Sunday, 4:15-6:15

Flogging Molly, Cage the Elephant, Lissie, Portugal. The Man, Boy & Bear, and Jackmaster will be performing at Lollapalooza 2011 between the hours of 4:15 and 6:15 p.m. on Sunday, August 7.

FLOGGING MOLLY
It said a lot when Martin Scorsese featured Flogging Molly in his epic police/mobster good/evil meditation The Departed, a film that examined the intricacies of undercover sleepers on both sides of the fence in a world built around the troubled descendants of Irish immigrants. The film was gritty, no-holds-barred political discourse that had no fear of being brash and loud. And never forgot that it’s audience was going to the movies to have fun. Enter Flogging Molly, the Irish American 7-piece that have created a powerful soap box, holding strong to roots and principles that have made them modern day rock prophets. Expect a good-time stomping wash of banjos, fiddles, heavy punk rock guitars and the edgy, old timey angst of a band of Celtic minstrels hell bent on making a mosh pit of the masses in hopes of a brighter tomorrow. (Sunday, 4:15-5:15, Bud Light Stage) –text: Phillip David Forsyth

CAGE THE ELEPHANT
Formed in 2005 in Bowling Green, Kentucky, Cage the Elephant broke through the music industry with their sassy single “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked”, which peaked at #3 on the Billboard “Alternative Songs” chart. Since the band’s inception, they’ve released two albums under Jive Records including their 2008 self-titled debut and Thank You Happy Birthday early this year, which debuted at #2 on the Billboard Hot 200. Cage the Elephant’s intense, powerful drums and heavy guitars reflect classic hard rock while lead singer Matt Schultz’s rare voice turns their music into spicy alternative rock. With a whirlwind of attitude and lyrics like “Oh there ain’t no rest for the wicked / Until we close our eyes for good”, Cage the Elephant is an untamed beast hosting an all-night party for head-banging pachyderms. (Sunday, 5:15-6:15, PlayStation Stage) –text: Carrie Wittmer

LISSIE
The Rock Island, Illinois native has taken the blogosphere by storm with tasteful covers of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” and Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness,” but it’s the whimsical folk singer’s original material that really demands attention. With a voice conveying the barreling thunder of a young Janis Joplin to expert harmonies that tug at the heartstrings, do nothing more than catch this tiger’s set. (Sunday, 4:30-5:15, Google+ Stage) –text: Selena Fragassi

PORTUGAL. THE MAN
Their seventh album since 2006, Portugal The Man finally released In the Mountain, In the Cloud last month after taunting listeners with 30-second clips and short films since mid-April. Produced by Grammy winner Andy Wallace and John Hill, Portugal’s latest opus continues their legacy of soaring psychedelic rock anthems with a personal edge. Drawing from their childhood in Alaska, the album is an outdoorsman’s epic acid trip, best illustrated by the 13-minute dream sequence song “Sleep Forever”. (Sunday, 5-6, Sony Stage) –text: Hilary Telford

BOY & BEAR
This Australian percussive folk-rock group is on the verge. While their debut LP Moon Fire drops on the first day of the festival, the ruggedly danceable quintet has garnered substantial buzz over the past couple years and simmered quite the pot of anticipation. The singles and EP that they’ve already laid out point towards a group with the ability to combine gorgeously lush harmonies with earnest, unpretentious songwriting that never seems to drop the tempo. (Sunday, 5-5:45, BMI Stage) –text: Matthew DeMarco

JACKMASTER
Crowned “Best Breakthrough DJ” of 2010 by DJ Magazine, Jack Revill has been a leading ambassador for Glasgow’s electronic music scene via Numbers, a club night that sired a record label that’s home to acts like Jamie xx, Hudson Mohawke, and Lazer Sword. As the party-rocking Jackmaster, Revill drops sets that run the spectrum of everything bass: from Detroit techno, Chicago house, Baltimore club, and dirty South hip-hop to dubstep, grime, R&B, and beyond. (Sunday, 5-6, Perry’s) –text: Mark Calaguas

Cage the Elephant

I think it’ll be a beautiful thing to see how our band started out and where we end up years down the line.

story by Sean Rose

Since their formation in 2006, Kentucky’s Cage The Elephant have proven themselves as a more than vital force in modern rock music. Featuring the high energy Frank Black-inspired vocals of lead vocalist Matt Shultz and the dense guitarwork of Brad Shultz and Lincoln Parish, the band has made its name with an unapologetic embrace of garage punk ferocity and intense live performances. Their self-titled debut record spawned several charting singles, including the well-known radio hit “Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked,” and earned them touring spots with Manchester Orchestra and Stone Temple Pilots. Chicago Innerview spoke with guitarist Brad Shultz about their newest record.

Chicago Innerview: So Thank You, Happy Birthday, came out this January and managed to hit number two on the Billboard 200. That’s kind of a big deal. Is this something you guys were prepared for or anticipated at all, even in the wake of your recent success?
Brad Shultz: Not really. We were told that it might…you know, get on the charts. To be honest, we’d be happy to chart at all. But we definitely do feel blessed to be up there, with Cake and all those other bands.

Chicago Innerview: I know you guys had some slight difficulty in recording the new album. You had a bunch of tracks ready in England, but you scrapped all of them and hid away for a while. I heard a story about Matt laying around outside the studio in a pile of leaves, desperately trying to conjure up some inspiration.
Brad Shultz: Yeah, ya know — that is a true story, I swear. The struggle was within us. We’ve definitely been evolving as people, and as musicians and songwriters. But we were kind of holding ourselves back. We were evolving so fast that we had to start asking ourselves, you know, what is Cage The Elephant? And we were writing songs that were, you know, fear-based.

CI: How would you describe ‘fear-based’ writing?
BS: It’s just writing with the fear of what the general public, or the critics, or whatever it is — we got it in our mind about how people would judge those songs. We’d write a song and we’d be like, ‘oh, I don’t know. Is that Cage The Elephant?’ And we’d say, ‘oh, we’ll just use it for a side project.’ But we knew that’d never really materialize. So the more songs we wrote, we realized that these new songs really were us. Any songs that we record are Cage The Elephant. They come from us. And we hope now that every album we release has a different sound.

CI: So essentially you’re just trying to record music without worrying about what other people think.
BS: Yeah, exactly.

CI: I know ‘Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked,’ your hit single from your first album, has become kind of a ubiquitous song over the past few years. It’s still pretty popular on the radio. Have you felt hindered by that song’s success at all?
BS: Well, we’re always looking forward. We appreciate what’s happened with that song and where we were when we recorded it. I totally appreciate what that song is. But at the same time, I think we’re over it. I definitely look back at that song and see a certain immaturity in our band — several tracks on the last album, to be honest. I would never want our band to only be judged on one or two albums. I think it’ll be a beautiful thing to see how our band started out and where we end up years down the line.

Cage the Elephant :: with Sleeper Agent :: The Vic :: March 2.

Cage the Elephant, Dan Deacon, Gang Gang Dance, He Say, She Say, Kaiser Chiefs, Neon Hitch, The Airborne Toxic Event, The Raveonettes

CAGE THE ELEPHANT
Southerners always seem to bring a certain charm to their music. Bowling Green, Kentucky’s Cage the Elephant have introduced a punk smoothie to their Southern-fried sound blended with blues and pop. Their hit “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” from last year’s debut album exploded in the U.K., where the band moved after signing with EMI in 2007. The band is back in the States this summer, hoping to bring the buzz with them. (Sunday, 2:15-3, Citi Stage) –text: Katie Knaub–photo: Sharjo / The Pound Gallery

DAN DEACON
Who better to piece thousands of sequential blips, bleeps and burps on top of one another than a guy with a master’s degree in doing just that? It’s what makes Bromst both the latest and most refined album from sample-happy Baltimore oddball Dan Deacon. A student of electro-acoustic composition at Purchase College State University of New York, Deacon’s sweaty carnival-style interactive assault on his audience is a far cry from any cramped classroom. (Sunday, 3:30-4:30, Vitaminwater Stage) –text: Derek Wright–photo: Josh Sisk

GANG GANG DANCE
New York City’s Gang Gang Dance is one of those singular bands that simply does not sound like anyone else. Their avant-garde approach to hipster indie rock stands out for its bizarrely accessible blend of downtempo drums, electronic whirrs and abstract tribal melodies, evoking the creative energy of contemporaries such as Animal Collective and Black Dice. GGD is a band with little to prove and a lot to say. (Sunday, 3:30-4:30, Citi Stage) –text: Matthew Partington–photo: Josh Wildman

HE SAY, SHE SAY
She works the door at Chicago’s Debonair Social Club. He works the local scene. Together they work the crowd. He Say, She Say is comprised of Drea Smith and producer Million Dollar Mano. With their educational X-rated lyrics, they’ll make you hotter than last night’s dirty internet porn. So grab some TP before you roll to their show, because these hipsters are about to make a bad habit even worse. (Sunday, 2:30-3:30, Perry’s) –text: Alexis Nido-Russo–photo: Clayton Hauck

KAISER CHIEFS
According to the never-questionable and always-sober reasoning of Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher, if the “real” Blur is back, then “shit Blur” must be back too. But as the iconic sun-glassed singer correctly pointed out, the mod-rocking Leeds, England quintet known as Kaiser Chiefs — and also known for copping Damon Albarn and Co. — did return last year. And the band’s third LP, Off With Their Heads, did indeed seem a bit…um…Blur-y. (Sunday, 2:30-3:30, Budweiser Stage) –text: Derek Wright

NEON HITCH
Sonically up-and-coming U.K. songstress Neon Hitch falls somewhere between the realm of early Nelly Furtado and Lily Allen, but her inspirations come from a slightly different place. Raised as a gypsy in southern England, Hitch performed in a traveling circus but soon ran off to find herself and eventually her love for singing. Her edgy, hip-hop vibe caught the interest of EMI as well as producer Benny Blanco, with whom she’s set to collaborate for her debut album. (Sunday, 3-3:45, BMI Stage) –text: Mike Scales–photo: Mark Surridge

THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT
The Airborne Toxic Event is one of those rare bands that makes you stop in your tracks the first time you hear them. Frontman Mike Jollett delivers songs like deeply personal stories which compel you to listen carefully to each revelation. Haunting viola, pulsating drum and harmonizing keys, guitar and bass complete the scene. The band literally started out as a novel, and Jollett’s way with words is nothing short of epic. (Sunday, 2:30-3:30, Chicago 2016 Stage) –text: Jen Fischer–photo: Kristi Sparrow

THE RAVEONETTES
Sexy Danish duo Sune Wagner and Sharin Foo have been rockin’ as The Raveonettes since the turn of the millennium and will release their fourth full-length, In and Out of Control, in October. Though they’re inspired by American rock ‘n’ roll of the ’50s & ’60s (their moniker is a combination of The Ronettes and Buddy Holly’s “Rave On!”), The Raveonettes add a dark, distorted twist to their sound that makes for a truly unique rock experience. (Sunday, 3:30-4:30, PlayStation Stage) –text: Mike Scales

Cage the Elephant, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, CSS, Roky Erickson & The Explosives, The Roots

CAGE THE ELEPHANT
This quintet from Bowling Green, Kentucky dubs its sound rock ‘n’ roll/punk funk and cranks out fast, hard and catchy tunes you can physically feel — and they feel good. Cage the Elephant’s recorded tracks emit so much energy you could substitute them for your morning Red Bull. With acts like The Roots playing around the same time, it could be a tough call, but do yourself this one favor: try something new and exciting this Lollapalooza. (Saturday, 4:15-5:00, BMI Stage) –text: Jen Fischer–photo: Sharjo / The Pound Gallery

CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH
Alec Ounsworth and company may not be the first band to credit their success to the internet, nor are Clap Your Hands Say Yeah the internet’s most successful spawn, but they are, at the very least, one of indie rock’s most acclaimed cyber warriors. Taking the “Do It Yourself” motto to heart, CYHSY is the equivalent of a self-taught Northwestern University grad. Their self-titled, self-released debut album mixed Talking Heads-esque crooning with Yo La Tengo-like beats to create a primal sound that resonated with both angst-ridden suburbanites and pretentious hipsters alike. Like many bands that exploded onto the scene on the back of the internet’s immediacy, CYHSY faced a steep mountain to climb when producing their sophomore album, Some Loud Thunder. It is a daunting task to keep a level head in the midst of such chaos and fame, but so far it seems that CYHSY are still doing okay. They’ve officially crossed the musical chasm and survived — for one more record at least. (Saturday, 4:30-5:30, AT&T Stage) –text: James H. Ewert Jr.–photo: Mattias Elgemark

CSS
Cansei de Ser Sexy (meaning “tired of being sexy”) consists of five art school girls and a multi-instrumentalist gay music producer from Brazil. If you missed the party ’til now, their self-titled Sub Pop debut was probably the funnest album of last year, with of-the-moment jams like “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death from Above” and post-electroclash dance-punk invitations to suck on their art-holes. (Saturday, 5:00-6:00, Citi Stage) –text: ELR–photo: Mariana Juliano

ROKY ERICKSON & THE EXPLOSIVES
It’s hard to tell whether it was the marijuana and LSD or the thorazine and electro-shock he received in a Texas mental health facility while dodging a prison sentence for drug possession that made Roky Erickson’s schizophrenia manifest itself. All that’s clear is that Roky will always be best-known for being crazy, which is a shame, since his song “You’re Gonna Miss Me” was one of the first (and best) songs from the psychedelic era. Since then, he’s been in and out of treatment facilities, writing songs about love, demons, aliens, and a whole cache of b-movie monsters. Throughout the seventies, his music laid the blueprints for heavy metal and the type of country-tinged arena rock that made CCR and Skynyrd kick so much ass. His appearance at Lollapalooza will be just his second in Chicago in over 30 years. (Saturday, 5:00-6:00, PlayStation Stage) –text: ELR

YTHE ROOTS
Since MC Black Thought and drummer ?uestlove met in a Philly high school in the late ’80s, the core of The Roots has dropped severally critically acclaimed albums and racked up a slew of Grammy awards and nominations, cementing their status as the pioneers of socially conscious hip-hop. They’ve also prided themselves on their live performance; 1994′s Do You Want More?!!??! was produced without any samples and their collaboration with Cody Chestnutt on “The Seed (2.0)” is the quintessential example of their live instrumentation-rap fusion. Their most serious album Game Theory, released last year on Jay-Z’s Def Jam, touched upon the fucked up state of America with rhymes such as “It looks real fucked up for your next of kin/that’s why I don’t rhyme for the sake of riddlin.” This year’s Lollapalooza set brings them full circle — in 1995, they killed the second stage. (Saturday, 4:30-5:30, Bud Light Stage) –text: Dorothy Hernandez–photo: Justin Francis of Saline Project