The logic of ages is abbreviated in the music world. Artists get old before their time and so do fans. At a rock show, just like medieval Europe, teenagers are adult; in your twenties you've gained laurels of experience and from thirty it's all down hill.

Though I'm willing to note an exception in the the case of the fiddle player for Gogol Bordello.  Ukranian Sergey Rijabtzev is a sixty-some year old former theater impresarrio who fell in early with Gogol's cockeyed gyspsy punk, helping shape it into the semi-narrative baltic slam dance they're now known for. Compare to the respectable white collar guy, of roughly Sergey's age, I met on the subway, whose vast knowledge of fringe music clashed with his Middle American respectability and sensible shoes, of a class of hobbyist that prove time has passed rock from, "voice of a generation," into the calcified passtime of an entire culture. As general life expectancy continues to increase, the backlawn of a normal concert will likely look more and more like a meeting of your grandmother's bridge club. Not that I begrudge these folks their entertainment. Not everyone can be Iggy Pop.

Yeasayer, Gogol Bordello and Bloc Party played the AT&T stage on the south end of Grant Park on Friday,  where I'd camped out to assure prime space for the night's closer, Radiohead. Yeasayer filled the space but were ultimately a passage of time; the crowd was hot and the band seemed dazed to be there. Gogol brought more energy than the crowd could match, and Bloc Party played a great set though I have to pity them a bit. I wasn't the only camper down front who was there with a goal in mind, counting down the hours until the sun went down and Radiohead came on.

Ultimately I guess the lesson of Lollapalooza is that the revolution worked, despite what lean eyed punks and "ya-shoulda-been-there" old timers might say. That these acts can ramp up into mainstage outdoor shows at those volumes and not offend public decency or patience shows our culture, from top to bottom, old to young, butters its bread with rock and roll. The real question is not "did rock change anything?" it's, "what did it change?"

It has aided the increase in speed with which large amounts of money change hands and it's given older generations a more distinct foothold on the past. It's the illusion of youth and rebellion at a reasonable price, posing no real threat to the status quo, now that it is the status quo.

Post Script: Radiohead melted my brain.

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