The first ever Lollapalooza tour kicked off on July 18, 1991.
Perry Farrell, singer of Jane’s Addiction, conceived and co-created the music and arts festival. It was supposed to double as a farewell tour for the band.
The word lollapalooza, sometimes spelled lollapalootza or lallapaloosa, means a fun and memorable event.
That’s exactly what Farrell’s ‘Palooza became.
The Inaugural Lollapalooza
The inaugural festival featured a diverse assortment of bands, including Jane’s Addiction, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Living Colour, Nine Inch Nails, Ice-T, Butthole Surfers, Henry Rollins Band, and others.
The first stop on the Lollapalooza tour kicked off in Chandler, Arizona. It ended on August 28, 1991, in Enumclaw, Washington, just south of Seattle.
I remember the festival premiere being highly publicized on MTV. As an 11-year-old, it looked like an incredible time and something I would love to attend one day. Philadelphia, however, didn’t get a tour stop on the inaugural Lollapalooza run in 1991.
Another cool feature of Lollapalooza was the inclusion of “side shows” and nonmusical acts like the Jim Rose Circus & the Shaolin monks. There were tents displaying funky art along with information tables for political and environmental nonprofit groups.
The early ’90s was the dawn on the “alternative” rock culture. Lollapalooza, a bit like a traveling circus, encapsulated all of it.
Alternative Rock Showcase
The first Lollapalooza was a watershed moment in the history of music festivals. It helped to popularize alternative rock and alternative culture, and it paved the way for other successful festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo.
The festival also helped to launch the careers of many of the bands that performed on the bill, including Nine Inch Nails and Tool.
Lollapalooza continued their annual traveling circus throughout most of the 1990s, featuring up-and-coming bands like Rage Against The Machine, 311, Soundgarden, Rancid, Cypress Hill, Beck, Green Day, the Smashing Pumpkins, and countless others.
By the early 2000s, the musical landscape was changing again. The popularity of the traveling Lollapalooza festival was also fading a bit.
In 2005, Farrell and ‘Palooza organizers decided to make the event a destination rather than a city-to-city tour, by setting up shop at Grant Park in Chicago. Every year since then, the US version of Lollapalooza has taken place at the massive Grant Park in Chi-town.
Since 2011, Lollapalooza organizers have expanded the event to Chile, Argentina, and Brazil.
Lollapalooza 2003
One of my all-time favorite Lollapaloozas was in 2003. I went to the Chula Vista, California (San Diego) stop on the tour which featured Jane’s Addiction, Audioslave, Incubus, Jurassic 5, The Donnas, and more on the Main Stage. A few baby bands like Kings of Leon, Thirty Seconds to Mars, Burning Brides played on the secondary stages.
July 18th also marks the anniversary of a legendary Lollapalooza stop in Philadelphia in 1993 on the site of the (then) recently demolished JFK Stadium in South Philly. It featured Alice in Chains, Primus, Tool, Rage Against The Machine, Fishbone, Arrested Development, and about 50 other bands.
Were you there? I wasn’t, but I sure wish I was!!
Jane’s Addiction helped lay the groundwork for much of the 1990’s alternative rock boom thanks to albums like 1988’s ‘Nothing’s Shocking’ and 1990’s ‘Ritual De Lo Habitual.’