Between 1991 and 1997, and again in 2003, Lollapalooza roamed the country as a touring celebration of sounds percolating outside the mainstream before landing in Chicago as a destination festival in 2005, calling the Windy City’s Grant Park home along the lakefront ever since.
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and following Lolla’s immediate success, the summer concert calendar in America quickly became littered with genre specific touring galas like H.O.R.D.E., Ozzfest, Lilith Fair, Furthur, Smokin’ Grooves, Warped Tour and more.
Featuring early alternative architects Jane’s Addiction in the headlining slot, Lollapalooza’s maiden voyage also featured goth rockers Siouxsie and the Banshees, alternative funk/jazz fusion act Living Colour, the industrial stylings of Nine Inch Nails, rapper Ice-T, the psychedelic experiments of Butthole Surfers and punk stalwart Henry Rollins.
That 1991 iteration was recently named by Spin magazine as the greatest concert of the last 35 years, edging out legendary performances like that of Queen at Live Aid in 1985, a great example of the festival’s lasting influence on greater pop culture.
Today, Lollapalooza stands as one of America’s longest running and most successful destination festivals, its early accomplishments as a touring entity almost single-handedly responsible for the explosion of festivals that now dominates summer in the U.S.
While destination festivals sprung up across Europe following Woodstock in August of 1969, in America it took until the 90s for that concept to reflourish following the general chaos that came to define the Altamont Free Concert on December 6, 1969.
Co-designed by Perry Farrell as a farewell tour for Jane’s Addiction, longevity was not an initial priority.
“As the world turns, you know, you always are looking forward,” Farrell said, pondering the idea of his iconic creation as it turns a once unlikely 30. “There’s two things in this world that are in your mind: one of them is fantasy and of course the other is reality. Most people, and I’ll include myself, look forward - and we are fantasizing reality. But it isn’t reality. So when people ask me, ‘Did I know [Lollapalooza] was going to be this?’ Absolutely not. I was in it for kicks. If I knew it was going to be like this, I would’ve never made it the last hurrah for Jane’s Addiction, right? It’s plain and clear: I had no idea that it was going to be this. I had no idea that I was going to be this!”
This summer, Lollapalooza returns to full capacity following a 2020 hiatus amidst the pandemic. 170 acts will perform on eight stages and once again diversity is a hallmark of the Lollapalooza lineup, one prominently featuring pop (Miley Cyrus), rap (Post Malone, Tyler, The Creator, DaBaby, Megan Thee Stallion), rock (Foo Fighters, Journey), alternative (Modest Mouse, Band of Horses, Jimmy Eat World, Young the Giant), electronic (Marshmello, Steve Aoki) and more.
“Chris Chaney, who is the bassist for Jane’s Addiction, ran off with Miley Cyrus. He ran off with her, man! So he’s in her group,” Farrell said, looking toward a headlining slot for Miley Cyrus Thursday night at Lollapalooza and Chaney’s role in her band. “Post Malone and I have played beer pong before. And I’m sure that he’s gonna have himself a ping pong table back there. This will be our second bout. So I’m looking forward to that,” he continued, detailing a hard fought victory in the duo’s first beer pong meeting ahead of a potential rematch with Malone performing Saturday at the festival. “He didn’t know this but I played junior varsity basketball. So I’m a good shot.”
Since 2005, Lollapalooza has seen frequent appearances by Farrell who, in addition to presiding over an on stage engagement, has performed with Jane’s Addiction, alongside his wife Etty Lau Farrell and Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt as Satellite Party and most recently as frontman of Perry Farrell’s Kind Heaven Orchestra in 2019.
Farrell joined Foo Fighters, who are scheduled to close out Lollapalooza 2021 with a Sunday night headlining performance at 8 PM central on the T-Mobile stage, during an especially intimate Lollapalooza aftershow on stage at storied Chicago club Metro (capacity 1,100) in 2017, stepping in as vocalist on a cover of Jane’s Addiction’s “Mountain Song.”
In 2016, a special set in Grant park by Jane’s featured local Lolla alums Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, who handled guitar on “Mountain Song,” and Smashing Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, who added percussion on “Jane Says.”
Always looking to put an exclamation point on his Lollapalooza performances, the set featured a dynamic pyrotechnics display, one Farrell recalls vividly.
“I said to my manager, ‘Hey, I want pyro. I want pyrotechnics.’ He said, ‘OK. I got it, I got it.’ And he made a call. He reached out to the band Rammstein - a German heavy metal band! He goes, ‘We’re gonna get Rammstein’s fireworks. It’s gonna be explosive and bombastic.’ Alright, cool!” Farrell recalled.
“So [on the day of the show], I say, ‘Shouldn’t we have rehearsed with these guys before we go out there to do this?’ I’m waiting around and waiting around like all day. About a half an hour before we hit the stage, there’s [finally] a meeting. And [Jane’s Addiction guitarist] Dave Navarro is not happy,” Farrell said looking back on the experience. “And he’s right! This guy is trying to explain to us where not to stand on the stage as the explosives go off. He’s trying to explain this to us as we’re looking out at like 70,000 people waiting for us to hit the stage. Are you serious? As you can imagine, you’ve got butterflies in your stomach. And now I’m trying to find out where I should not stand so I don’t get my face blown off by Rammstein’s f—ing fireworks,” Farrell said with a chuckle.
“I’m trying to keep everybody cool. And Dave is just on fire. I’m just saying, ‘No, no, no - this is not a big deal, Dave. Just don’t look into it during ‘Mountain Song.’ Don’t put your head down and look into it during ‘Mountain’ and we’ll be cool.’ He was a good sport. And we did do it - we pulled it off. But backstage we didn’t do that right. We did not do that right.”
During each of his performances on stage at Lollapalooza since 2005, the goal for Farrell has been in figuring out a way to push each set forward even if there’s not new songs to play.
While that pyro moment ultimately worked out, not all of them have.
“OK. So dig this… We have lighting trusses above us. All bands have lighting trusses above them. But I wanted to have a lighting truss and have the entrance on a helicopter,” Farrell explained of his idea for kicking off a 2009 Lollapalooza set by Jane’s Addiction. “So I reached out to my management and I said, ‘Look, can we get a helicopter to kind of open the show?’ They said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘You know, well, it would be cool if they could drop some stuff...’ I was thinking, ‘What could we drop on everybody? It’s got to be real soft…’ And they said, ‘Don’t. Even. Start.’ They nixed that right away,” he explained.
“Alright, alright. I said, ‘What about this? Let’s have the helicopters just scouring the audience with their lights. I mean, that’s sure to stun people, right? That would make a great entrance!’ So we did it. And it cost us a pretty penny too. But my management… You know how the game of telephone operates. Where you tell a person something and it only takes one extra person to screw it up. Well, the helicopter came in for one minute, turned its lights on and off and then took off. What the hell is that?” Farrell said, laughing. “My manager said, ‘You told me to get a helicopter, I got a helicopter!’ ‘No. I told you I want them to scour! It’s like the golden age of Hollywood! What the hell was that?’ Anyway, that’s the story.”
Since 2005 in Chicago, the Kidzapalooza stage has provided Farrell an unparalleled opportunity to experiment.
In 2008, he jammed with Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash during a surprise performance and with country singer Leann Rimes the following year. 2013 saw the singer sit in with gold medal-winning Olympic snowboarder Shaun White and his band Bad Things. In 2017, he was joined by Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo.
But one of his fondest memories on the kids stage saw him backed by thenewno2 on covers of tracks by Velvet Underground (“Sweet Jane”) and his own Porno For Pyros (“Pets”).
“My highlight might have been meeting Dhani Harrison and singing ‘Here Comes the Sun’ with him,” Farrell said of his introduction to thenewno2 singer and guitarist (son of Beatle George). “Pete DiStefano from Porno For Pyros joined us. And we were so giddy. Me and Pete, when we get together, all we do is joke. One joke after another. Because Porno For Pyros was just wild. But he joined me to sing ‘Here Comes the Sun’ with Dhani Harrison. I don’t know if there’s footage of it. But while we were playing, I walked over to him and whispered in his ear, ‘We’re in The Beatles! The f—ing Beatles!’”
As Farrell looks ahead to Lollapalooza’s Chicago return, Thursday, July 29 through Sunday, August 1, 2021, he’s clear on the role of music and his creation during uncertain times.
“I’ve been drinking plenty of water, doing push-ups and going surfing. I’m prepared to have fun. And dammit I’m gonna! The great joy is just knowing that we’ll be together again. People that are kind and love music will be together after almost two years,” he said.
“What would I love for Lollapalooza to become? If I were a surgeon and I needed to heal the world, I would do it with music. And I would operate. In other words, I would surgically operate by bringing music to all of the painful points, the trigger points around the world. I would bring two parties that were warring together. That’s my fantasy. And I don’t know if it’s ever going to happen. But I’m going to try.”
