i went to the first lollapalooza in 1991 in los angeles and in 1995 at the same venue, (irvine meadows). yesterday i went to the san francisco show (shoreline in mountain view). i like shoreline a lot better than irvine meadows because it's much smaller so you get a lot better view from no matter where you are. for the lineup though, the 1991 tour was definitely the best. the performers were: jane's addiction, siouxsie and the banshees, living color, ice-t and body count, nine inch nails, the butthole surfers, rollins band. perhaps this was not the most diverse lineup of all the lollas, but for the time it was very diverse and exciting. i was never into the butthole surfers or rollins band, but you can still find me listening to all of the other bands. at different points in my life but mostly in high school, i listened to each of those bands almost on an exclusive level.

i was really surprised in high school that they even did a second lollapalooza because i thought it was a one-time thing and that's what made it so special. it was a very politically informative production. the lollapalooza of 2003 was all about profit. they didn't even mask it. they still have activist booths but you have to go to the booth to be informed about anything. in 1991, there were factoids scrolling across the sides of the stage about the persian gulf, etc. so if you didn't like the music and weren't paying attention to the performers, there was a chance that might learn something. in 2003, the tv screens instead played commercials (even when some bands where performing!), bits from comedy central (making the audience laugh is always a good idea but can be hard to pull off), festival footage (good idea to keep the audience entertained during set changes), and music videos. this was supposed to be the interactive lollapalooza. there was a tented room by xbox full of their games. the games are networked and sometimes you can play against the performers as they sit backstage. this didn't interest me so i never looked into how often this was done, etc. i only liked this tent for the cool air that was pumped in to keep the machines from overheating. the other part of the so-called interactivity was that you could win prizes if you had a cellphone with a web browser and took part in a trivia game. i know it's very expensive to create a networking system to produce interactivity so that xbox paying for it was probably a good way to go, but the cellphone thing pissed me off because it's an exclusivity more than an inclusivity and if you are going to call it the interactive lolla then you better make sure you include a lot of inclusivity things to do.

note my bias: the only band i wanted to see was jane's addiction and they were the only band that were good. they seemed very tired from having to play the same songs for 15 years and tired from the tour, but they still managed to sound good and pull off that they were having a great time rocking out for the crowd. i don't feel like they did as many 'i'll give you a rock star pose' moves as they did last year when they played in san francisco, which is nice because self-conscious attempts to be rock n' roll are boring.

i never bought an album by rage against the machine or soundgarden. i thought this combination might make audioslave a really interesting band, but it didn't. it sounded like leftover rage songs or the skeleton demos of rage songs that chris cornell happened to be singing on--problem: his style only works for soundgarden songs. i know that tom must be a great guitarist but i just wasn't feeling it at all. nothing about the music struck me.

incubus sucks. the singer sounds like a chipmunk. the crowd LOVED it. i don't understand the crowd. in protest, i purposely sat down and fell asleep. it was a great power nap to get me charged for the rest of the night.

i don't get a perfect circle. the music doesn't sound bad. the vocals don't sound bad. they just don't sound good to me. the singer looked like a little dork that i could beat up easily. but it was really nice to see twiggy cleaned up and happy. good for him. it's good that james iha has a job too.

the donnas? *sigh* it's nice that they're young girls who like to rock out because as this world is full of polar opposites that cause extreme stereotyping, it's excellent that these girls are out there showing that females can play music too. it allows girls to dream of becoming rock stars instead of rock sluts. what we need though is more diverse music of all female bands to negate the stereotypes and eventually create some sort of equilibrium (though i doubt it will ever happen because the world is imperfect). with all that said, the donnas aren't my thing either! it's not fun or hip or cheeky or heady or swirly or anything else that i like as dominant aspects of music. it just is. and what it is i don't know but the girls in the audience really loved it. the guys of course were guys and just cheered as they objectified them. i think if i saw them at a small club though i would have liked it. it would be fun in a small place. not much is fun at a big venue.

jurassic 5. this is sooooo not my thing. years ago i went to a show of theirs but left right after ozomotli played. thank god! if they wanted a hip-hop act to add "diversity" to the bill (which it sorely lacked compared to tours past), why couldn't they get lolla alumni snoop? snoop is cool. he's from the lbc like me.