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 often used as a synonym for Generation X.
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 like Ice-T as well as electronic music like 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 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 Seattle, 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. Cobain's widow Courtney Love made surprise guest appearances at several shows, 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 includes venues in 30 cites through July and August. As of summer 2003 the festival has just begun and no word is forthcoming about its commercial success or the future of Lollapalooza.
1991: Main Stage: Jane's Addiction, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Living Color, 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, Cypress Hill, Stone Temple Pilots, Rage Against the Machine
1993: Main Stage: Primus, Arrested Development, Alice in Chains, Dinosaur Jr, Fishbone, Rage Against the Machine, Tool, Babes in Toyland, Front 242 Side Stage: Sebadoh, Cell, Mutabaruka, Luscious Jackson, Mosquito, Mercury Rev
1994: Main Stage: Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, Green Day, A Tribe Called Quest, The Breeders, L7, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Boredoms Side Stage: Stereolab, Charlie Hunter Trio, Shonen Knife, Lambchop, Guided By Voices, The Flaming Lips, Verve, Boo Radleys, Cypress Hill, Black Crowes
1995: Main Stage: Hole, Pavement, Sonic Youth, Moby, Beck, Superchunk, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Jesus Lizard, Sinead O'Connor, Elastica Side Stage: Yo La Tengo, Patti Smith, Coolio, Brainiac, Redman, The Roots
1996: Main Stage: Waylon Jennings, Rage Against the Machine, Violent Femmes, Cheap Trick, Soundgarden, Metallica, Cocteau Twins, Wu Tang Clan, Devo, The Tea Party, Steve Earle, Rancid, Screaming Trees, The Ramones, Shaolin Monks, Rage Against the Machine, Psychotica Side Stage: Ben Folds Five, Cornershop, Soul Coughing, You Am I, The Melvins Indie Stage: The Cows, Crumb
1997: Main Stage: Devo, Orbital, The Prodigy, The Orb, Tricky, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tool, KoRn, Julian and Damian Marley and the Uprising Band, James, Failure Side Stage: eels, Porno for Pyros
2003: Main Stage: Jane's Addiction, Queens of the Stone Age, Jurassic 5, The Donnas, Audioslave, Incubus, Cold, A Perfect Circle, The DistillersLollapalooza Lineups By Year
