Description

With a Foreword by Kim Thayil of Soundgarden.

Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival is the definitive oral history of a pivotal 1990s music phenomenon, written by New York Times bestselling authors Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour (authors of Nothin’ But A Good Time). Through candid, unfiltered accounts gathered from hundreds of brand-new interviews with musicians, festival organizers, promoters, publicists, backstage workers, record executives, crew members, reporters, roadies, sideshow performers and more, this book vividly captures the groundbreaking era of Lollapalooza’s influential original run from 1991 through 1997.

Bienstock and Beaujour explore how founder Perry Farrell initially envisioned the festival as an innovative farewell tour for his band, Jane’s Addiction. After its landmark first season in the summer of 1991, Lollapalooza quickly evolved into a cultural juggernaut—transforming not only music but film, fashion, food, politics, literature, and television. The eclectic festival broke genre boundaries by bringing together alternative rock, heavy metal, punk, hip-hop, industrial, goth, avant-garde music, electronic dance artists, spoken word poets, and a spectrum of other creative voices into a uniquely interconnected community. This groundbreaking approach served as the blueprint for today’s modern music festivals, making a lasting and deep impact on popular culture and the music industry.

Featuring exclusive firsthand conversations with some of alternative rock’s biggest names such as Perry Farrell and Jane’s Addiction, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Tool, Ice-T, Sonic Youth, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, Green Day, Patti Smith, Alice in Chains, Metallica and many others, Lollapalooza delivers unmatched access to artists’ backstage lives and their shared, often stunning recollections of the festival’s behind-the-scenes reality.

More than just music, the early Lollapalooza festivals incorporated visual arts, political awareness campaigns, activism, nonprofit initiatives, and even the occasional sideshow, providing a bold mix of culture, knowledge, art, and entertainment which clearly defined the cutting-edge ethos of the 1990s. The festival’s enormous impact continues today, from the annual sold-out Chicago event attracting approximately 400,000 attendees each year, to internationally successful events around the globe, solidifying Lollapalooza’s status as one of the world’s largest and longest-running music festivals.

Tracing the festival’s innovative evolution through vivid, original testimonies, Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival offers detailed, richly layered portraits of the onstage spectacle, the backstage drama, and the unforgettable moments that defined an era. This is the essential, authoritative chronicle of Lollapalooza and the 1990s alternative-rock revolution.