BY THOMAS CONNER Pop Music Critic
Some Lollapalooza fans wasted no time starting the rave Friday afternoon at Perry's stage, jumping and dancing to the duo White Panda.
Perry's, the one of Lolla's eight stages that focuses almost exclusively on DJs and electronic music, has been under a large tent in previous years. That caused high temperatures to be trapped and endanger fans, so this year Perry's is open-air -- an enormous new stage, rivaling the size of the main Red Bull Soundstage in Grant Park's Hutchinson Field. The new Perry's features a special raised deck for the DJs, plus two video screens on either side and three LED strips above and below the stage.
"This is our home town and this means the world to us!" shouted White Panda's Tom Evans (aka Procrast).
He and his partner, Dan Griffith (DJ Griffi), wore panda masks with blinking LED eyes and led the crowd through their typical mash-up mixes, ranging from "Whoomp! (There It Is)" to -- yegods -- "Call Me Maybe."
The latter got the crowd really jumping -- the half that wasn't smirking -- and without that big top the Perry's crowd is in direct sun through the afternoon. Methinks the crowd I was watching during the White Panda will have a lot in common with the crowd in the first-aid tents by evening.
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