Of the several Chicago summer music events, this is the one that we're most likely to attend (I realized yesterday that we have pics of me & The Wife from a Blues Fest about 18 years ago when we were still dating!). One of the great things about this city is the ability to stage all these free festivals ... at least as long as the weather's good for Taste of Chicago (the Taste funds all the other fests).
The past couple of years we've ended up over by the Front Porch Stage ...
... which is in a little corner park, tucked in southwest of Jackson and Columbus. It's usually pretty easy to find a patch of ground to set up on there, and it's out of the main "traffic pattern" for the rest of the fest (unlike the Crossroads Stage, which is at the end of Jackson at the Drive, and you need to be strategic on your arrival to get a good seat).
Unfortunately, we set up "not in the shade" and I had to deal with the brutalities of direct DayStar exposure (despite having on black jeans, long-sleeved shirt, and a hat) ... I felt like an out-take from http://www.gothsinhotweather.com/ ... and had to retreat a couple of times to the shelter provided by the trees. I do not understand how people can stand to be in direct sunlight!
Anyway, we stayed for a couple of sets, and then The Girls were getting whiney, so we packed our stuff back into the cart and walked up to the playground at the top end of Millennium park for a bit, and then back home. It was about a 2-mile walk each way, so I was pretty beat by the time we got back.
Another cool thing (and I don't know if they'd been doing this all weekend or not) ... the Mississippi booth was giving out a free Blues CD with their travel info ... so I ended up with an unexpected addition to the music collection!