A Fest For The Rest
By Scott Smith in Arts & Entertainment on Jul 20, 2005 1:47PM
In contrast to the lack of coverage in the run-up to Intonation, Lollapalooza sees to be everywhere. Chicago Innerview devoted half of their monthly issue to it, the Red Eye (a co-sponsor of the fest) is running a five-day countdown with capsule summaries of every band along with interviews, rock critics Jim Derogatis and Greg Kot have both weighed in and even if you’re not going, you probably have a mild interest in the event—even if it’s just to hope the whole thing falls apart.
Nestled in a West Side neighborhood in the shadow of the el tracks, Intonation felt like a Chicago festival. Though the Lolla website claims ”It’s Chicago’s Show!” and while the event is being held in Grant Park, the jewel of the city’s park system, it remains to be seen whether it can capture the spirit of the city in the same way. Though both are destination festivals, Derogatis pointed out in this weekend’s Sun-Times that all that’s left of the spirit of the original Lollapalooza is the name; the owners of that name, Capital Sports and Entertainment, have admitted as much.
With last year’s cancellation, the pressure is on CSE to prove that it’s still a viable enterprise. Kot notes that in 1996 when Perry Farrell first bowed out of organizing Lolla, the fest’s goal was to of creating a new generation 60s be-in was replaced by a desire to get as many people to buy tickets as possible. Like it or not, Lollapalooza 2005 needs to have the same goal or there’ll be no Lollapalooza 2006.
The Lollapalooza website is a mess of Flash animation and PDFs but we’ve managed to sort out the important information.
The official site has a schedule for the entire weekend here (PDF) along with a map of the festival grounds. The Parkways Foundation also assembled a Lollapalooza Visitor’s Guide To Chicago covering great places to eat, drink, relax, shop and see live music, which seems sort of redundant. Locals won’t find any surprises though tourists will enjoy a few off-the-beaten-path locales. For a link-filled, insider's look and for the whole lowdown on best bets and things to avoid, we prefer this "unofficial" guide to Lollapalooza from Chicagofests.com.
In a nod to the technologically inclined, organizers have also provided a searchable guide to the bands playing Lollapalooza along with a schedule and other information that can be downloaded into the Notes feature of your iPod (ZIP file). You can also take part in the Mindfield, a sort of Lollapalooza text message party game involving a scavenger hunt, contests and...flash mobs? Is CSE behind the times or are those retro already?
Chicagoist will be covering the fest this weekend so look for more coverage from us this week and next.