Lollapalooza
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Lollapalooza is an American traveling music festival featuring alternative rock, rap, and punk rock bands, dance and comedy performances, and craft booths. Organized in 1991 by Perry Farrell, singer for the band Jane's Addiction, Lollapalooza ran annually through 1997, and was revived in 2003. The festival encapsulated youth culture for the 1990s much as Woodstock did for the 1960s; Lollapalooza Generation is sometimes used as a synonym for Generation X.
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Overview
Farrell conceived of the Lollapalooza festival in 1990 as a farewell tour for Jane's Addiction. The name Lollapalooza means "something outstanding or unusual"; Farrell heard the word in a Three Stooges short film and liked the sound.
Unlike previous music festivals such as Woodstock or the US Festival, which were one-time events held in one venue, Lollapalooza was a touring show -- a modern-day chautauqua -- that travelled across the United States and Canada. Instead of drawing music enthusiasts from around the country to one spot, Lollapalooza came to them -- bringing West Coast and East Coast underground culture to cities in the heartland. Because of this, many more people saw, and participated in, Lollapalooza than had been to any previous music festival. It was an important vehicle for disseminating the alternative music of the period.
The 1991 lineup was also daringly eclectic, drawing in headliners from rap such as Ice-T as well as industrial music such as Nine Inch Nails. Crossing popular music's rigidly-drawn genre lines gave the festival an air of independence from corporate rock.
Another key concept behind Lollapalooza was the inclusion of non-musical features. Performers like the Jim Rose Circus, an alternative freak show, or the Shaolin Monks stretched the boundaries of traditional rock culture. There was a tent for display of art pieces, virtual reality games, and information tables for political and environmental non-profit groups. Lollapalooza's charter was not just a super-star rock jam -- it was a cultural festival, albeit for the newly-formed 1990s counterculture.
After 1991, the festival included a second stage (and, in 1996, a third stage) for up-and-coming bands or local acts. It began a churning effect for alternative music -- as underground bands broke through to the mainstream, they drew listeners to Lollapalooza, who would then see the next generation of underground bands on the second stage. Many of the bands that played second stage at Lollapalooza later had more widespread commercial success.
The explosion of grunge music in the early 1990s propelled Lollapalooza forward; the 1992 and 1993 festivals leaned heavily on grunge acts. Punk rock standbys like mosh pits and crowd surfing became part of the canon of the concerts. These years saw great increases in the participatory nature of the event. Booths for open-microphone readings and oratory, television-smashing pits, jungle-gyms and group-musical pieces, and tattooing and piercing parlors made the event seem more like a county fair than a concert.
1994 was the high-water-mark of the grunge era and a year of tragedy for the Lollapalooza. Nirvana, the Aberdeen, Washington band that had kicked off grunge's breakthrough into mainstream music, was scheduled to headline the festival, but had to cancel because of the suicide of Kurt Cobain. (The Smashing Pumpkins headlined instead.) Cobain's widow Courtney Love made surprise guest appearances at several shows (usually taking time given to her by Pumpkins vocalist Billy Corgan), speaking to the crowds about the loss. Increased accidents and rowdyism at the shows were breaking down the feeling of community.
The final years of Lollapalooza saw the festival lose its focus. Farrell, who had been the soul of the festival, quit the organization to concentrate on his new festival project, ENIT. Ideas and musical genres that had been edgy and risque at the beginning of the 1990s were now mainstream or passe. Efforts were made to keep the festival relevant, such as including more eclectic acts such as country superstar Waylon Jennings, and emphasizing more heavily electronica groups like The Prodigy. By 1997, however, the Lollapalooza concept had run out of steam, and in 1998 failed efforts to find a headliner willing to do the show rang the deathknell for Lollapalooza.
In 2003, however, Farrell reconvened Jane's Addiction and scheduled a new tour. The festival schedule included venues in 30 cities through July and August. The 2003 tour achieved only marginal success with many fans staying away because of high ticket prices and heavy corporate sponsorship. Another tour scheduled for 2004 was canceled in June due to weak ticket sales across the country.
Farrell sold the Lollapalooza brand to Capital Sports & Entertainment, which has managed the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Capital plans to resurrect Lollapalooza as a two-day festival 2005 in Grant Park, Chicago, with an even greater variety of performers than that of the touring festival.
Lollapalooza lineups by year
1991: Main Stage: Jane's Addiction, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Living Colour, Nine Inch Nails, Fishbone, Violent Femmes, Body Count (with Ice T), Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band Side Stage: No side stage in 1991
1992: Main Stage: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ministry, Ice Cube, Soundgarden, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Pearl Jam, Lush, Temple of the Dog Side Stage: Jim Rose Circus, Sharkbait, Archie Bell, Porno for Pyros, Basehead, Cypress Hill, Sweaty Nipples, Arson Garden, Seaweed, Seam, Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E., The Look People, Stone Temple Pilots, Vulgar Boatmen, Truly, Skrew, Tribe, The Authority, Samba Hell, Rage Against the Machine, Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder
1993: Main Stage: Primus, Alice in Chains, Dinosaur Jr., Fishbone, Arrested Development, Front 242, Babes in Toyland, Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Side Stage: Sebadoh, Cell, Unrest, Mercury Rev, Mosquito, Free Kitten, Royal Trux, Tsunami, Mutabaruka, The Coctails, Scrawl, Luscious Jackson, Genitorturers, Truly, Eggs, Girls Against Boys, Thurston Moore, Glue, Karl Hendrick's Trio, Hurl
1994: Main Stage: Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, George Clinton & the P.Funk All-Stars, The Breeders, A Tribe Called Quest, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, L7, Boredoms, Green Day, Side Stage: The Flaming Lips, the Verve, The Boo Radleys, The Frogs, Guided By Voices, Lambchop, Girls Against Boys, Rollerskate Skinny, Palace Songs, Stereolab, FU-Schnickens, The Pharcyde, Shudder To Think, Luscious Jackson, King Kong, Charlie Hunter Trio, Shonen Knife, Blast Off Country Style, Souls of Mischief, Cypress Hill, Black Crowes,
1995: Main Stage: Sonic Youth, Hole, Cypress Hill, Pavement, Sinéad O'Connor, Elastica, Moby, Superchunk, Beck, Jesus Lizard, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Side Stage: Coolio, Doo Rag, Possum Dixon, Poster Children, Yo La Tengo, Brainiac, The Coctails, The Geraldine Fibbers, The Dambuilders, Laika, The Pharcyde, Tuscadero, Built to Spill, Helium, Redman, St. Johnny, Dirty Three, Mike Watt, Versus, Hum, Blonde Redhead, The Roots, Blowhole, The Zeros, Pork Queen, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments, Sabalon Glitz, Psychotica, Patti Smith, Overpass
1996: Main Stage: Metallica, Soundgarden, Cocteau Twins, Waylon Jennings, Cheap Trick, Violent Femmes, The Tea Party, Wu Tang Clan, Rage Against the Machine, Steve Earle, Devo, The Ramones, Rancid, Shaolin Monks, Screaming Trees, Psychotica Side Stage: Beth Hart Band, Girls Against Boys, Ben Folds Five, Ruby, Cornershop, You Am I, Soul Coughing, Sponge, The Melvins, Satchel, Jonny Polonsky, Fireside Indie Stage: Chune, Moonshake, Lutefisk, Capsize 7, The Cows, Long Fin Killie, Thirty Ought Six, Varnaline, Crumb
1997: Main Stage: Orbital, Devo, The Prodigy, The Orb, Tool, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tricky, KoRn, James, Julian and Damian Marley and the Uprising Band, Eels, Failure Side Stage: Summercamp, Artificial Joy Club, Jeremy Toback, Radish, Old 97's, Inch, Porno for Pyros, The Pugs, Lost Boyz, Agnes Gooch, Demolition Dollrods, Skeleton Key, Molly McGuire
2003: Main Stage: Jane's Addiction, Queens of the Stone Age, Jurassic 5, The Donnas, Audioslave, Incubus, Cold, A Perfect Circle, The Distillers Side Stage: Mondo Generator
2004 (CANCELLED DUE TO LOW TICKET SALES): Morrissey, PJ Harvey, Sonic Youth, The Killers, The Flaming Lips, The Von Bondies, String Cheese Incident, Modest Mouse, Le Tigre, Gomez, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, DJ Danger Mouse, Polyphonic Spree, Broken Social Scene, The Datsuns, Bumblebeez 81, The Secret Machines, The Thrills, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Elbow, Wheat, The Coup, Wolf Eyes
2005: Pixies, Weezer, Dinosaur Jr., the Killers, Death Cab for Cutie, Liz Phair, the Arcade Fire, Billy Idol, Cake
The Simpsons
In a 1996 episode of The Simpsons called Homerpalooza, Homer takes Bart and Lisa to an alternative music festival called Hullabaaaaaaaalooza. It includes Cypress Hill, Peter Frampton, The Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth.
External links
- - 2005 Chicago Lollapalooza (http://www.lollapalooza.com)
- MTV News - Lollapalooza Adds Danger Mouse, Von Bondies; Dates Unveiled (http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1486657/20040428/von_bondies.jhtml?headlines=true)
- MTV News - Lollapalooza's Farrell Explains His Taste For String Cheese (http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1486303/04092004/farrell_perry.jhtml)