Reliving Lollapalooza

In the summer of 1991 I had just finished my junior year in high school and was lucky enough to attend the inaugural edition of the very first Lollapalooza in Atlanta. It was more due to having a boyfriend in a band than being hip that allowed me my first taste of what would later be dubbed "alternative" music. Although I was already a fan of Jane's Addiciton, Nine Inch Nails, Siouxie and The Banshees and Violent Femmes, I was taken aback by bands like Fishbone, Ice T, Butthole Surfers, and The Rollins Band. That show was quite an eye opener.

By the next year, I had ditched the boyfriend but returned to Lollapalooza, this time in New Orleans. My car broke down about three hours into the 5 hour drive down I-55 from Memphis.

I have no recollection why, but luckily, we had decided to leave at around 11PM the previous night to get to the festival by around noon the next day. We spent the next 12 hours pushing and coasting my beat down 1979 Toyota Corolla though the highways of Mississippi, until we finally decided that we had to find a mechanic. I had a bad alternator. I think we pulled our t-shirt money (around 75 bucks) to gte it fixed so that we could still make it to the show.

My friends and I were still able to make it just in time to meet Chris Cornell (formerly of Soundgarden, currently of Audioslave) in the parking lot before Pearl Jam took the stage. He thought we didn't have tickets and offered to help us get into the show. We realized who he was as he walked away. Pearl Jam was awesome. Shut up. It was 1992 and Ten was the album of the summer...

The ground was so muddy I lost one of my Birkenstocks as I was crushed against the front of the stage during the Red Hot Chili Peppers set. That summer I got to see a man lift a 15 lbs weight with his testicle.

The following summer I was planning a move to Nashville to try and get a job in the music industry. What better time to plan a trip to search for an apartment than when Lollapalooza was in town? Some of you may remember this edition of Lolla as the year of the audience bonfires.

I remember skipping Alice in Chains and instead wandering around the tour buses to check things out. I ended up running into John Rubeli, the current director of A&R at Atlantic Records. At the time he was booking bands for the side stage at Lolla. I entertained him as I told him about my plans to start an all white girl rap group! (it was very forward thinking at the time). He gave me a bunch of free CD's and his number in LA. I never called him.

In 1994 Nirvana was set to headline. Then Kurt died. My friend took a picture of me one night after reading the details of his death:

Smashing Pumpkins and The Beastie Boys replaced Nirvana and this year I decided to go to the show in St Louis - I kind of made a pact withmyself to see the show at a different venue every year. I remember the Beasties set being off the hook, everybody went crazy because they were playing their own instruments this time out - If memory serves me correctly, this was the first tour they did that.

When the Smashing Pumpkins came on later, the crowd was exhausted and sat through the beginning of their set. This pissed Billy Corgan off majorly. He taunted the people in the front until someone threw a shoe and hit him in the head. James Iha tried to lighten the mood by playing "I Saw The Sign" by Ace of Bass, the radio hit of the summer. It was hilarious. I guess you had to be there.

Courtney Love was in full drama mode when she headlined Lolapalooza in 1995. I don't really recall a whole lot about this particular show. I beleive this was the year I turned 21 if that explains anything. I returned to Atlanta for this festival and left before Sonic Youth finished their second song.

By the next year Metallica was headling, and for me, that was all she wrote.

But this year I feel like a virgin. It's been a decade since my last Lollapalooza and although I've consistently avoided camping festivals for the past 10 years, a festival in Chicago where I can finish off the day in a bar with a waitress, sleep in a bed, and start off each day with a shower sounds pretty fantastic to me. Sure it will be hot as hell, (save me a spot in the mist tent), the bathroom lines will be long, the beverages overpriced - but going back in time and reliving your early twenties while seeing a steallar line-up that includes DCFC, Flaming Lips, Iron & Wine, Wilco and Ryan Adams?

Priceless.

I'll be bloggingmy trip - stay tuned.