The Lolla-Mudslide

For the 20th anniversary of the former traveling music festival, Lollapalooza, now stationed as a three day festival in Chigaco, Illinois, was definitely a success. Despite the mud that dominated the weekend and the rain storms that swept through throughout the afternoon and evening on the closing Sunday, Lollapalooza still had record attendance number, totaling 270,000 over the weekend, a 30,000 person increase from last year’s 240,000. It was very clear that the fans had a certain grit about them when they embraced the downpour and the mud as Foo Fighters and Deadmau5 began to just rock harder once the clouds burst open on Sunday night. Attendance at each show might not have been the swarming 90,000 that it was at the Eminem performance Saturday night, after all, this isn’t Bonnaroo, where festival goers will brave the weather to the point of near death, but those who stayed still enjoyed themselves, as Foo Fighters and Deadmau5 played on through technical difficulties and being soaked to the bone.

What used to be an alternative music festival, Lollapalooza has transformed massively since its settling down, now hosting a large number of major mainstream headliners each year Kanye West to Coldplay, and this year Eminem and the Foo Fighters, among others. The addition of Perry’s Stage, a purely electronic and house music tent, has stemmed from the recent explosion of dub-electro-dance jams from the underground clubs to the Top 40 charts. But even more than the festival itself has changed, Lollapalooza is a platform for changing the music scene itself. In the 90′s Lolla brought alternative grunge music to cities across the country popularizing bands like Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, Primus, Tool, Cypress Hill and so many others. It also brought to life a darker side of hip-hop to cities where it hadn’t been before with performers like Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, The Roots, Tricky, Jurassic 5 and more.

Being static in the U.S. now, Lollapalooza sphere of influence is expanding to South America, where touring bands don’t generally go. Lollapalooza Chile launched this year with non-hispanic performances by Cold War Kids, Emipre of the Sun, Joachim Garraud, Kanye West, The National, The Killers, Sublime with Rome, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Fatboy Slim, and even some Lollapalooza classics like founder Perry Farrell’s own Jane’s Addiction, Cypress Hill, The Flaming Lips, 311, and 30 Seconds to Mars. Most South American cities lack presence on tour schedules, so next year Lollapalooza will continue its stay in Santiago, Chile, and it was announced on Friday morning of the Chicago festival that Sao Paulo, Brazil will have its very own stay the weekend after Santiago hosts the second annual Lollapalooza Chile.