Lollapalooza, the iconic alternative music festival that began in 1991 and is still running today, gets its due in this no holds barred oral history. Told chronologically from the festival's inaugural run through the 1997 iteration (the last of the original format), we get the stories from a who's who of music legends, organizers, journalists and crew.

Lollapalooza was the epitome of sex and drugs and rock and roll, and everybody spills.

We get a comprehensive view of how it came together (including the name), how the talent was selected, how the tours went in spectacular detail from 1991 through 1997, who got along, who didn't, the logistics of moving this traveling circus across the country, the nutso antics, the activism, the performances seared into music history.

For seven years they kept it together, morphing after the initial years, laying the foundation for the music festivals ubiquitous today. As Tom Morello says:

"It’s still incredible to me how this idea, this crazy word that came out of Perry’s brain, became this massively successful tour that crystallized a genre of music. And then when the tour faded, it reemerged as one of the global pillars of festival shows."

What a wild ride, whether or not you were there.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books for the Advance Reader Copy. (pub date 3/25/2025)

Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival is a compelling oral history following the humble beginnings of one of music's biggest festivals. We get first-hand accounts of those who were there: the organizers, founders, stage hands, lighting directors, and, of course, the performers. The stories range from funny, wild, unbelievable, and tragic. If you're a sucker for music history, this is a must read. It's a no-holds-barred behind-the-scenes glimpse at Lollapalooza. The only downside is that it doesn't really cover the festival as it is now. There are some comments on it, but it doesn't really dig into the festival 2003 onward. Otherwise, it's a fascinating read. If anything, you'll walk away frustrated that the current iteration doesn't resemble anything like its early days.

If you want to read which ten stories I loved most, check out my featured article here: https://genreisdead.com/lollapalooza-the-uncensored-story-review/

Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival written by Richard Bienstock; Tom Beaujour was such an interesting and entertaining read of no-holds-barred history of the iconic music festival.
A nostalgic look back at 1990s music and culture, Lollapalooza traces the festival’s groundbreaking origins, following the tour as it progresses through the decade, and documenting the action onstage, backstage, and behind-the-scenes in detailed and uncensored and sometimes shocking first-person accounts.
Honestly I’m so surprised I that I read this in two sittings.
It was well written, engaging and very entertaining .

Originally conceived as a vehicle for Jane’s Addiction’s farewell shows in 1991, Perry Ferrell’s Lollapalooza became an annual touring attraction for alternative music and art between the years 1991 and 1997. Cancelled in 1998, it has since been relaunched in 2005 as a destination weekend event in Chicago’s Hyde Park. Authors Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour have taken it upon themselves to craft the definitive oral history of the event’s creation, demise and resurrection through hundreds of interviews with artists, reporters and roadies alike.

Being that I was quite young during the festival’s initial run (between the ages of 7 and 13), and also completely incapable of traveling to any of these shows, even their limited Canadian dates, I missed out. As an adult in his early 40s, many of the bands who made up the bill can often find themselves in regular rotation on my Spotify playlists, so my interest was easily drawn to this story. It also doesn’t hurt that I absolutely love oral history books set within a certain genre or era of music; bonus points if it’s something I already enjoy.

You have great stories here from the first few years when the tour was at its most powerful and influential, as well as all the in-fighting and controversies over who played the main-stage versus who played the side-stage. It could truly make a band who was just teetering on the edge of stardom, or, in the case of 1992, it could make going to see a thriving band like Pearl Jam feel like a bargain given that they had just broken through as the tour had launched.

The pressure was always there to make the show more accessible for a wider crowd in an effort to make more money, but Ferrell as well as the other founders, wanted the show to retain that indie-spirit that made it feel special. When they finally caved in 1996 and added Metallica as headliners, it spelled the beginning of the end. I found that so interesting given that you would believe that being able to score a band on the level of Metallica would mean that your festival was becoming larger and more significant, but it came with so many restrictions, culture clashes amongst the fans, and logistical challenges that it quickly became a nightmare. The authors did a good job steering the narrative through all the interviews to explain what the festival was trying to do and its struggle to retain what made it so special in the first place.

If you loved EVERYBODY LOVES OUR TOWN: AN ORAL HISTORY OF GRUNGE and SMASH!: GREEN DAY, THE OFFSPRING, RANCID, NOFX AND THE 90S PUNK EXPLOSION, this will be right up your alley. The two authors leave no stone unturned and present the story of the era warts and all.

Nonfiction, told primarily through interviews from those that were there from the beginning. If you were one of the lucky that attended Lolla when it began, when it was still a touring festival, then you will love this look back at the development, implementation, and wild ride that Perry Farrell envisioned. I found myself thinking of my one ticket to the 1994 show at Pine Knob, where we sat in the hot sun all day watching great music, toured the various booths with both items for sale as well as political messages, had a giant burrito for lunch, and took cover as the fans tore up the Hill during the Beastie Boys.
Various artists, producers, roadies, and Lolla staffers go through each year in detail, with all of the behind the scenes action that the audience did not see. Lollapalooza was the first of the modern day touring festivals, spawning H.O.R.D.E Festival, Lillith Fair, the Warped Tour and Ozzfest (created when Ozzy Osborne was turned down for the Lolla line-up). Read it and enjoy the description of the best years in alternative music.

Major thanks to St. Martin’s Press and Net Galley for providing me with an advanced copy of Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival by Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour. I’ve been looking forward to reading this book since it was first made available since I remember when Lollapalooza first started, and although I never attended any of them, I also watched it grow as many of the bands I discovered and rabidly listened to were a part of this innovative and ground-breaking festival of the 1990s that continues on today.
I really like these kinds of music books that document periods in music history through interviews with those who were involved in it. I think the first book that I read that was like this was Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, which is an oral history of Punk, specifically focused on New York punk in the 70s. Lollapalooza follows a similar style where its sections are divided up into the different years that Lollapalooza toured, 1991-1997, ending with an epilogue focusing on 2003, when Lollapalooza returned. Each year begins with a narrative overview of the tour, discussing which bands performed, how they were recruited for the tour, like their personal connection with Perry Farrell and Jane’s Addiction, and other details. Then there are chapters in each year that focus either on a particular artist or band or some other element of the tour. However, these chapters are taken directly from interviews with the artists, managers, and crew involved with making Lollapalooza happen. I found it really easy and enjoyable to read. I kept reading, wanting to know what more would happen each year on these tours. I also loved hearing from artists like Ice-T, members of Sonic Youth, Pavement, and Sen Dog from Cypress Hill. It’s also a little sad since there are some artists who are no longer alive to share their stories yet were an important parts of the touring years of the 90s. Artists like Coolio, Mark Lanegan, from Screaming Trees, Layne Staley, from Alice in Chains, Chris Cornell from Soundgarden and Audioslave, and Sinead O’Connor, who I didn’t even realize was a part of the 1995 tour before dropping off. Even though there weren’t any quotes from these artists, other participants shared stories, fond, funny, and sometimes sad, about their experiences touring with them. What I found compelling about this book was also that it contained the perspectives of those who organized and worked on the tour, helping to manage the stages, prep the artists and gear for each act, and break down the equipment and prepare to move the show to another city or location. It was fascinating to learn more about how Lollapalooza operated since there really weren’t too many touring shows like this that had toured around at the time. Some of the interviewees cited the Grateful Dead as a touring model that they looked at and how Bill Graham Productions helped with ironing out the finer details to make the show run more efficiently after they stopped in the Bay Area in either the first or second year. However, Lollapalooza served as the model for other touring shows that sprouted up in its wake in the mid to late 90s (Lillith Fair, HORDE Fest, Ozz Fest, etc). I enjoyed learning about how the different production managers and the contact people for the crowd engagement coordinated to make Lollapalooza so unique and innovative. As the book notes, part of Farrell’s vision for this festival was to bring together disparate perspectives that were kind of encompassing the 90s (and have further drifted apart today). I think there was a quote about having the NRA in attendance along with gun right activists, or pro-life and pro-choice people attend to debate, and I guess learn from one another. It is a kind of cool and idealistic way of thinking how music and art could bring together opposing perspectives on political and social issues, and possibly allow for some learning and understanding. And while I think that may have also been some of the initial thinking about the early world wide web community, it’s kind of devolved into echo chambers and reinforcing biases. However, I think that Perry Farrell had good intentions and, despite his own personal flaws, he had really good taste and a unique vision for the function of music and art in the 90s. Nevertheless, this kind of disparate approach in issues was also reflected in the music lineups, especially in the early years of Lollapalooza. It was fascinating to see the first lineup consisted of Jane’s Addiction, in what was supposed to be their farewell tour, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Living Colour, Nine Inch Nails (in their first tour), Ice-T (rapping and performing with Body Count), Butthole Surfers, the Rollins Band, and Fishbone. The interviews with the artists also shared their surprise at this amalgamation of different styles that didn’t share much. However, I think any book that features stories about the Butthole Surfers is really enjoyable. I think their chapter in Michael Azerrad’s Our Band Could Be Your Life was by far the funniest chapter in the book. Similarly, the stories about the bands stage show and hi-jinks during downtime on the tour were pretty funny. The 1992 tour featured Ice Cube, Soundgarden (in their first appearance at Lollapalooza), Ministry, and Red Hot Chili Peppers, but also had a 2nd stage featuring the Jim Rose Circus. The stories with those performers were also really entertaining, and it kind of shows the theatrics and performative sideshow nature that made both Lollapalooza and the 1990s “alternative”.
In addition to the artists and crew, Bienstock and Beaujour also interview music journalists (including Azerrad), who offer some great insights into how music changed in the 90s, as well as the kind of artists/acts that Lollapalooza had to recruit to not only drive ticket sales and crowds, but also seem fresh and cutting edge in the 90s to really appeal as an “alternative” to more of the hair rock that was dying from the 80s and the gradual dormancy of pop music that was to emerge around the late 90s. These journalists and the tour planners offered some interesting insight into the musical choices for the different years, including that Lollapalooza seemed to have sought out Nirvana for the 1994 tour. It sounded like there were some financial concerns, that Nirvana’s price might have been too high, but also that Kurt Cobain’s life was in a spiral due to his hospitalization during the planning months (and shortly before his death). However, the 1994 lineup was equally eclectic and electric, featuring The Breeders, Beastie Boys, George Clinton and P-Funk, A Tribe Called Quest, Green Day, The Flaming Lips, and Guided by Voices. I loved learning that Robert Pollard and his brother beath the Beastie Boys at basketball, and there was lots of differing opinions on Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins headlined that year). I think 1995, one of the lower grossing years, was probably the year I really would have wanted to go. I remember watching 120 Minutes during this time and seeing a live performance of Beck with Sonic Youth doing the “Diamond Sea”, one of my favorite songs that I first got to hear live at a concert shortly after the Lollapalooza tour. Maybe I imagined it, but this wouldn’t have been a video available online since that technology wasn’t really available in 95. However, that was another really cool fact to learn from this book—how many of the artists would end up playing with other bands and jamming together as the tour went on. Other musicians talked about the challenges of being on the road, finding things to keep them engaged and active, especially when many of the festivals were far away from cities. Other artists talked about the challenges of staying sober and not getting too into drugs or alcohol while on tour. The last two years of touring, 96 and 97, were strange lineups that similarly reflected some of the unfortunate directions that music in the 90s were taking. It’s also interesting because as I read in another recent book, Pretend We’re Dead: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of Women in Rock in the ‘90s by Tanya Pearson, late 1990s music took a very masculine, somewhat misogynistic turn, and this is reflected in some of the festivals like Woodstock 99 (along with the documentary) as well as Lollapalooza’s booking. While the festival was primarily a music festival, there’s also a need to make money, and the promoters and organizers needed to balance the art and commerce. That’s probably how Metallica, who was getting ready to release their Load album, which was not really a metal album, was invited to headline the tour. Although this would bring a lot of fans, some of the other artists (and news reports included in the book) detailed the challenges from performing to audiences that either were not familiar or not interested in their work. It seemed like audiences became lest curious or welcoming. This was even more apparent when a band like James played in 1997 and were confronted by Korn fans, who seemed really hostile to other acts. Despite these challenges, Lollapalooza did bring many different fans and musical styles together. This book especially highlights many of those differences while also sharing some interesting and entertaining stories about what happened behind the scenes, and dishing on what it is like to tour for the summer. I absolutely loved this book, and I can’t wait to read the other book about 80’s hair bands by Bienstock and Beaujour (Nothin’ But a Good Time). Highly recommended book!

A very enjoyable read. I personally liked this slightly more than the authors' previous book on hair metal/hard rock, but it was close. What can you really say about "oral histories," though. I think you either like'em or hate'em.

This book flows cohesively, year by year, lineup by lineup. I wish I had attended the 1995 iteration. I never did attend any traveling Lollapaloozas, but did take in the 2005, 2006, and 2008 Grant Park shows. Then, it lost ALL semblance of a rock music festival. 2025 looks like a particularly miserable lineup, but as we know, it's no longer about the music, but I digress.

Great historical work, I recommend to youngsters and Lolla vets alike.

At the heart of this audacious vision is Perry Farrell, the enigmatic frontman of Jane’s Addiction, whose innovative spirit birthed this groundbreaking concert experience. Known for his avant-garde approach, Farrell aspired to revolutionize the music festival landscape by creating a dynamic platform that showcased not only an eclectic mix of bands but also booths dedicated to political engagement, voter registration, and thought-provoking discussions. His concept morphed into a vibrant tapestry woven with threads of diverse cuisines, social activism, and, of course, unforgettable music—a roving carnival designed to invigorate towns across the United States.

The narrative unfolds as an oral history, enriched with testimonies from a range of musicians, crew members, and management, forming a striking mosaic of personal stories that highlight both the exhilarating and tumultuous atmosphere of the festival. Vivid anecdotes bring to life memorable scenes: the oppressive heat that caused equipment malfunctions for Nine Inch Nails, the jaw-dropping spectacle of Eddie Vedder scaling amphitheater walls, and a cast of dynamic characters facing mishaps, feuds, and humorous rivalries. Amidst the stories of stolen golf carts and slapstick backstage antics, heartwarming moments of camaraderie emerge, reminding us of the deep connections forged through shared musical experiences.


As the book chronicles the festival’s evolution from 1991 to 1997, it meticulously recounts intricate details concerning organizational hurdles and band dynamics. It skillfully interlaces the recollections of legendary artists like Henry Rollins and Ice-T with the perspectives of dedicated crew members, enriching the narrative with a multifaceted understanding of what made Lollapalooza such a captivating and transformative event.

Each chapter artfully documents the unfolding saga of this cultural phenomenon, although the narrative concludes somewhat abruptly, with an epilogue that transitions hastily to the festival’s revival in 2003. This swift conclusion may leave readers yearning for a deeper, more cohesive reflection on its enduring impact. Nonetheless, the vivid portrayal of Perry Farrell—a polarizing yet visionary figure—ensures an engaging experience. His bold choices in curating diverse lineups, blending genres and pushing creative limits, serve as a poignant case study in both artistic vision and conflict as many artists navigate the shifting terrain of popular music.

Throughout its pages, the book delves into Lollapalooza’s extensive cultural significance, illuminating its pivotal role in normalizing indie music and weaving connections to various social movements. Farrell’s commitment to integrating activist organizations transformed the festival from merely a musical celebration into a compelling platform for advocacy and progressive change. With a delightful blend of humor and heartfelt storytelling, “Lollapalooza” stands as an essential read for fans of the 1980s and 1990s independent music scene, capturing the essence of a vibrant era that profoundly shaped the fabric of rock music in America.

An interesting, in depth look at the infamous alternative music festival known as Lollapalooza, told by the people who made it happen. It’s incredible the amount of people who contributed and I truly enjoyed getting to read the personal experiences of each of them. I was a teen in the 90’s but never experienced the original festivals so it’s cool to get to hear firsthand about how they went down.

If you are a lover of music history, alternative music, or the festival itself, I recommend this book.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the ARC.

I had just graduated high school, turned 18, and was all set to go to Lollapalooza but I was hit by a car as a pedestrian and spent the entire summer in the hospital, followed by rehab and years of surgeries. My festival days were over before they began - I was never able to go to any due to the injuries and subsequent surgeries. My high school best friend brought me back a shirt but it just wasn’t the same and I rarely wore it.

When I was invited to read this, I was happy to - over the years I heard about a bunch of the shows from friends (and more currently, my husband, who went to the first two) and truly appreciated all the information in the book, that I didn’t previously know - I learned a lot about some of my favorite artists and bands. This book is a fascinating, in depth look at one of the most influential alternative rock festivals in the states. It’s one I’ll definitely get for our home bookshelves and I would recommend this title to Gen Xers, music lovers, or anyone with interest.



*Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the DRC

Lollapalooza is a vibrant and exhilarating deep dive into one of the most iconic music festivals of all time. The book brilliantly captures the energy, chaos, and cultural impact of the event, making you feel like you’re right in the middle of the crowd. Whether you're a longtime festival-goer or just love music history, this is a must-read that perfectly blends storytelling, nostalgia, and behind-the-scenes insight.

Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival, written by Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour, encapsulates a generation like no other. Dive into the firsthand accounts of those who experienced it firsthand. A must-read for any music enthusiast.

3.5 stars

If you are a music fan (especially 90s music), whether or not you ever attended Lollapalooza, this is an interesting book that you may want to check out. It was fascinating to read about the history of the festival. The interviews added a nice personal take to the experience. Prior to this book, I hadn't realized the connection to Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction.

I was 16-year-old misfit when the first Lollapalooza happened in 1991. Jane's Addiction was one of my favorite bands at the time, and I already loved Siouxsie and the Banshees, Nine Inch Nails, and the Butthole Surfers (I'll never forget Mom asking me what CD I bought on a trip to Circuit City and me mumbling "Butthole Surfers" to her). None of the tour stops were close enough to home to go, sadly, and I never made it to any of the subsequent tours, either. I did become a working musician, though, so I enjoyed this oral history from the perspectives of both a fan and a musician. This book is an insider's look at what it took to put on such a unique traveling festival at a time when that wasn't a thing in the US. Not only did Lollapalooza create a new concert going experience that spawned many imitators, it also helped push forward the careers of many lesser-known bands and musicians. I really enjoyed reading about the efforts of everyone involved to put on the shows, and what happened behind the scenes, as told by the musicians, crew, promoters, and creators of the event. I laughed out loud many times and read passages aloud to my husband. I admit to skimming through the Jim Rose Sideshow and Steve O chapters, and gross out is not my thing. Definitely recommended to anyone who loves music, or who lived through the early '90s and the shift in popular music that occurred during that time.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Music biographies are one of my favourite non-fiction genre's, especially when the topic is rock and roll bands and the bacchanalian chaos that they have participated in. So when I saw the review copy for this Uncensored look at Lollapalooza I needed to get my hands on it.

Age wise, I was a little young when grunge hit, and was pretty sheltered without cable tv or internet (yes young-ones, many of us didn't have home internet until 1998.) I was a huge Weird Al fan, so I often knew parodies of songs without any context of the originals. My first memory of Nirvana is not their music, but on the way home from school seeing my bus drivers son wearing the iconic x'ed out Smiley shirt while sporting a ton of safety pins in his face.

My appreciation of grunge came from a point where hi-speed internet existed, and I could go back and listen to cultural milestones that I missed from a fairly unconnected childhood. A lot of the bands in this book I've become a huge fan of in the last decade. I tried to not get too excited, but as I read through the introduction with the list of all the interviewee's I started squealing.

Letting the personalities shine is where the magic comes in this book. The layering of interviews and perspectives makes you feel like you're back living the glory (and less glorious) years of the festival. And as someone who has already said I love a "bands behaving badly" thread, we are given a tapestry of chaos and debauchery. I loved when the bands had fun, and I maybe loved even more when the bands had a bad time.

I truly think that if you have any interest in alternative music you need to read this one, and I definitely will need to buy a physical copy when this comes out in March, and I'll definitely revisit this one when the audiobook comes out.

Thank you to St Martin's Press and Netgalley for an arc of this title, and make sure you check it out on March 25th.

Many non-fiction readers will tell you that every non-fiction book is incredibly niche. The topics are so specific that it is diametrically unheard of that a reader will pick up anything non-fiction without some semblance of pre-existing familiarity with title or concept. That being said, Lollapalooza is niche even for something that is already niche.
As someone who grew up wanting to become just like their very cool GenX older sisters, I have a deep seated love for all things grunge, so a book touting interviews with artists like Jane’s Addiction, Butthole Surfers, L7, Hole, and Bikini Kill was automatically going to score points with me. What I wasn’t expecting was just how approachable it was.
Where I think Lollapalooza succeeds where other music memoirs fall short is that it isn’t actually structured like a book. Instead it is described as an “oral history.” Which sounds odd, but actually makes perfect sense. The novel itself reads like a script—complete with a wide ranging cast of characters (the aforementioned artists alongside industry insiders like publicists and managers), that take you through the entire history of Lollapalooza from its initial concepting phase all the way through to its decline in 1997. In this way the novel never at any point feels didactic and instead broaches the subject of the music festival as one might a colloquial conversation about the past, funny anecdotes included.
In truth, this is a very good read for a very specific fanbase. So, if your interests include a completely intersectional venn-diagram of music history, pre-millenium socio-economic political movements, and 90s alt-rock then I have a book to recommend to you.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for an advance copy of this book that looks at time in music when art mixed with sound, performance mixed with presentation, where the idea of concerts meet with social responsibility, and something more than commerce, until the money become too much for the industry to ignore.

To quote LCD Soundsystem " I used to work in a record store, I had everything before anyone". That is is true in a sense. Working in a record store opened my ears, and my brain to new forms of music. We got listen copies, and had a selection of music magazines from overseas for sale, that we could read and stay ahead of. Especially in the early 90's when the Internet was still a dream in Al Gore's head. I kid. The best thing about working in a record store was that one always had people to go to shows with. Even if they were a couple of states away. That's how I found myself at the first Lollapalooza, a concert I remember for the heat, the sounds, the cool people and the smells. For some reason I attended the odd numbered shows, One, three and five, I think, maybe based on bands, or time-off. Reading this book made me wish I went to all of them, and brought again the sounds and the smells right back. Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival by Richard Bienstock & Tom Beaujour is an oral history of a time in music where people thought everything was changing, the industry, the sounds, the way one viewed concerts, but soon human greed, a changing musical landscape brought an end to this dream.

Lollapalooza as an idea and a vision can be credited to one person, Perry Farrell of the band's Jane's Addiction. Farrell has always been a little bit ahead of the curve, creating a band with a singular sound and an image that stood out in the early 90's. However being ahead sometimes takes its toll, and Farrell soon wanted to end his band, and try something new. As an extended wake Farrell thought of a new kind of concert. One with a bunch of bands, a festival idea that was popular in Europe, but one that would travel from town to town. Complete with booths for political messages, voter registration, religious thinking, book stores, cool food, and of course great music. Farrell found backers, and more importantly bands who wanted to try this weird idea out. The fact that some of these bands were on the verge of breakthroughs helped, and soon Jane's Addiction, Rollins Band, Ice-T and more were making music, and even more making money. And stories, lots of stories. The heat so strong that NIne Inch Nails tape decks melted. Eddie Vedder climbing amphitheater walls. Many different crimes and misdemeanors. Feuds, spats, fights, and band breakups. The book covers the big years, to the final whimper of a lost tour, until restarting as an event in Chicago, and some satellite cities.

The book is an oral history and talks to a lot of people, people in management, the crew, and the musicians. The book is a font of information, from again music, to setting up and trying to get a new idea off the ground. The book looks at different tours, from setting up, backstage manipulations in whose band was getting what, to tour stories. Stolen golf carts, bad weather, heat, and Patti Smith making a surprise appearance on the second stage, getting a seconds chance at a career again. The book is warts and all. Some people look bad, some stay bad, and others come across as really cool guys. Many of the musicians, can tell stories Al Jourgensen of Ministry sound like the guy you want to sit next to at a party, though one might want to watch one's drink. There is plenty of gossip, tales of excess, and tales of people having the time of their lives, and missing it so.

A great book for fans of the era, and for people who love all the backstage information about touring and how the magic is brought to life. Music people will really enjoy.

My go to reading genre is the rock biography, and I do love the oral history format with the various participants involved just talking. Full disclosure: the grunge era is something that I dabbled in where I loved certain songs from groups like King's X, Pearl Jam, Rage Against the Machine, Drowning Pool, Faith No More, Puddle of Mudd, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Alice in Chains- but it wasn't anything I was passionate about like the previous metal hair band era that I absolutely love. It was just enough to download a singular song I liked from these bands for my iPod. There were some narrators I was much more interested in than others such as guitarist Dave Navarro from Jane's Addiction; this band's leader Perry Farrell spearheaded the idea of Lollapalooza to showcase a rack of about 7 bands playing in more obscure areas with informational tents to expose people to different politics, food, and a hodge podge of other oddities. The bands Nine Inch Nails and Red Hot Chili Peppers really became well known as a result of this tour. Ice-T was an interesting addition to the tour where he both rapped and performed with his metal band creation Body Count. I probably enjoyed his narrations more than anyone's as his observations were so intelligent. There were a lot of narrators that were hard to keep track of from roadies, managers, et al with a lot of stories to tell. I wasn't receptive to a lot of it like excessive drinking, drug use, smashing guitars, and other unsavory hijinks. This is probably the first case of an oral history book I've read where I might have preferred a straight biography written by someone else. While I did enjoy this, I think this book would be better digested by someone who is heavily into this kind of music and is more receptive to it and the people involved.

Thank you to the publisher St. Martin's Press who provided an advance reader copy via NetGalley.

I was in my 20's during the time of the Lollapalooza tours, and though I didn't attend any of the shows, I was (and still am) a big fan of the majority of the bands that were involved. This book is an interesting trip back to a time when many of the bands were just breaking out and music festivals were few and far between and none of them travelled. Perry Farrell came up with the idea of Lollapalooza to not only showcase different bands and music styles, but also to introduce social and political ideas to a fresh new audience. It was something new and exciting that had never been done. It was before cell phones, the World Wide Web, and the ease of discovering and sharing new music and ideas.

I am not a fan of the interview style that the book is written in. It didn't flow well for me. A lot of the people interviewed for the book were behind-the-scenes tour managers and stage hands, so the names were hard to keep up with. Those are my only negatives with this book. The large number of interview participants who were in the participating bands and the freak shows is impressive. Of course, there are plenty of tales of backstage shenanigans involving pranks, sex, drugs, and excessive drinking. The dynamics between band members and different bands was interesting. It was fun reading about these stories from multiple perspectives that didn't always match up.

I found myself most interested in the logistics of Lollapalooza. This had never been done before and there was a big learning curve during the first tour. Taking what worked and what didn't work to try to improve on the next tour. The trial and errors. The clashing personalities that had to try to work cohesively to make the tours a success. The egos and contract demands. The band managers and the tour managers and the record labels all trying to make sure their best interests were met. I remember when Lollapalooza began and the subsequent tours. I had no idea how history-making it was at the time.

If you are a fan of the bands and/or Lollapalooza, you should enjoy this book. It's a detailed account of an extraordinary time in music history, and it's effects are still in play today. Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the digital arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

If you are into music history, especially 90’s music history, then this is the book for you. This is such an important festival for the big name brand festivals. I have talked to some members of bands who commented in this book and played the festival, and they all say how important of an event it was for them.

This book captures a time in history that we can never get back that we all wish we could.