It’s hard to believe it’s been one year since I last roamed Grant Park catching amazing bands and experienced Broken Social Scene play one of the hands-down best concerts these eyes and ears have ever taken in. When combining good memories like those with another amazing line up, it was a easy decision to spend the weekend at Lollapalooza.

This year’s festivities kicked of with Austin’s Ghostland Observatory, whose heavy beat-driven mixture of electronic music was the perfect way to start off the day. I then navigated the marathon stretch from one end of the park to the other in order to catch Son Volt, stopping along the way to check out all the interactive tents and non-music exhibits. If you’re ever looking to escape the music for a little while this festival has you covered.

The Son Volt set proved to be enjoyable with the high point coming when they performed “Methamphetamine” off their most recent record, The Search. Having never seen the group before I was happy to see they take some chances on stage and don’t always follow the album blueprint for their live performances. As great as their performance was it became a distant memory once The Fragile Army took the stage.

Having seen the Polyphonic Spree on previous occasions this set was attended more for the convenience factor of the stage location, and ended up being the best performance of the day behind the mighty Daft Punk (more on that later). The Fragile Army is, in my opinion, the Spree’s best work to date. Watching the band perform selections from that album as well as a slowed down and heat drenched version of “It’s The Sun,” brought a smile to everyone around us and really set a wonderful tone for the remaining part of the day. All that would have made for a great set, but nothing prepared me for their cover of Nirvana’s “Lithium,” which was engaging, triumphant, and hands down my favorite moment of the day. The group discarded their army fatigues in favor of their more familiar robes for the encore, but not before taking a trip through the crowd and taking everything up just one notch.

After taking a break to grab some early dinner (we suggest the BBQ Pork sandwich), we settled in to our places for M.I.A., whose upcoming record Kala is out later this month. Her set contained moments of brilliance with a sprinkling of lackluster times that made me check my schedule, ultimately I decided to stay, and happy I did. Paired on stage with another dancer and lone DJ (was that Diplo people?), she worked the crowd venturing close to the audience, which had plenty of people moving and shaking.

Realizing we needed to start moving to the other end of the park, we took in a good majority of the high energy and cowbell infused music that is The Rapture, who are currently on tour with Daft Punk. Pieces Of The People We Love is an enjoyable listen, and their live performance was filled with hand claps and the first fifteen rows of people going absolutely mad with glee. Furthering our trek towards the AT&T stage, we caught bits of Mickey Avalon, whose sailor hat and “dancers” combined with his unique lyrical exploits raised more than a few eyebrows as we watched people stop dead in their tracks to wonder if they really heard and saw what they thought they did.

We took our place between the two big stages and danced to LCD Soundsystem – a warm up for what was to come. You could hear the excitement in James Murphy’s voice, playing a couple of football fields away from where Daft Punk would soon be destroying minds, as he belted out “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House.” I still continue to be enamored with “All My Friends,” that has to be one of the best songs of the year. The real highlight of this performance was a very extended and jammed version of “Yeah” off their self-titled debut album. I can think of no greater send off and catapult into the rest of the evening than this performance and it really set the tone. It’s a hard gig to open (or in this case play right before) someone like Daft Punk, but LCD Soundsystem succeeded big time.

As I said yesterday and should be evident from multiple references in this post, Daft Punk was the expected zenith of the day, and boy did those robots deliver! The realization that such high hopes can and usually do set you up for a great let down, was in the back of my mind, but I really think even my highest expectations for this show would have been fulfilled and then some. As I watched for two hours, with all my friends, some scattered and not so close, I felt that great feeling you sometimes get from live music and the whole collective of it. It was a lot of fun, and I won’t soon forget the adventure and experience that was day one of Lollapalooza 2007.