B.o.B Covers MGMT, Wavves Rock Out as Lollapalooza Kicks Off

Daniel Boczarski, Redferns / Getty Images

It was a beautiful day for Lollapalooza. The festival, now in its sixth year, has in the past been plagued by torrential downpours and Chicago's trademark humidity and extreme heat index. But Friday, as B.o.B kicked things off at the Adidas Mega Stage at 11:15AM, it might have been the greatest breezy weather conditions Lolla has ever experienced since being plopped down in downtown Chicago back in 2005.

This year marks some major changes for one of America's biggest music festivals -- approximately 35 extra square acres to help reduce sound bleed and foot traffic in certain areas. Two stages -- Perry's (curated by the festival's founder Perry Farrell) and the Sony Bloggie Stage have been moved across Columbus Ave. The expansion also adds another 20,000 tickets, although as of press time, no days had sold out.

Another new addition is essentially free water everywhere. Ticketholders are allowed to bring in empty containers that you can fill at nine stations run by Event Water Solutions -- a Ontario, Canada based company -- located throughout the grounds. "We're taking city water, de-chlorinating it and running it through a UV and it comes out chilled [through hanging spouts operated by volunteers] into bottles," says Robert Woodland, a regional sales manager for the company.

These changes and the great weather are already having an effect on the music and crowd. B.o.B. blended acoustic guitars into his hip-hop set. After punching out his two biggest radio hits 'Nothin' on You' and 'Airplanes,' Bobby Ray told the crowd he was going to close things out with "one of my favorite songs" and then banged out a cover of MGMT's 'Kids.'

On the complete other side of the park Wavves were spotting Ben Stein lookalikes in the audience and headbanging to songs off their third album 'King of the Beach,' which was physically released earlier this week. With the addition of drummer Billy Hayes and bassist Stephen Pope, you wouldn't have guessed that this was the same band formed a couple years back by Nathan Williams, the frontman who infamously had a drug-addled freak-out mid-performance at Spain's Primavera Sound Festival only a year ago. While Wavves still maintained their slapstick humor between songs, debating aloud which song should come next, their set, some 15 songs in length, featured back-to-back 'Beach Demon' and 'Weed Demon' and channeled their San Diego home shores with the surf rock of 'Green Eyes.'

Watch Wavves perform 'Green Eyes' in the video below: