So much to say.... Obviously the legacy of Lollapalooza looks rather mixed in the fullness of time. It inspired countless imitators---I recall Area One and Smoking Grooves, and to the extent that it was inspired by Ferrell's show, Lilith Fair, although there were almost certainly dozens of series on precisely this model in the 90s to mid 00s. Some of these were actually pretty good, a lot were horrid... all of them seemed far, far too big to be enjoyable, but de gustibus non est disputandum.
At the time, though---and especially this was so to one not yet really old enough to get to go spend one's summer job money on this sort of thing---the idea of a days-long concert series involving not just one's favorite bands but possibly all of the favorite bands, or at least all of 'em 'cept The Talking Heads or something, and who knows they might even show up for next year's... the whole thing was Too Big in entirely a different way. Something you simply couldn't believe was really happening (although, of course, that you were going to miss it was entirely too credible a circumstance).
I know it sounds silly, but as trivial as this blog gets, I am really trying to accomplish profundity with it, at times at least. The temptation, therefore, is to wrap up Lollapalooza along with the Clinton administration and Microsoft and all the other touchstones of the 90s into some great narrative of "things we didn't know it yet, but were in the process of defining the era of a self-indulgent sense of security." To be honest, though, I really don't know what it meant.
I mean, the whole thing was a farewell swan song for Jane's Addiction that metastasized into a firehose of alternative music, and they even got back together again. If that's not a warning sign about the plasticity of meaning and symbolism, I mean, man....
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