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Perry’s parties
A trip down Lollapalooza’s memory lane
BY MATT ASHARE

It’s all too easy to forget that the first Lollapalooza to hit the Tweeter Center arrived before Nirvana released their groundbreaking and Earth-shifting sophomore album, Nevermind, on September 24, 1991 — before the word "alternative" had been bastardized, hyphenated, and co-opted by anyone targeting the disposable income of teens and twentysomethings. It was the summer of 1991, heavy metal still required as much hairspray as hooks, punk was something that happened at afternoon all-ages shows, and nobody was sure what to call all the rest of that stuff they played on college radio, whether it was post-punk pyschedelicized nastiness from a bunch of Texas misfits known as the Butthole Surfers or white-noise-riddled Beach Boys deconstructions from a pair of drugged-out British brothers who called themselves the Jesus and Mary Chain. Nonetheless, a certain stability had settled into the music business: major labels shipped commercially produced hits off to Top 40 radio, and occasionally an anomaly like R.E.M. or U2 — artists who appeared to believe in what they were doing — snuck in the back door using some combination of MTV videos, relentless touring, and college-radio airplay. They were the exceptions, and their share of the market was, to say the least, statistically insignificant.

So the whole notion of Lollapalooza — a venture dreamed up by the eccentric frontman of one of those college-radio bands who had crossed over to the mainstream on the strength of a catchy little number called "Jane Says" — seemed pointless. Seen in retrospect, of course, the idea was a no-brainer — just tally up the number of loyal fans who’d attached themselves to former Black Flag frontman Henry Rollins, or the Butthole Surfers, or goth princess Siouxsie Sioux of the Banshees, add to that the growing popularity of left-of-center bands like Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction, and, well, filling the same summer sheds that classic-rockers had been lining their pockets with for years wasn’t so far-fetched. It worked like a charm that first year, as Farrell brought together an eclectic main stage that featured the Butthole Surfers, rapper Ice-T, the African-American rock band Living ColoŸr, Nine Inch Nails, the Rollins Band, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and, to top it all off, Jane’s Addiction on their farewell tour.

It took a few years before this concept took hold of the concert industry and festival tours began multiplying. And it would be another three years before the alternative Woodstock would place the final nine-inch nail in the coffin of anything you could even remotely consider a genuine alternative in terms of music or culture. In the meantime, Lollapalooza joined Nirvana and Seattle grunge in the spotlight of a cultural revolution. And though nobody ever denied that Lollapalooza was a moneymaking venture, and rows and rows of vendors were there each year to prove it, those first few years of the alternative nation did feel special.

Most of Pearl Jam shaved their heads backstage at the Tweeter Center on the Lollapalooza II tour, which also featured the sod throwing and bonfires that got the festival banished to an abandoned Air Force base in Rhode Island for a couple of years. And in 1995, when Lollapalooza returned to the Tweeter Center with a line-up that boasted Beck, Elastica, Hole, the Jesus Lizard, Pavement, Sonic Youth, Cypress Hill, and Boston’s own Mighty Mighty Bosstones, it still felt special, if only because it was amusing to see David Yow try his stage-diving routine before the sun set and a fully active mosh pit had developed.

That, however, marked the end of Lollapalooza’s relevance, as Perry Farrell was pushed aside and the festival became something of a titans-of-new-metal tour. Within a couple years, a crippled Lollapalooza had ceased to exist. This summer, Farrell and a reunited Jane’s Addiction tried to recapture the magic they’d first generated more than a decade ago. It was a noble effort: Farrell brought along young upstarts like the Distillers and the Donnas to kick things off on the main and second stages. And rather than simply falling back on old Jane’s Addiction material, the band recorded a respectable new album to support on the tour.

But with Audioslave and Jane’s Addiction topping the main-stage bill at the Tweeter Center last Friday, Lollapalooza 2003 was mainly an exercise in nostalgia, as between them the two bands represented three of the groups who’d anchored the original Lollapaloozas: Jane’s, Soundgarden, and Rage Against the Machine. So instead of offering a taste of the future, the show amounted to a remembrance of things past. And perhaps a sign that it’s time for someone else to come along and start a new alternative to alternatives that have lost their edge.


Issue Date: August 1 - August 7, 2003
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