Lollapalooza and I have a history. No, not the early years of the festival. I was about 6 or 7 when it started and Kriss Kross wasn't headlining, so it was pretty much out of the question. My relationship to the festival has lasted only a few years and has been less than satisfactory, thanks to all of the issues surrounding founder Perry Farrell's largely unsuccessful attempts to resuscitate the once mighty event.
Certainly a lack of talent hasn't been the cause of the festival's recent woes. In 2003, during the first year of its reinstatement, the acts who signed on included such rock radio favorites as the Queens of the Stone Age, Incubus, A Perfect Circle and Audioslave, but was forced to drop dates due to logistical problems, such as trying to squeeze 18,000 people into a 1,000 capacity club.
The year after, the tour only swelled, expanding to a two-day venture and flaunting one of the best lineups outside of Coachella. However, despite the inclusion of such alt-rock giants as The Pixies (somewhere on the continuum between the greatest thing ever and \godlike""), The Flaming Lips, Modest Mouse, Wilco, Sonic Youth and The Polyphonic Spree, ticket sales leading up to the tour were so low that the promoters decided to cut their losses and run, leaving more than a few people looking very odd with their eyes all bugged out of their skulls.
Now, earlier that year I watched people pay scalpers upward of $300 for single Pixies tickets at a club with the most abusive cadre of security guards in Minneapolis, so why no one was willing to pay a quarter of that to see them play with around 20 of the top groups in alternative music is a bit of a mystery. It could've had something to do with that fact that the summer of 2004 was a slow year for ticket sales.
It also could have been due to the fact that, as monuments to poor planning go, Lollapalooza 2004 was somewhere between Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union and Hitler's mustache. To use the tour's Chicago date as an example, most concert-goers already spending around $100 for two-day passes don't relish having to find parking and a hotel on a weekend when 20,000 to 30,000 extra people will be in the city (the majority of them members of the Polyphonic Spree).
Lo and behold, however, the year is now 2005 and with it has come another promise of great things from the Farrell camp. Lollapalooza has, apparently, returned as a one-weekend event. The festival's website (www.lollapalooza.com) is up and running and the dates have been confirmed as July 23rd and 24th at Chicago's Grant Park.
The full list of acts include The Pixies, The Killers, Weezer, Cake and Widespread Panic. Why the one off approach? Well, unlike the remarkable failure of Lollapalooza 2004, the one-weekend festivals of the year, including Coachella and Bonnaroo, were very successful.
And that's not all that's changing this year. On April 7, a presale on the official site sold two-day passes for $35, or about what you'd pay for a T-shirt at an Eagles' concert. Could all this change be more of the poor planning that killed the last tour and my dreams?
Who cares?! It was $35!
Matt Hunziker is a sophomore majoring in political science and english. His music column runs every Thursday.
