Galapalooza featuring Grace Potter & the Nocturnals Petrillo Band Shell, Grant Park Chicago, IL August 4, 20011

Galapalooza is a fitting kick-off for the festival, transforming the venerable Petrillo Music Shell into a rambling, raucous party each year. Tickets to the event, which benefits the Parkways Foundation, the charitable arm of the Chicago Park District, ranged this year from $250 for a single ticket to $10,000 for a lounge. Low-slung couches with table service were set up throughout the seating area for guests, creating a perfect setting for schmoozing and socializing. The crowd was mostly young and of the hipster variety, with guys in vintage rock tees and colored Ray-Bans and girls in short, sparkly dresses. This year, the event organizers eschewed the roaming food carts of years past to make way for the latest culinary trend in Chicago–food trucks. Six vehicles were situated around the perimeter of the area, including 5411 Empanadas, Gaztro-wagon, The Southern Mac & Cheese, The Slide Ride, Bergstein’s New York Deli and Flirty Cupcakes. Two bars efficiently doled out Corzo tequila and Grey Goose vodka cocktails, while servers worked the crowd.

DJ White Shadow, a favorite collaborator of Lady Gaga, opened the show with an upbeat dance music set. Partygoers filed in and mingled, creating a chic cocktail party feel. Around 7 p.m., Elizaveta, a Russian-born singer and pianist, took the stage, changing the mood drastically with her dramatic opera-style soprano. Walk the Moon, a young, enthusiastic quartet from Cincinnati, Ohio, then pumped up the crowd with their infectious stage presence, which included singer Nicholas Petricca pounding on a snare drum and dancing around like a preteen hopped up on sugar. The fun performance, which consisted of danceable, high-energy songs off of the band’s debut album, I Want! I Want! was like a fizzy cocktail after Elizaveta’s gloomy, thoroughly Russian performance.

The evening’s master of ceremonies, WXRT’s Marty Lennartz, introduced the event’s honorary co-chair Perry Farrell himself, who immediately charmed the crowd with his unique childlike persona. When referring to the Petrillo Music Shell’s enviable view of Chicago, he compared it to his hotel rooms, promptly forgetting that he was staying at the Ritz-Carlton, not the Four Seasons. However, his announcement of an upcoming Jane’s album got the biggest response. Farrell introduced the evening’s headliners, the electrifying Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, named “Best New Band of 2010” by Rolling Stone, an accolade that was apparent from the moment the band hit the stage with their opener, “Hot Summer Night.”

Potter, in a dazzling spangled mini dress and sky-high heels and looking like a more-rocking version of Heidi Klum, worked the stage like a seasoned pro, leading her masterful band, which includes lead guitarist Scott Tournet, rhythm guitarist Benny Yurco, bassist Catherine Popper and drummer Matt Burr, through songs off of their self-titled album, which was released earlier this year. Potter proved her own musical prowess, alternately playing the keyboards and a Flying V guitar along with displaying plenty of ass shaking and moves stolen from a vintage Tina Turner performance.

Show highlights included a reggae-tinged “Goodbye Kiss” and the band’s biggest hit to date, “Paris (Ooh La La),” during which kids from the Parkways Foundation’s Send a Kid to Camp program stormed the stage. One diva-in-the-making even grabbed a mike and helped Potter belt out the sing-along chorus to the radio-ready hit. The show’s mesmerizing closer, “Medicine,” ended with an extended drum jam featuring Potter pounding on the kit’s bass drum. The crowd, sweaty and spent from the show, downed their last drinks and went off into the summer night, which suddenly felt sultrier than before.

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