they actually manipulated their sequencers. Performing with a backing track, Charli clearly didn’t employ them for their musical abilities.

With the help of a live band, Tove Lo’s set had more of an immediacy to it. While pounding drums absorbed a good deal of the nuances of songs such as “Talking Body” and “Habits (Stay High),” the two club hits still thrilled the huge crowd that assembled to see the singer perform. Dressed in a leotard and bright red sweats, Lo fervently swung her wild mane in the air (like she just didn’t care) during a set that would have been good for an aerobics workout.

The Shins gave our favorite performance of the day. Led by singer-songwriter and guitarist James Mercer, the band evoked the Beatles with tunes such as “Name For You” and “Mine’s Not a High Horse.” Backed by an ensemble of musicians capable of delivering cooing backing vocals and a variety of instrumentation, Mercer never sounded better. “Look at all the people who have come to see us play,” he said in response to the throng of fans that came to see the band’s early evening set. He and his band really fed off of the crowd’s energy.

While the Shins thrilled, London Grammar let the energy drop a bit. The British group has rarely played in the U.S. but its atmospheric set failed to generate much enthusiasm with a crowd already treated to high energy performances by MGK, Charli and Tove Lo. VANT, a British garage rock act that was playing for only the second time ever in the States, fared much better. The band literally brought the early afternoon crowd to its knees at one point in its hour-long set as singer Mattie Vant asked everyone to squat during one of the quieter moments. It served as a defining moment for the young band whose retro-leaning rock bore a resemblance to garage revivalists such as the Hives and the Strokes.

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