On the eve of Lollapalooza 2005, it must be remembered that the granddaddy of all music festivals is still �alternative� in the broadest sense of the term. Forgoing the prospect of bringing on well-established popular acts, the festival is focusing on diversity mixing older alt rockers with young and up and coming indie artists. This years Lollapalooza features such distinctive artists as And You Will Know Us By the Trail of the Dead, Death Cab for Cutie, Weezer, The Killers, The Arcade Fire, and many more.

Born out the spacey mind of ex-Jane�s Addiction singer Perry Farrell, Lollapalooza has evolved with the times by remaining current musically and professionally. �It�s (Lollapalooza) hugely different this year,� said Perry Farrell in a recent interview with Brian Braiker of Newsweek �The business structure has been gutted. We were in our day America�s premier traveling festival. But the idea and the concept of the traveling festival has really, really changed over the course of the last decade,� he added.

Farrell and his partners have licensed the Lollapalooza name to Texas-based company, Capital Sports and Entertainment who have turned the once touring festival into a single city event. �It has become a destination festival, � Farrell stated in the Newsweek article. �We go in with a business model to work this year in Chicago with the Parkways Foundation�they enhance and beautify the parks in Chicago�so we�re bringing money to the city, working with them on a charitable level and they are working with us to find the land and secure the streets and the byways.�

Things weren�t always this bright and Lollapalooza has taken a rocky road to get where it is now. After declining ticket sales and waning popularity, Lollapalooza was non-existent from 1998-2002 with some attributing Metallica�s headlining slot in 1996 as the symbolic deathblow that killed the festival. Farrell quit the organization and tried to start up the ENIT festival that same year but people stayed away resulting in poor ticket sales and many dates being cancelled.

�Lollapalooza just became the corporate co-opting of something that had basically grown up with and participated in,� said belly dancer Pleasant Gehman in a Spin Magazine 2003 interview. �It was good for what it was, but eventually it became like a parody. I mean it was literally parodied by The Simpsons � Homerpalooza,� she added.

David Ames of the Perry Farrell fansite www.aintnoright.com expressed similar sentiments. �Unfortunately, Perry Farrell and Lollapalooza were forced to eventually contend with the fact that for a lot of the kids, revolution was simply a trend. Also, as new owners got their grubby hands on the festival in the mid nineties it became a bastardized version of Perry�s original vision.�

In 2003, the festival returned with a solid line-up leaning heavily on rock acts like Audioslave, Incubus and Queens of the Stone Age but in 2004 ticket sales were abysmal causing the festival to go into hibernation once more.  Some say music festivals should be more specialized like Lillith Fair, Vans Warped Tour or Ozzfest (Billboard reported earlier this year that Ozzfest is the top-grossing touring festival of all time grossing $172 million and drawing 4.2 million fans to about 240 shows over its existence) while others say the current situation in America may have helped to speed up the demise of a festival like Lollapalooza.

�The conservative climate of today�s America contributed greatly to the demise of Lollapalooza in 2004,� said Ames. �What place does the freak show have amongst middle America these days? How many SUV�s with �W� stickers will show up for Lollapalooza? Do kids today actually �get it�?� he added.

So now the festival returns with hopes to re-capture what Farrell envisioned his pet project to be: a party involving people from all walks of life getting together with a shared sense of community. �What better place (Chicago) to kick start a new revolution?� Ames stated. �And what better way than with the most important of today�s bands and with Perry�s new band Satellite Party, which redefines the concept of what a rock band can be.�

�As Perry�s long time friend and collaborator Peter Distefano (Porno for Pyros) put it to me recently, Perry is the living Vincent Van Gogh,�said Ames.  �God bless Perry Farrell.�

A look back at Lollapalooza:

1991 26 dates
Jane�s Addiction, Ice-T, Henry Rollins, Nine Inch Nails, Living Colour, Siouxsie and the Banshees.

1992 35 dates
Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Ice Cube, Ministry, Jim Rose Circus Sideshow.

1993 34 dates
Alice in Chains, Rage Against the Machine, Tool, Fishbone, Arrested Development, Primus, Dinosaur Jr.

1994 43 dates
Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, A Tribe Called Quest, The Breeders, Green Day, George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars

1995 29 dates
Sonic Youth, Pavement, Beck, Hole, Coolio, Cypress Hill, Elastica, Moby, Mighty Mighty Bosstones

1996 22 dates
Metallica, Soundgarden, The Ramones, Devo, Waylon Jennings, Rage Against the Machine, Screaming Trees

1997 33 dates
Orbital, The Prodigy, Tool, Snoop Dogg, Korn, Tricky, James, Eels, Devo, Porno or Pyros.

2003 29 dates
Jane�s Addiction, Audioslave, Incubus, Queens of The Stone Age, Jurassic 5, The Donnas, A Perfect Circle, The Distillers.

Trent McMartin