Still Alive

CHICAGO (SKELETOR) –Day 2: The second day was approaching and even I was prepared for it. Coheed and Cambria would start it off at 2:30, then we would go to Wolfmother followed by Gnarls Barkley. After a hour break, we would see The Flaming Lips, take another hour break then top the day with Kanye West. It was a flawless plan that couldn't fail; at least on paper.

We left the apartment at 1:50, you would think that would be plenty of leeway time to make it by 2:30. Unfortunately, we once again found ourselves underestimating the almighty El train. It took us less than five minutes to walk down to the station, but it took another twenty-five minutes just for the damn train to arrive, while we were waiting we counted three trains traveling towards O'Hare before just one train going downtown showed up.

After a ten minute train ride and a fifteen minute walk to the stage where Coheed and Cambria were playing, the concert was halfway over; somehow we still got the closest to the stage that we got the entire weekend. During the concert we saw the first bodysurfing of the festival. You could tell that there was a pressure building when the Raconteurs were playing a day earlier, but it was happily released when lead singer and lead guitarist, Claudio Sanchez, proudly raised his guitar up high, pressed back his magnificent afro and played his guitar solo behind his head. At the moment at least 20 bodysurfers started up and were thrown around like a pitbull with a baby.

Following a mind blowing performance by Coheed and Cambria, we saw a show by Wolfmother that can only be described as, wolfmotherish. We then headed over to see Gnarls Barkley. During his show we had a major occurrence of déjà vu, as we saw a man with a crooked mohawk that we had seen the day earlier, exactly in the same place in front of us, and wearing the same Zoo York shirt that he was in yesterday.

An hour of down time felt good on my sore feet after wrongly choosing to wear sandals two days in a row, the open sores burned every time I walked. We ate and drank, and then saw a very visual show by the Flaming Lips, but the music was just okay. Another hour and then Kanye West started with 60,000 people watching. It was a good show, but songs from four different artists were preformed. I mean come on Kanye, get your own material. By ten o'clock at night I had heard Gnarles Barkley's hit song, Crazy, four different times and only one of those was actually performed by Gnarles.

I left Grant Park with sore feet and a tired body, but I knew that it wasn't over yet, I had yet to achieve day three status.

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