• Alison Green
  • Chance the Rapper’s triumphant set was Sunday’s biggest draw, which might have surprised Skrillex.

Philip Montoro: I’ll be honest, I didn’t go to Lollapalooza on Sunday. I spent pretty much the whole day in my living room, working on a Beer and Metal post. But I followed the festival coverage happening on Twitter, so I knew that (for instance) Malia Obama had been spotted at Chance the Rapper’s set, or that Bop King Dlow had joined Chance onstage to do the Dlow Shuffle for an estimated crowd of 60,000. I even experienced a moment of solidarity with the soggy fans in Grant Park—when I walked down to Thorndale to grab some gnarly Chinese food for lunch, the skies opened up and I got my dumb ass drenched.

Adorable Aussie pop star Betty Who jumped around the BMI Stage, enjoying her own glistening dance grooves, which she compared to the love child of Ashanti, Ja Rule, and Phil Collins. “OK Lollapalooza, I’m big into group participation, so please join me in singing,” she said. “But I’m gonna ask you to be on nipple patrol—if I’m poppin’ out, give me a wave!” Her charming stage presence and powerful vibrato made her one of the dark-horse surprises of the weekend for me.

Glen Hansard caught the worst of the day’s storms, but in classic rock-star fashion he turned it into an uplifting experience. “Lift your face up into the rain,” he said, then leapt into the pit and did so himself. His charisma had the crowd swaying, ponchos and all, to soul-baring numbers such as “Love Don’t Leave Me Waiting,” “Revelate,” and a cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Baby Don’t You Do It.” Irish pride ran high too, especially when Hansard closed with “The Auld Triangle.”

As El-P reminded the crowd during Run the Jewels, what started as a side project is now a “bona fide rap group.” He and Killer Mike were almost boyish in their onstage antics—these guys are clearly having a ton of fun together. Mike told the crowd that earlier in the day a photographer had mistaken him for Big Boi. “They ain’t paying us OutKast dough,” he said. Near the end of the set, El-P stopped midsong and ran to the edge of the stage, yelling at security for roughing up a woman. The fan in question, though, turned out to be a man with long hair—somewhere between Lorde and Sideshow Bob.