Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival by Richard Bienstock

With a Foreword by Kim Thayil of Soundgarden!

The definitive, no-holds-barred oral history of 1990s alt-rock festival Lollapalooza―told by the musicians, roadies, and industry insiders who lived it. From the New York Times bestselling authors of Nothin' But A Good Time.

Through hundreds of new interviews with artists, tour founders, festival organizers, promoters, publicists, sideshow freaks, stage crews, record label execs, reporters, roadies and more, Lollapalooza chronicles the tour's pioneering 1991-1997 run, and, in the process, alternative rock's rise – as well as the reverberations that led to a massive shift in the music industry and the culture at large.

Lollapalooza features original interviews with some of the biggest names in music, including Perry Farrell and Jane's Addiction, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails, Sonic Youth, Tool, Smashing Pumpkins, Ice-T, Rage Against the Machine, Green Day, Patti Smith, Alice in Chains, Metallica and many more.

Conceived by Farrell as a farewell tour for Jane's Addiction, Lollapalooza's inaugural outing across the US in the summer of 1991 helped to coalesce an ideology and aesthetic that not only washed over popular music but seeped into fashion, film, television, literature, food, politics and more. Throughout the decade, Lollapalooza offered a vast and diverse ensemble of bands, breaking barriers of genre and creating the template for the modern American music festival and the scores of other contemporary destination events.

Unorthodox not just in music, Lollapalooza also spotlighted visual arts, nonprofit organizations, political outfits and even the occasional freak show, offering a tantalizing cocktail of culture, art, and activism that, taken together, defined the alternative mindset that dominated the 1990s. Today, Lollapalooza remains one of the world's largest music festivals, cemented by annual sellouts at destination events all over the globe and an estimated 400,000 attendees at the flagship Chicago fest each summer.

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, uncensored, and sometimes shocking first-person accounts. This is the story of Lollapalooza and the 1990s alternative-rock revolution.

"A firecracker of a book." ―Washington Post

"Comprehensive and entertaining." ―Associated Press

"A fun, dishy and surprisingly moving read." ―Los Angeles Times

"Juicy and fast-moving...the book equivalent of a talking-head documentary" ―The Wall Street Journal

"In the tradition of Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain's Please Kill Me and their own Nothin' But a Good Time, Bienstock and Beaujour spliced together dozens of interviews with musicians, producers, staff, and others on the scene to craft an epic story of 1990s rock and roll as filtered through the heroin-hazy lens of the granddaddy of American music festivals... Essential addition to any rock history library." ―Kirkus

"[A]n authentic, almost documentary-like feel to the story of Lollapalooza…Lollapalooza is an essential read. It captures the era's spirit with insider revelations and a touch of nostalgia. Whether you're reliving your memories or discovering the festival's legacy for the first time, this book is a perfect re-telling."