Warm Love Cool Dreams Festival Review
Was it warm? Was it cool? Was it love? Was it dreams?
Back again! This is, at long last, the OFFICIAL dual-functioning review of Chicago’s Warm Love Cool Dreams Music and Arts Festival, encompassing both the music itself and all the extra shit. Enjoy it and consider it for next year’s installment! You can thank me later.
REQUIRED READING
WARM LOVE COOL DREAMS FESTIVAL REVIEW
Memorial Day Weekend is a major weekend for Chicagoans, Chicagolanders, and out-of-towners. It all happens on Memorial Day Weekend,. Fools are hitting the bars, the beaches, and the Bean (maybe? I’m assuming here) like they’ve never done anything before (rest assured, they have). Truly, Memorial Day Weekend is the city’s awakening. After all, winter is a hard-fought season for both the nearly three million citizens that call the city home and the six million others that wish they could call it home but don’t for a myriad of reasons.
For some reason, music promoters and festival organizers seem to think that it is a wonderful weekend to schedule a music festival. Off the dome, there were four major music festivals that all went off over MDW: the traveling shoegaze-y Slide Away Music Festival (featuring Hum, Nothing, Chapterhouse, and a rotating cast of supporting acts), the reggaeton and trap-drenched Sueños Music Festival (headlined by Kali Uchis, J Balvin, Los Tucanes de Tijuana, Fuerza Regida, and Danny Ocean(!)), the old head RnB and hip-hop-flavored Forever Mine Music Festival (highlighted by Keyshia Cole, Juvenile, Kaytranada, Lloyd, Mario, Kelly Rowland, and many others that may or may not be relevant), and the millennial alternative and rock-themed Warm Love Cool Dreams Music and Arts Festival. That’s a lot of festivals, not to mention the plethora of random concerts scattered throughout the city.
While each was appealing for its own reasons, I opted to attend Warm Love Cool Dreams on account of its breadth of genres and smathering of legendary acts. I mean, the festival showcased the Jesus and Mary Chain, Tortoise, Nourished by Time, and Mark William Lewis, among about 11 others — how could I resist! Plus, given the festival’s location at the nearly-iconic Salt Shed and its association with the truly iconic Empty Bottle, I’d feel a fool if I missed it in spite of all the weekend’s other possible pastimes.
And I’m glad that I made it happen! But parts of the festival itself left something to be desired. The acts, of course, did their thing, and there were many standouts, namely the four acts listed previously plus the ascendent psych-troubadors Tobacco City. Objectively, each of the 15 acts showed out in a way that felt invigorating and exciting, as if they thought that they were the real headliner, despite the festival’s obvious intention to forgo a true headliner. Subjectively, this is an entirely different story that has already been published. For those that don’t like reading, I’ll quickly tier out each act:
S Tier: Tortoise and Mark William Lewis (more on this later)
A Tier: Courtney Barnett, Nourished by Time, and Tobacco City
B Tier: The Jesus and Mary Chain, Being Dead, Lauren Auder, and Moin
C Tier: YHWH Nailgun, Kumo 99, and Toro Y Moi
D Tier: Pixel Grip
No Tier (didn’t see): Smerz and Whitney
Even Moin, a band that relishes in taking themselves too seriously considering the music that they perform which makes me want to roll my eyes, turned my head with their outstanding oddball midday set on Sunday afternoon. That’s how good (most) of this shit was.
While the festival was musically rich, there were some glaring issues regarding the format, the scheduling, and the overall execution of the events. The first edition of Warm Love Cool Dreams proudly proclaimed to feature no overlapping sets in an effort to give shine to every artist performing, not just the big dogs, and that’s righteous. Not many mainstream-adjacent festivals do shit like that. However, this time around, the festival featured two overlapping time slots, one on Saturday and one on Sunday, in which festival goers were forced to choose between two acts: Smerz and Mark William Lewis on Saturday and Being Dead and Lauren Auder on Sunday. Given that one act was much more popular than the other in both cases, this issue of overlap could’ve been ameliorated by simply scheduling the smaller act earlier in the day, barring some sort of issue with regard to travel or something of that ilk. Instead, festival goers had to choose between acts rather than be able to enjoy them both. Not a huge problem, but it did leave a bit of a bad taste in the mouth given the mission of the fest’s first edition.
Similarly, the order in which the acts went off was near nonsensical at times. Of course, the larger acts should play later in the day in order to attract fans throughout the day rather than have them leave as soon as their preferred players finish their set, but having the dance-y acts (Kumo 99, Pixel Grip, and Nourished by Time) play in broad daylight feels like a disservice to everyone involved. If I’m dancing, I don’t want a single soul to see me cutting it up in vivid detail, and everyone knows that the middle of the day is the most vividly detailed time of day. That said, none of those acts are nearly big enough to play at the very end of the night on the outdoor “Fairgrounds” stage (which hold significantly more people), given that performances on this stage need to end at or before 10:00PM in order to comply with Chicago’s noise ordinance. The problem here is that there is not any other place to put these acts.
For the most part, any danceable act that slots in nicely with the rest of the line-up isn’t popping enough to justify a late slot, leaving the organizers with two options: simply avoid booking dance-type acts or run the indoor stage later into the night with the danceable acts while the larger, more rock-oriented acts play outside and end earlier. The former option is both boring and bad business because the people deserve to experience these acts — often for the first time at a festival — and the acts deserve to play. The latter option is much better, innovative, and lit as hell, albeit likely more expensive to produce. As a festival experiencer and not a festival organizer, that shit would absolutely rock. I for one would love to hear a bunch of rock-y loud shit outside all day and then go dance inside with my people at night. But this shit is not up to me.
Which leads to Warm Love Cool Dreams’s final issue: the execution. In my opinion, there are certain acts that are meant to perform inside and certain acts that are meant to perform outside. It’s as simple as that. There’s no rhyme or reason to it; it is simply a vibes thing that some people get and some people don’t get. Like, it makes no sense for a performer like Marcus Brown from Nourished by Time to be forced to croon indoors when there is a beautiful evening to bask in out of doors! He needs space to do his thing while performing, and the festival goers need space to do their thing while he’s performing! Tortoise, perhaps the most legendary Chicago band ever, on the other hand, should have played indoors. Their post-rock assault-slash-flying drummer circus is nuanced and technical, and that’s the exact kind of shit that needs to be experienced in an actual indoor venue at an extremely loud volume. There were several cases like these that would have benefitted from a stage swap, like moving both Toro Y Moi and YHWH Nailgun inside and Being Dead outside.
That said, it would be impossible to address all of things, even in a perfect world. The logistical nightmare of scheduling based on vibes and sound simply is too tall a task to take on, even for the most seasoned festival organization team, let alone one that just wrapped up year two. And, above all, at the end of the day, none of this even matters. I mean, who really gives a fuck? Everyone that I spoke to enjoyed themselves in spite of it all, and that’s what really matters. A festival is about the music, and the music should always be enjoyed however it is presented, regardless of how we think it should be presented, and at the end of the day, I’ll take it however I can get it!
What can I say, the Warm Love Cool Dreams product was good even with its shortcomings! I will be coming back.
WARM LOVE COOL DREAMS FESTIVAL FOOD AND SHOPPING REVIEW
The cool thing about Warm Love Cool Dreams is that, because the festival calls the Salt Shed its home, it has a full-fledged fairground infrastructure to take advantage of. Of course, the music is of the utmost importance, but the auxiliary attractions matter, too. They will never make or break the festival, but they are a not-insignificant piece of the puzzle. As such, the festival features a robust network of opportunities for both shopping and eating, and that’s something that every good Midwesterner should appreciate. A gentleman like myself certainly does. As such, I’d be remiss to glaze over the whole “mall” aspect — the eating and the drinking and the shopping — of this spectacle.
As far as the eating and drinking went, the eating and drinking really went far! The shit was generally a touch expensive, but in a manageable way, not in a damn I really might not consume a single parcel of food or beverage for the entire day because I don’t want to drop fifty dollars in one fell swoop type of way. There was a free water station that served the masses well, and there were several fine adult beverage purveyors who pedaled their wares, similarly serving the masses well. Such purveyors included stands from Heineken, White Claw, and Lagunitas, each of which hocked samples to any passerby who would give them the time of day, which was as cool as it was unnecessary. I mean, no one needs samples from these mega-brewers, but they were nonetheless appreciated. This was all very nice, but the unsung star of the show was the frozen cocktail monger, who proudly flooded frosés, frozen margaritas, and the like in the direction of the sweat-sheening swarm for a not-too-bad price of $15. Overall, the beverages were normal, which is a pleasant surprise at this point in time.
Notably, back in the hard-to-find arcade section of the Fairgrounds, called Elston Electric, there was a secluded bar that sold an alternative to the pickleback, dubbed the “World’s Only Chicago-Style Relishback.” This shit made me sick, and I didn’t even try one. The relishback is executed in a very similar way to the pickleback, but instead of pickle juice, the whiskey shot was filled with…relish… I don’t think I need to say any more than that. As the shot only cost one dollar, I am certain that people ordered it and enjoyed it, but I just could not be one of those people. Apart from this, though, the drinks were all well and good.
The eats were just as normal. They provided several in-house eateries and one outside eatery in Pizza Friendly Pizza, which is normally found at its permanent location next to the Empty Bottle. The in-house options included smoke-flavored meats from “Sally’s Smoke House,” hot dogs and sausages from the aptly named “Hot Dogs,” and footlong taquitos from the similarly aptly named “Taquitos.” Clearly, it is best to keep shit simple in situations like this. Anyway, I opted to hit Taquitos for a footlong taquito or two both days, and that shit was pretty good! On Saturday, I enjoyed the black bean taquito and the buffalo chicken taquito, and on Sunday, I enjoyed the black bean taquito once again (out of necessity, not choice) and the Italian beef taquito. Each taquito ran about $9, which was steep, but I suppose it was a price that I was willing to pay. If I had to rank the taquitos, my ranking would look like this:
Buffalo Chicken (deep-fried perfection, served with ranch. It was a gross concept, but it certainly went down easily)
Black Bean on Saturday (a touch sweeter than it should have been, but the provided hot sauce served well to quell this sweetness)
Italian Beef (nah, this shit was just wrong! Rather wet, often sopping, and not served with enough jus to handle a footlong, in my humble opinion)
Black Bean on Sunday (again, too sweet, especially when consumed in consecutive days, but whatever)
I only ate at Taquitos, so I can’t speak on the other options, but they looked all right, nothing crazy, nothing abhorrent.
As far as the shopping went, the shopping went a little less far. I wasn’t at the festival to blow a bunch of cash, but there were plenty of booth-style options to do just that in the so-called Oddball Market. The options largely ranged from normie vintage salespeople and vinyl flippers to jewelry makers and sauna snake oil salesmen. (Not to be a hater, but this sauna looked seriously bogus! If you mess with saunas, do not mess with C*ntral St*ndard T*me S*una. Shit’s bunk, not core, and not in the true spirit of sauna.) Additionally, there were several cubicles that housed shit like an on-site tattoo pop-up, a slightly more established vintage reseller, a dispensary, and a brick and mortar Fret 12 storefront. It was all fine and all fun to look at, but there was nothing to really buy.
The coolest booth by far was presented by Arts of Life. For those that are unfamiliar, Arts of Life is a nonprofit that give people with intellectual and developmental disorders an outlet for their creativity that they might not be given otherwise. Check out their website for some example of the work from their artists. The works were on the expensive side, but if it provides an outlet for this often overlooked group, I am here for it.
When it was all said and done, the mall experience at the Warm Love Cool Dreams Festival was okay. It was nothing to write home about, but there was nothing to complain about either — fun to peruse in between the music, nothing more. Every stand was worth looking at for at least a moment, and that’s all that these types of auxiliary spectacles can ask for.
That’s all I’ve got! Shout out to the good people at Empty Bottle Presents for putting me on for the weekend and treating me well! I will be back in the future.