A Senior Moment for Gen X: First Lollapalooza Was 15 Years Ago

Newhouse News ^ | 7/21/2006 | Michele M. Melendez

[cmsgop]

I was at the First LaLa in CA held at Irvine Meadows. I was working it, had All Access Passes and I just want to say that ICE-T is a dick.

[Darkwolf377]

Ignored it then, so unlike the folks who brag about being at Woodstock when they actually weren't, I guess my memories will be about how I DIDN'T go to Lollapalooza.

[mysterio]

Good grief. You have got to be kidding. Compare that noise to anything from Chicago, The Moody Blues, The Who, The Doors, etc. There is no comparison. There is no thought to composition or creating a piece of art. It's repetitive and banal musically.

I love those bands, too. The Doors are one of my all time favorites. There's a lot of good stuff out there. You just have to listen. I dig everything from Johnny Cash to Public Enemy. There's beauty in a lot of it.

The latest stuff I've heard that I really like is Coldplay's X and Y and this band called Rogue Wave. Plus a couple local bands in my area are really writing some awesome music.

[RepoGirl]

I caught Lollapalooza when it came through Orlando in '91. I was just so bored and disappointed with it, and there was just something SO wrong about seeing Nine Inch Nails play (outdoors) in the middle of the day.

Trent used the smoke machines and the strobes--at three in the afternoon. Looked like he was having one hell of a cookout on stage. Sigh.

It had been built up as this great, enlightened gathering of progressiveness, but all I saw were drunk frat boys and dumb hippies with dreads and piercings.

Oh... and vendors selling burgers for $8 bucks. That was so progressive.

[Jet Jaguar]

Phoebe Cates will always be 18 and beautiful!

Well said.

[MotleyGirl70]

Similar to the 20 year anniversary of Ferris Bueller.

OMG! Twenty years already! Now I feel old.

[AnnaZ]

I missed the first few Lollapaloozas 'cause I was living in Venezuela... caught the first one I could when I got stateside... '95 with Beck, Cypress Hill, Sonic Youth, Hole, etc.

I was so bummed because Sinead O'Connor, booked to play, had to cancel due to being pregnant. Then I found out I was as pregnant as she. (Still went, though...)

Now that pregnancy is a ten-year-old who fights with me over the iPod. Yep, time flies...

[MotleyGirl70]

It's scary. I'm turning 29 in 17 hours!

Twenty-nine ain't nothing. Talk to me when you hit your mid-30s! ;)

[MotleyGirl70]

How was "Jane's Addiction"?

[Big Guy and Rusty 99]

I almost cried the other day. some college radio station was playing cutting crew "died in your arms" during their oldies program. Hard to believe that I'm 16 years out of high school and 12 years out of college. I am amazed by every new gadget out there. My coworkers take it for granted. Of course, they have never had only three TV to choose from channels.

[GOP_Raider]

Hey, Children are to be seen, not heard!!

LOL!!!!

[Space Wrangler]

Caught Lollapalooza in Nashville and Atlanta. Did anyone catch the HORDE shows that followed the next year I think?

[Richard Kimball]

I do this every year, as I teach college, and want to make sure I am in touch with my new students.

Students entering college this year were probably born in 1988. They were born the year the films "Beetlejuce", "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?", "Rain Man", "Die Hard", and "Big" were made.

When they were born, the TV show "Family Ties" was in it's final season. Dallas had already fallen out of the top twenty TV shows, and Highway to Heaven was in it's final season.

George Bush was elected the year they were born. Pete Maravich, Heather O'Rourke (the little blonde girl in Poltergeist), Louis L'Amour, Andy Gibb, and Pappy Boyington died the year they were born.

FWIW, as a baby boomer, my critical moment came in 1987, when they re-released the Beatles "Sgt. Pepper" album as a CD, and put up banners in the store, with pictures of the Beatles that said "It was twenty years ago, today..."

[MotleyGirl70]

Did you know Poison and Skid Row had a venue at a casino in my area?

I'd be there in a second. I saw Poison twice and Sebastian Bach (solo) Great shows!

Did anyone go to "Monsters of Rock" in '88.

Van Halen, The Scorpions, Metallica, Dokken and someone else I can't remember.

[Richard Kimball]

Twenty-nine ain't nothing. Talk to me when you hit your mid-30s! ;)

I could tell you a story that would make you cry!

[new cruelty]

For Generation X, now in their 30s and 40s...

Hmph. I never considered myself a part of generation x.

[GOP_Raider]

But I say you're Gen X if you were born before Reagan's second inauguration!

I always wondered about that. I was born in a few days after Reagan's inaguration in '81, graduated high school in 1999 (the infamous "Class of '99") and I was all of 10 years old for the first LollaPalooza. Based on that, I simply figured I was too young to be considerd a "GenX'er".

[new cruelty]

Chris Cornell, 1992. My biggest singing influence.

yep. Chris Cornell continues to impress me even today.

[misterrob]

I went to one back in 1991.

Ice T
Butthole Surfers
Jane's Addiction

plus a bunch of other bands I have forgotten....

[new cruelty]

I was there! The other band was Kingdome Come (see picture below).

My first rock concert was the 1983 Texxas Jam in the Houston Astrodome. The line up included Styx, Sammy Hagar, Ted Nugent, Triumph, and Uriah Heep.