Since Lollapalooza concluded it’s second edition on Swedish soil, we are still unable to come down from the clouds of festival magic. It may be the fact that we waited three entire years for Lollapalooza to happen again, and what was even worse, during two of the years there were no other festivals and hardly any concerts either. In these two years we could not celebrate music together. Or perhaps it was the fact that for these three summer days in which Lollapalooza took place, the weather gods were with us and Stockholm had the most lovely sunny days. There may be many other reasons as well, but we can all agree that Lollapalooza 2022 was truly special.
Here’s our festival review with Lolla’s most remarkable highlights.
Lollapalooza 2022 returned bigger than ever, the area occupied by the festival was extended and a fifth stage, The Circus was added to the scheme of things. The festival also included an area for kids called Kidzapalooza, where kids could have their own amazing festival experience, even though the whole festival area was also kid-friendly.
Obviously more concerts were featured this year, the food courts and bars were larger, there were more branded stands, bigger crowds of people… simply more of everything!
The music during the three-day festival was well curated. Every day had a slightly different tint to it, to please the different crowds, the pop fans, the hard rockers, the party lovers, and of course all those people who have an eclectic taste in music and could hand-pick something from each stage each day. There really were acts to please all kinds of music fans.
The artists that undoubtedly attracted the biggest masses were Imagine Dragons, Post Malone, Lorde, Måneskin and Pearl Jam.
On the first day of the festival Imagine Dragons made us realize they are on a mission towards becoming a legendary band. They brought with them all their hits and an explosive show. See all our pictures and read our concert review of Imagine Dragons here.
Earlier in the day Italian rockers Måneskin had the crowd going wild with their pure rock’n’roll energy and impeccable rockstar style. Read more about it and see our Måneskin pictures here.
The hugest crowd of the whole festival gathered for Post Malone, who closed Lollapalooza’s Saturday on Tower Stage. The 27-year-old American rapper had the crowd wrapped around his finger with his engaging personality and down-to-earth style. He was alone on that big stage and all eyes were focused on him the whole time.
Sunday’s pop highlight was the amazing sun-tinted show by Lorde, who made everybody feel her solar power. Read more about Lorde at Lollapalooza and see our photos here.
Pearl Jam was the band in charge of closing Lollapalooza on the Sunday evening. They performed for almost two hours and delivered a powerful concert in the name of freedom. Read our special concert review of Pearl Jam here.
The festival line-up also included such a great number of amazing pop girls, that we felt like putting together a whole photo collection of them for you – so check out the Pop Girl Summer at Lollapalooza feature here.
Beside all the amazing pop girls, we really have to mention the pop guy deluxe, that made the whole festival crowd dance and smile in the sun on Saturday evening. We are of course talking about Benjamin Ingrosso, who is such a perfect entertainer. He played the biggest show of his career to date, and was clearly enjoying the experience up on that stage.
The big let-down of the festival was definitely The Killers, one of the most awaited bands to perform at Lolla, who unfortunately (according the the official communication) had travel complications when they were on their way to Stockholm. Because of this the Las Vegas band got stuck in France and were unable to get themselves to Stockholm on time for their show, leaving innumerable fans completely let down.
We really enjoyed the surprisingly wild performance by Idles. Not only did they assemble the biggest and perhaps the only slamming and dancing mosh pit of the festival, in the form of a massive swirl, they also influenced and gathered the most eclectic crowd, where we could see children, grown ups, rockers, poppers and hip hoppers… See what we mean in our concert review here.
Here are our pictures of some of the other rock acts we enjoyed at Lollapalooza – Wolf Alice, Jimmy Eat World and Biffy Clyro.
The focus on food at Lollapalooza was clear, there were several food court areas with a broad array of eats to choose from, where pizza and street food were not the only thing in the menu. There was even a wine and dine area, with à la carte menus of seafood and a selection of good wines.
It was absolutely evident for us that the festival-goers were thrilled to be a Lollapalooza. The 3-year wait had finally come to an end and it had been so worth it. People were clearly happy and enjoying themselves. All in all things went very smoothly and everything was well arranged.
Things to improve, the heat on the first day was somewhere around 30°C, something Swedes are not well geared up for, and there were only a couple of water fountains to be found within the festival field. The queues of course were very long, and from what we heard, not everybody knew they could bring their empty water bottle to fill up there. More water fountains were added for the following days, but it might a good idea to have more of those from the start next time.
(Also some members of the press have a humble request for a shorter route between the festival area and the press room next time around.)
The whole festival was a resounding success with something like 70,000 visitors. As it has already been confirmed that Lolla Stockholm will be back next year, we can’t wait for the summer to come around again, so we can all go to Lollapalooza 2023!
