Lollapalooza 2010: The People, The Music, The Scene
Arcade Fire, Green Day, Lady Gaga, the Strokes and the reunited Soundgarden took the stage alongside scores of other bands the weekend of August 6, 2010 at the fifteenth edition of Lollapalooza, and Jerk Magazine was there.
Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell started Lollapalooza in 1991 as a farewell tour for his splintering alt.-rock outfit. Inspired by the work of legendary concert promoter Bill Graham, it was envisioned as a traveling music festival hitting dates across the US, in contrast to locally curated festivals like Woodstock, Celebrate Brooklyn, or CMJ Music Marathon.
For seven years, Lollapalooza continued to tour across the country, known for showcasing music from a variety of so-called “alternative” genres: industrial, heavy metal, shoegaze, gangsta rap and Red Hot Chili Peppers back when Red Hot Chili Peppers was a musically relevant band. Nonetheless, Lolla was discontinued in 1998 after promoters failed to find suitable headliners to meet the festival’s demands. This led music critic Eric Weisbard, writing for SPIN, to claim that, “Lollapalooza is as comatose as alternative rock right now.”
The festival saw new life in 2003, however with headlining acts like Queens of the Stone Age, Incubus and Audioslave, in addition to (the reunited) Jane’s Addiction. Despite a few hiccups, the festival has since maintained a steady two- to three-day booking in Grant Park, Chicago. Its revival has enjoyed plenty of corporate sponsorship willing to pay for bigger and better bands to attend every year.
By 2010, Lollapalooza was a truly international and ecumenical festival, importing acts and fans from a wide range of countries, and a fine cross-section of modern music. As our Jerk video shows, fans at Lollapalooza mostly had a great time this year, enjoying shows by The Strokes, Phoenix and Arcade Fire in indie rock; Erykah Badu, B.o.B, Cypress Hill and J. Cole in hip-hop; and Lady Gaga, Soundgarden and Green Day filling the superstar field on the Lollapalooza form.