Going by social media, the third edition of the BookMyShow-promoted and produced Lollapalooza India in Mumbai was, according to its Gen Z, Gen X and millennial audience, all about Shawn Mendes or Green Day (for the latter two). While those diagonally opposite acts created some core memories for their fans, there were other artists and bands who defined Lolla 2025 for their faithful followers.
Louies barged to the stage where former One Directioner Louis Tomlinson was performing as soon as the gates opened and seemed to have notably outnumbered those who had planted themselves against the barricades for Green Day. For most musicians, meanwhile, the star of the festival was guitar virtuoso Cory Wong, who was the recipient of several birthday greetings on Saturday.
That there was something for almost every kind of music lover is the marker of a great festival. And going by the performers on the lineup, the programmers have clearly figured out what the public want. (Metal heads are advised to go to the rock-focused Bandland in Bengaluru.) Three years in, however, a few patterns have emerged—and though they’re not restricted to Lollapalooza alone, you’re most likely to spot them there. We’ve rounded up some of them below:
If it’s Lolla, the international acts will do one or more of the following things
There are certain things most international acts are guaranteed to do during their sets.
a) They will speak a smattering of Hindi—Nothing But Thieves singer Conor Mason said “namaste”, Shawn Mendes and Aurora expressed their gratitude with “dhanyawad”.
b) They will promise to come back—like Glass Animals frontman, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Dave Bayley did.
c) If they’re an electronic music act, they will throw in a crowd-pleasing Bollywood or Indian regional language track, like Zedd did when he mixed in the Panjabi MC classic “Mundian To Bach Ke”.
d) They will invite an audience member to guest with them—like Green Day did when they asked a girl named Sia to join them to sing ‘Know Your Enemy’ and a guy named Ishaan to play the guitar on ‘Dilemma’. Billie Joe Armstrong even gifted the Axe to his crowd-sourced guest.
Another recent addition to this list includes getting a sitar player to add some Indian classical flair to a well-known tune. Last year, Keane roped in Anoushka Shankar for ‘Everybody’s Changing’, and this year Mendes got sitarist Megha Rawoot (who coincidentally also gave Ed Sheeran a quick lesson in February) and tabla player Shrutisheel Uddhav on board for ‘Youth’.
At Lolla 2025, we got a new one: thanking India for helping make a song go viral. Both Glass Animals and Aurora said our country is “where it all began” for their breakthrough hits ‘Heat Waves’ and ‘Runaway’. Given the thousands who flocked to their slots and knew the words to most of their other tracks, it’s clear that, despite what the charts might say, neither of them is a One-Hit Wonder.
If it’s Lolla, then there will be walking, and sweating!
As any Lolla attendee would tell you, the festival, which is spread across four stages—each with a capacity to hold thousands—involves a lot of walking. It’s the one time of the year even the laziest of us will cross the 10,000-steps-per-day mark. When you’re walking to catch an afternoon set, it also involves a lot of sweating. Thanks to the ironically-named-in-this-case Coldplay, whose India tour clashed with the usual dates for the festival, Lolla 2025 was shifted to March, on a weekend for which there was a heat wave warning (this was some next-level trolling by the weather gods given that the chance to hear Glass Animals’ ‘Heat Waves’ live was one of the most anticipated moments). BookMyShow offered special ‘comfort’ tickets at a slightly higher price, but these only got you access to a shaded zone without a line of sight to the stage, something you could get for free in one of the covered areas near the food stalls. This year, they also had the housekeeping staff occasionally spray the audience with what was supposed to be a cooling mist but was more like a water sprinkler. As always, the crowd got inventive. Those who didn’t manage to score one of the free bandanas being handed out, or a free hand fan from the bar, repurposed hand towels and bedsheets as head and face protection. Not surprisingly, after the official festival T-shirt, the second best-selling item at the merch counter was the official festival bucket hat. And it would be accurate to say that we spied more battery-operated miniature fans than flower crowns this time. Also , thousand points for the commitment to all the Green Day fans who wore black shirts in that heat. Lollapalooza is, quite literally, not for the faint-hearted!
