Weather Steals the Show at Lollapalooza Day 3

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At about 2:30 p.m. on day three of Lollapalooza, “Budapest” singer George Ezra was about to take the Samsung Galaxy stage to a young, packed crowd, when instead an announcement came from the stage that everyone was being evacuated from Chicago’s Grant Park due to approaching severe weather. But this was nothing new for Lollapalooza, which has had to evacuate in past years due to Midwest thunderstorms. Despite some people’s protests about filing out of the park, there were plenty of oohs and aahs as festivalgoers walked down Columbus Ave. to the exits of the park and saw lightning flash across the sky.

Related: Lollapalooza ‘15 Breakout Acts: Day 3

As it turned out, the delay only lasted an hour, and since weather is an annual an issue for Lollapalooza, festival organizers did a great job of getting everyone back in and the music back up and running by 4 p.m. Luckily, none of this detracted from the amazing music showcased on day three, from rapper A$AP Rocky to alternative heavyweights Of Monsters and Men and Florence & the Machine. However, the Sunday night schedule of headliners was in constant flux, as the organizers fought to get everyone in under the threat of a bigger impending storm.

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They managed to do so, and the artists delivered what they could in abbreviated sets. It was a shame for fans Florence Welch and her Machine didn’t get their entire allotted time, but the angelic singer doesn’t need much time to display the full presence of her star power. By the end of the second song, the rocking current single “Ship to Wreck,” she and her band had established that they belonged in the vaunted spot of closing the festival. Most impressive about Welch’s rise to headliner status is it has come almost entirely off the music; there isn’t an obvious image and or marketing plan that goes with it. She is a powerful voice with inarguable star presence, as she showed in the closing “Dog Days Are Over” when she ran down into the pit. Other standout songs in her shortened nine-song set included “What Kind of Man” and “Shake It Out.”

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While Welch was the headliner, with no clear-cut must-see icon like Friday’s Paul McCartney or Saturday’s Metallica, day three was a chance to treat the festival’s eight stages like a tasting menu – whether it was checking out the aforementioned A$AP Rocky, who had kids moshing as speakers blared Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and he and guests like Vic Mensa delivered a frenetically paced set of lyrical mayhem, or Bud Light closing act Bassnectar, one of the biggest EDM draws in the world (even if most of the mainstream is unaware of his invigorating blend of music), who on this night drew musical snippets from Queen, James Brown, and Snoop, among others.

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Other highlights on this day included the always superb Of Monsters and Men, who proved with songs like “Crystals” and “Little Talks” that they’re not far from closing out festival main stages; the resurgent TV on the Radio, new alternative stars Twenty One Pilots, who took the stage wearing ski masks to a massive crowd; and the ambient sounds of Odesza.

photos: Getty Images