With the school season coming to a close, the hope students at DGS hold for a epic summer are getting higher and higher. There are so many events to get excited about when you are a teen that lives a train ride away from one of the most beautiful cities in the country.

Artists are coming here for their summer tours, street fests every weekend, free movies in the park downtown, and other countless activities for the people who love their city. But looking at the summer holistically, there is one specific weekend teens are looking forward to the most.

Yeah you guessed it — Lollapalooza weekend.

Lollapalooza, one of the biggest music festivals in the country, right in the heart of our beloved Windy City. Ever since last year’s success, Lolla has been the only thing people have been talking about.

On Wednesday, March 21, the lineup for the festival came out and everyone went crazy. Well, that is kind of an understatement. All anyone was talking about was how amazing the lineup was. Of course there were the few people who did not like it, but ultimately, in my mind, that just means they don’t enjoy the real good music Lolla 2018 is bringing to the table.

The thing I love most about this lineup is that it has a perfect mix of young, old, new and legendary artists incorporated into it. They took the time to really look at who blew up in the past year and who to look out for for this year so everyone’s needs could be met. They have artists from different genres and great diversity.

Of course there are going to be some artists who we expected to be on the lineup because of their success in the mainstream media. Two of the headliners, Bruno Mars and The Weeknd, were expected to come back to Chicago for the festival because of the amount of love they have been receiving recently. The organizers of this know what they are doing — they are successfully bringing in the money makers.

But some artists were a pleasant surprise. My favorite artist right now, and for the past few years, Logic is making his way to the Lolla stage. After his dates for his summer 2018 tour dropped and Chicago was not on it, people went crazy. Me personally, I knew he was going to come to Lolla because no one skips over Chicago. We are the best.

Logic’s last tour date fell on August 3, so it made sense that he would be able to come over to the city for either the Saturday or Sunday show. I have a strong feeling he is going to be one of the stand-out performers of the weekend and I will be right there front row waiting for it.

Lolla did a great job at finding underground non-mainstream artists that the music lovers of our generation have appreciation for. I love small artists, but a lot of them don’t go on tour so seeing them in person can be difficult. Music festivals are supposed to be the gateway for us music junkees to see some new people and favorites we never have the chance to see perform.

Now we get see amazing artists like Cuco, a Spanish alternative singer from Los Angeles who only tours on the West coast, perform in our favorite city. Some other small artists I was surprised but glad to see were Sabrina Claudio, Billie Eilish, Daniel Caesar, Rex Orange County and Kali Uchis.

These small artists produce the kinds of songs that you hear randomly on shuffle, fall in love with, and then immediately obsess over their discography for months. When I saw BROCKHAMPTON on the lineup, I almost had a happy heart attack. I missed their show in Chicago and they are definitely one of my most anticipated performances.

But at the end of the day, no one can get anything perfect. The perfect lineup is different for everybody, but there are a few artist the majority were upset to not see on the poster. Some of these artists include SZA, Cardi B, Migos, G-Eazy, 21 Savage and Halsey.

In my opinion, the biggest surprise was Cardi B followed by SZA. Now we know that the reason Cardi won’t be making it to Lolla this year is because she will be toward the end of her pregnancy, and I don’t think a pregnant Cardi on stage would be the best idea, so good call Lolla.  

I had the pleasure of going to a Tyler, The Creator concert earlier this March, and it was one of the best performances I had ever seen. After seeing him, I can guarantee he is going to be a stand out at Lolla considering his background in festivals and his overall fun and entertaining nature.

Lastly, I am very impressed with how Lolla was able to include so many different genres to fit the likings of every teen. They have EDM artists like Zedd and Odesza, rap artists including Playboy Carti and Lil Uzi Vert, and alternative acts that include Arctic Monkeys and The Vaccines. Everyone is happy until that $400 comes out of their bank account, that struggle will always remain.

So there’s my breakdown of the Lollapalooza 2018 lineup. If you couldn’t tell already, I am really happy with the outcome. I have a feeling that this year is going to be one of the best.

Now I am going to go start planning my outfits, saving up for the expensive but also delicious food, and emotionally preparing myself to see some of my favorite artists of all time in only 132 days, but you know, who’s counting?