The summer sun beat down mercilessly, and the bass echoed in my ears. All I could hear was sound, fatigue blending the words and notes together into an all-enveloping wall of noise. I flailed around, frantically grasping for it, as the crowd kicked up clouds of dirt around me, but to no avail. It was lost, and so was I. My link to the greater world had been severed. I was for the first time truly alone, lost in this desert of plywood and sound. Lollapalooza wasn’t supposed to go like this. 

That morning, I’d laced up my Jordans, rubbed in my sunblock, and looked in the mirror one last time to make sure I was good to go. My hair, slicked back and freshly gelled? Check. My jersey, pink, blue, and repping Tyler Herro? Check. My face, now ghostly pale and hopefully impervious to sunburn? Check. Yes, I was a caricature, but I had four days of Lollapalooza ahead of me and wanted the authentic experience, frat boy aesthetic and all. 

Outside the festival entrance, I forded the crowds, dressed as garishly as I was, weaving between canvas tents, chain-link fences, and metal detectors. It took half an hour for me to find my designated gate; much of that time was spent walking back and forth across the grassy periphery of Grant Park as I was sent back and forth between two guards who kept giving me contradictory directions. By now, it was just past noon, and there were 10 hours left in the day, the crowd only beginning to form. Emmy Meli, singing in garish knee-high boots seemingly made of chewed bubblegum, belted out a girlboss power anthem—think Meghan Trainor. Across the park, underscores played hyperpop music as clips of them playing Fortnite flashed on the background, 50 feet high. I then ended up at what seemed to be the designated mosh pit stage, where a legion of suburban kids dressed identically to me smashed into each other under the watchful eye of electronic musician BIJOU. 

Disaster finally struck at 100 Gecs. The hyperpop duo’s distorted screaming echoed across the crowd, which screamed right back. Harsh, unmastered beats and electronic screeching jumbled together into a dissonant tableau climbing towards its apex. The male Gec started throwing T-shirts into the crowd. I reached out to catch one. The world seemed frozen as it sailed slowly toward my outstretched hand. Then the beat dropped. 

The crowd fell into me from all sides in a tangle of limbs. They jumped at wild angles, careening off each other like spinning tops, all contributing to the wail that rose up around me, “Gecgecgecgecgec.” As the beat grew harsher still, the cry devolved into a primal scream from a thousand mouths. Given a moment’s respite, I tapped my pocket, as I was accustomed to do in crowds, only to realize that my worst fear had come true. My phone was gone. I cleared a space in the crowd to look, and even enlisted the help of my peers in the search. I even had someone call it, but it went straight to voicemail. Stolen, then. I stayed after to look through the detritus, but I found nothing among the crushed beer cans, solo cups, and Juul pods but confirmation of my fate. 

And so I limped back to the press section a broken man, for once truly alone. My phone was my link to my family, my friends, and my community. It was even my ride home—I was going to call an Uber. People thronged past me, but they couldn’t know the desolation I felt. I trudged along, utterly dissociated, past fantastical sights and sounds. Wrangler Jeans had a custom Lollapalooza denim booth, but even this incredible example of brand synergy couldn’t rouse me from my stupor. 

Back at my home base, I complained vociferously to some people around my age. Over a game of table tennis, I learned that they were members of School of Rock Chicago, a youth talent group performing at Kidzapalooza, Lollapalooza’s overture to the 12-and-under demographic. Some were going off to college in the fall, others were years away, and all hoped to one day play Lollapalooza with their personal bands, like Raw Materials, a Chicago-based jam band a couple of the members belonged to. They were going to go see Metallica, and I, phoneless, figured I should tag along. I’d never heard a Metallica song in my life, but I’d seen their groupies clustered around the Metallica stage since noon, chain-smoking as they leaned over the barriers, gray clouds wrapping around their still grayer hair and perfuming their faded black shirts, mementos of 40 years of Metallica fandom wrapped around their decrepit frames. Here was a shirt commemorating Metallica’s ’96 show in Toronto and beside it, one from Los Angeles ’85. These people lived and breathed Metallica, while I was just a poseur.  

The main thing I remember from Metallica was the heat. I’d talked my way into the artists’ section and was now rubbing elbows with VIPs who’d shelled out for the privilege. The groupies were in front of us, yes, but they’d earned the privilege. With each guitar solo, flames shot into the sky, scorching our faces. It’s like sitting two feet from a campfire for too long. After, around 10:30 p.m., I walked home. I was far from alone in this respect—seemingly every attendee was heading north on Michigan—though the crowd thinned considerably as each mile passed, and by the time I turned onto Oak, I was alone. 

The next day, I rendezvoused with a friend, which proved a challenge with no phone, and we decided to go to the aforementioned mosh pit stage. It was glorious. Wreckno, performing at the time, looked almost exactly like Gustavo Rocque from Big Time Rush, if Gustavo had sported blonde pigtails and a tutu. The bass echoed in our ears, and the crowd jumped from side to side. We were in the center of the crowd when I momentarily lost sight of my friend, only to see her looking around plaintively. “My phone…Someone must have unzipped my backpack.” She’d been at Lollapalooza for scarcely 10 minutes. 

As I would later learn, even my boss from the summer prior had had his phone stolen, and he was there for the classic rock with his two young sons, hardly the type to get pickpocketed in a mosh pit. Everyone I knew who’d attended had had his or her phone stolen. It was an epidemic. 

The next morning, I bought a new phone. Not only was the Apple Store packed wall-to-wall, but also the line wrapped around the block. The second I walked in, I was greeted with, “Let me guess, your phone was stolen at Lolla?” As I marveled at their prescience, this was followed by a “Same as everyone else here.” 

Overall, I’d say Lolla was fun, despite the whole phone thing. Solid music. Definitely go sometime. I may have lost my phone, but I learned how to live without it—how to live in the moment. And that’s a beautiful thing.