http://youtu.be/Y2hkp12fwb0
The early years of Lollapalooza were a stentorian, sensual, bacchanalian, coming out party for Pacific Northwest music and zeitgeist. Isolated by geography and a lack of relevance to the LA-New York pop culture axis, Portland and Seattle developed extreme expressions of solidarity with the burgeoning alternative movement: Grunge music, outrageously eccentric sexual personae, slackerdom as malodorous lifestyle, espresso pulling as art/craft/science, microbrews as religion, and performance art as inarguable political statement. Not only were Jet City bands like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden big draws on the Lolla main stages in those years, but the side stage was peppered with less well-known NW outfits such as Portland’s Sweaty Nipples, Ellensburg’s Truly, and Seattle’s non-musical entertainment juggernaut, The Jim Rose Circus. In 1994, Seattle’s public grief became a Lollapaloza event when, in the wake of Kurt Cobain’s suicide and Nirvana’s resulting non-appearance, Cobain’s wife Courtney Love would appear on stage in several cities with Smashing Pumpkins to discuss her grief and sing a song or two. There’s little doubt that Northwest music fans of 1992 would have looked at Lollapalooza as anything but a traveling festival celebrating everything good, true, loud and unique about their music scene.
