I’m going to Lollapalooza this week…are you?

In thirty hours I’ll be on a plane to Chicago, and all I can think of at the moment is that I wish I could get a bit more sleep between now and then than I probably will. In all these years of flying I’ve only once been able to fall asleep on an airplane, but I’m thinking that might change soon enough.

Why am I going? Seventy bands on nine stages over three days. In-person interview opportunities with several of the performing musicians. I’ve been to Lollapalooza before, and I’ve covered music festivals before, but never in quite this manner. In a sense, I suppose this will be the full-on test of just how much I want to push this whole “music journalism” thing after all.

So will five days of intense heat, public transportation, festival food, portable restrooms, tourist traps, early mornings preceded by late nights, and constant schedule-juggling do me in? In a way, it almost sounds like Macworld Expo. But outdoors. With just a little more music.

As always, you roll with the punches, take the good with the bad, make the most of whatever comes our way, and I think we’ll have a blast. I’ll have my co-host with me, so when the heatstroke finally kicks in and my brain is reduced to a steaming pile of mush…well, I guess that’ll be nothing new for me. Happens every time I leave the house.

I’ll have plenty to share once I’m there, and some of it might even be worth reading. If anyone has spent time in Chicago and has tips to share about….well, about anything, I’d love to hear about it.