I know, I know, this is late and I’m a wimp for not staying up and blogging away after I finally got back to Ravenswood last eve around 11:30. . . But a quick recap on Sunday, and what I personally thought was my best day of the heatfest madness of Lolla ’08. . .

Managed to get to Grant Park after a rather interesting ride on the brown line to catch the last two songs from the Whigs’ set on MySpace stage. Pretty good sounding, from what I caught and I know I wasn’t the only one digging it, John Popper from Blues Traveler later gave the bros a shout out on his set as well (catching BT live was quite unplanned, but amusing nonetheless, apparently that gastric bypass is catching back up with him).

Got a good spot for the Brazilian Girls, who melted into the hellaciously hot early afternoon sun with tracks from Talk to La Bomb, their self-titled debut, and also some numbers from their new CD New York City, which I didn’t realize was even coming, but is dropping tomorrow. Super excited to catch that record, especially after the bumping beats and sexy come hither vocals of Sabina Sciubba entranced the ATT stage crowd into a swaying groove.

I was ready to stand up and get the party moving after soaking up all the sun though, so I trotted to the MySpace stage once again to catch the first three songs of Chromeo’s set. Fun, energetic and disco revival to its fullest, I enjoyed every second of it–but thought another second without another Bud Light may be just too much–so ended on a good note to catch Black Kids rock the packed Citi Stage. First time checking Black Kids too, they actually surprised me with their live set. I’ve been reading and hearing mediocre reveiws of their live set, but the clan seemed to pull it all together and rock their set to the fullest, full of handclaps, harmonies and fun key action. Only concern there was how often leadman Reggie Youngblood kept throwing out the F-bomb. It was on the verge on sounding a little too desperate for coolness, but they are kids. . .

Post Black Kids, it was food/brew break time. Reminisced to the early college years of faux hippiedom to a handful of G Love tracks and then amused myself with a girlfriend to an impromptu dustbowl danceparty in the baseball diamonds to some Blues Traveler. After that got old (quickly, I may add), I drug my companion to the dance party of a life time at the Citi Stage where Girl Talk (and hundreds of his closest friends), sweated and shook our asses off like the world was gonna end. Pretty insane. And awesome.

Checked the background sounds to Mark Ronson and company, especially dug the Rhymefest cameo. But really, there was one item only on my agenda and that was seeing my boy ‘Ye. He may be a self-centered, whining egomaniac mama’s boy–but kids, I tell you he put on one hell of a show. My pals and everyone else can call me crazy, but when he opened that set up with “Good Morning,” the front of the massive crowd was shaking in unison, bobbing along and cheering their approval.

The light show was sparkly, the band was bangin’ (especially the full string action), and Mr. West was all about giving his all to his hometown crowd. I only stuck around for the first hour of his set to beat the El traffic home, but I managed to catch more than enough of my favorites–including “I Wonder,” “Heard ‘Em Say,” “Through the Wire,” “Champion,” “Get Em High,” “Diamonds from Sierra Leone,” (which had plenty of diamond shaped hands in the air to represent the Chicago skyline action up on the screens), “Flashing Lights,” “Homecoming,” “Touch the Sky,” “Golddigger,” and then as I exited the sweaty, dirty Grant Park for the final time this weekend–I caught an interesting mash-up of KW vs. NIN on the other side of “The Good Life,” vs. my fave NIN track of all time, “Head Like a Hole.” Nice. Nice, indeed. Wish I could have stuck around long enough to hear “All Falls Down” or “Jesus Walks,” but my long overdo shower was calling my name.

Cya next year, Mr. Palooza.