Wavves Celebrates Drummer's Birthday at Lollapalooza After-Show

Although the clock may have rolled a few minutes past 1AM by the time Wavves took the stage, fans still showed up in droves to watch their official Lollapalooza aftershow at Chicago's Empty Bottle Saturday night. "F--- these festivals; they're not good for the fans," exclaimed frontman Nathan Williams, sharing a few harsh words about the festival he'd played just a few hours earlier. "Thank you guys for coming, it's been a long day."

With a constant mosh pit surging the sold out crowd forward into the stage, Wavves performed a nice mix of songs from their 2009 self-titled release and their new album, 'King of the Beach.' The raucous crowd pushed and shoved and sang along to such self-loathing epithets as "I bet you laugh right behind my back" from 'Idiot' and "My own friends hate my guts" from 'Green Eyes.'

Early in the set, Williams and bassist Stephen Pope announced that it was drummer Billy Hayes' birthday. Before they launched into 'Take on the World,' Jered Gummere and Melissa Elias from Chicago band the Ponys appeared on the side of the stage with a birthday cake for Hayes. Amidst the lit candles was a large shot glass stuck in the middle of the cake. With the crowd cheering for him, Hayes downed the shot and blew out the candles. "Eat the cake!" chanted the crowd, along with Williams and Pope. Hayes obliged and shoved handfuls of cake into his mouth and then asked the crowd to lick the frosting off his fingers.

Thankfully, no one seemed too eager to comply with his request, and Wavves continued on with their set, blasting through 'Beach Demon,' 'Post Acid,' 'Super Soaker' and crowd favorite 'So Bored.' Williams high-fived the front row in between songs and fans repaid him by crowd-surfing and jumping up on the stage to dance.

During 'Linus Spacehead,' the last song in their hour-long set, which was filled with as much stage banter as actual songs, Pope charged Williams, then Williams tackled Pope in retaliation. The two began to wrestle and wound up tangled in their guitar cables on the floor of the stage. The crowd pushed forward and cheered as the destruction unraveled onstage. Hayes began to randomly play the drum intro and sing the opening harmony of Pennywise's punk rock anthem 'Bro Hymn' as Williams pushed Pope into the crowd and then jumped into it himself.

It was clear as Williams was carried over the heads of fans towards the back of the room that there would be no encore. Wavves had truly given their all and the dedicated fans that came to see them perform so late were pleased as they walked away into the night.

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