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| A fan surfs the crowd at the 2005 Lollapalooza in Chicago's Grant Park. (Photo courtesy of Cambria Harkey/Lollapalooza) |
A Senior Moment for Gen X: First Lollapalooza Was 15 Years Ago
BY MICHELE M. MELENDEZ
Posted on 07/24/2006 7:14:47 PM PDT by Incorrigible
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A Senior Moment for Gen X: First Lollapalooza Was 15 Years AgoBY MICHELE M. MELENDEZ
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[Chicago, Illinois] -- It happens to everyone: Some cultural moment makes you "feel old." For Generation X, now in their 30s and 40s, this is one of those times.
Beneath the buzz for next month's Lollapalooza music festival lurks the jarring realization that the first one was 15 years ago.
"Jeez. Really? Fifteen?" asked Kristen Palmer, 32, of New York City, who braved the mosh pit as a teen at the show in northern Virginia, outside Washington, D.C. "Are you sure?"
Yep.
Back in 1991, music critics called Lollapalooza that generation's Woodstock. It had a similarly youthful, anything-goes spirit, even if body piercings had replaced love beads.
Lollapalooza -- originally a touring show -- has evolved into a three-day event settled into Chicago's Grant Park. It's Aug. 4-6, with roughly 130 acts topped by high-energy funk-rockers Red Hot Chili Peppers and the "Louis Vuitton Don," rapper Kanye West. Nine stages. Even a "Kidzapalooza" area for children.
The first Lollapalooza traveled to 21 cities with just seven acts: Jane's Addiction, Rollins Band, Butthole Surfers, Ice-T with Body Count, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Nine Inch Nails and Living Colour. Late in the tour, Violent Femmes and Fishbone replaced the last two.
The word itself -- lollapalooza -- was a curiosity, and started people using "palooza" as a suffix.
The dictionary definition: something extraordinary.
That's the vibe Perry Farrell, the iconic frontman of Jane's Addiction, sought in creating the festival. Farrell considers himself an alchemist of sorts, pulling different types of music and energy together.
"It's about revolution, and it's about rebellion, and all those things that young people still believe in and have faith in, that they're going to change things," Farrell, now 47, recently told Henry Rollins, an original Lollapalooza performer, on Rollins' Independent Film Channel show.
"That moment in the early 1990s was where alternative or independent rock started," said Steve Waksman, assistant professor of music and American studies at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. It had its own set of values, Waksman said -- experimenting with sounds and words, rejecting the music business establishment.
The first Lollapalooza mixed rock with rap with punk with funk with industrial.
Today, rap and rock artists routinely collaborate, by design or at the whim of DJs who blend the genres. But the concept was a baby when rapper Ice-T and Body Count, his accompanying heavy metal band, took the Lollapalooza stage and belted out "Cop Killer," a song describing violent revenge for police brutality. They would release it on an album the following year, sparking a national furor. (Ice-T now plays a cop on TV's "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.")
The inaugural show was the year before a presidential election in which many fans would be voting for the first time. It was about more than music. Concertgoers strolled among issue-oriented booths with information about voting, AIDS, gun control, abortion, the environment.
"The original tour broke new ground in packaging rap, metal and alternative in one show, but it also broke new ground in including a wide range of progressive political organizations on the tour ... at a time when popular music was only making headlines for getting censored," said Reebee Garofalo, professor of community media and technology at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
Reviews were mixed. Some critics wished there had been more interchange among the bands, a wider variety of political viewpoints and a more diverse audience, which was largely white.
Regardless, for alternative music fans, Lollapalooza was THE show.
"This was the first time I remember there being an opportunity to see a bunch of alternative bands all at once, something different and special," said Anna Villines, 36, of Portland, Ore., who caught Lollapalooza in Enumclaw, Wash., near Seattle.
Brett Burmeister, 35, also of Portland, saw the same performance. "I spent 14, 15 hours in the rain," he remembers.
At a show in Clarkston, Mich., near Detroit, "Sod wars had been breaking out through the day as the people up on the lawn ... realized that the grass on the hill was easy to rip up in large, dirty clumps," recalls Michael Absher, 40, of Flint.
Christopher F. Smith, 35, of San Francisco, remembers feeling awestruck after the northern Virginia show: "I was still glowing -- energized and very, very alive. I knew that I had been to something important -- historic -- and didn't want to lose the feeling."
Observers note that Lollapalooza uncovered an appetite for eclectic music festivals, after the big "arena rock" shows that marked the 1970s and '80s.
"It's a touchstone," said Murray Forman, assistant professor of communication studies at Boston's Northeastern University. "It really did change the character of what we've come to expect from our (live) summer music."
Some who have seen Lollapalooza change over the years note that "alternative music" has become mainstream and that the show increasingly relies on corporate backing.
Daniel Goldmark, assistant professor of music at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, recalls a 1996 episode of Fox's long-running cartoon, "The Simpsons": Homer takes his kids to "Hullabalooza" to prove he's still cool. His daughter, Lisa, observes, "Wow, it's like Woodstock, only with advertisements everywhere and tons of security guards."
"At what point do people say something is authentic and real, and when does it become commercial, a sellout?" Goldmark said.
That's a challenge for show producers, who have to keep ticket prices low enough to attract a crowd.
"We've really made conscious decisions not to go too far (with corporate sponsorship) with Lollapalooza, because we feel the fans that are coming out don't really want that in their face," said Charlie Jones, partner and executive producer with Capital Sports & Entertainment in Austin, Texas -- one of the event's current producers.
After 1997, Lollapalooza took a five-year break. It returned in 2003 only to be canceled in 2004 due to weak ticket sales. Jones' firm and Charles Attal Presents, also in Austin, reshaped it last year as a two-day show in Chicago.
The 2006 edition adds a third day. There'll be an art market. Organizations devoted to stopping global warming, getting out the youth vote and other causes will spread their word. Children will get the chance to play music and dance in their own activities area.
Unlike the first Lollapallooza, this is a family-friendly show. Do the math. Gen X has kids now.
"One thing that's consistent with this generation ... they've been concertgoers since day one, and they're still music fans," Jones said. "They're just a little older."
July 21, 2006
(Michele M. Melendez can be contacted at michele.melendez@newhouse.com)
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
-- Mick Jagger 2006
Never heard of 'em. Sounds like something Bill Clinton might have.
WOW! That brings back some memories! That song still rocks pretty good! I miss cheesy 80s videos and trying to run my fingers through a girl's hair after she used an entire can of Aqua-Net in it.
I saw them on their "reunion" tour in 2000. They played very, very loud! They also sounded great and were well-rehearsed.
Yep! Mile High Stadium, Denver Colorado. Wow! I forgot all about that show till now. Scorpions were there as well. It was Dokken's "farewell" show. They had to break up before George Lynch and Don Dokken killed each other. Damn shame, really.
Yeah, I agree. Politics aside, RATM was a pretty kick-ass band. "Sleep Now in the Fire" is the one that gets turned up to 11 for me.
I know! I still love songs like that from the 80s. Reminds me of school dances.
I miss cheesy 80s videos and trying to run my fingers through a girl's hair after she used an entire can of Aqua-Net in it.
Being a teen in the 80s was the best. I had semi to low-big hair, but some of my girlfriends had the really big hair. I don't know, I guess I didn't like my hair being that crunchy. Aqua-Net was a girls best friend in the 80s.
You didn't want to light a cig when someone was spraying that stuff....lol.
I was always too chicken to smuggle stuff in.
Hehe... Well his taste in women and politics suck, but if he has those two, he knows good music.
"I got a new girl now... and she's a lot like you." 1984... I was 16. That brings back memories. Thanks for the link. I don't think I ever saw the video.
LOL. I think my sister use to wear her hair that way.
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
That reminds me- I also downloaded the video for Soul to Squeeze recently. It was one of their first "mature" songs, and brings back great memories of the summer of '93 for me.
Mine will be my 20th school reunion. Happening this year!! AWE man, I'm that old already.
How do you get those stills from the video?
Check out his leopard uni-tard.
Last I heard was this guy was writing songs of Celine Dion.
That's the only song anybody remembers from Aldo Nova! It still receives a lot of airplay on the classic/hard rock station here in Jacksonville.
He must've parlayed that one song into a small mint. Wikipedia has him currently living in Monaco. Monaco ain't cheap!
I turned 29 a few months ago. I can't help but feel that 29 sounds older than 30.
Oh, you're 29 - wow you're getting old.
vs
Oh, you're only 30 you're still young.
That was right around the time of OG Original Gangsta. 15 years ago I had 3 CD's - ICE T Original Gangsta, REM Out of Time and U2 Joshua Tree - that was a wierd mix.
I'd go from Shiny Happy People to New Jack Hustler in about 5 minutes.
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