Happy Gilmore 2: Release Date, Cast, Story, Trailer & Everything We Know
Will Happy Gilmore 2 ever happen?
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
New book dives into the history of Lollapalooza
“Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival” traces the ups and downs of the 34-year-old summer music event.
If you’re a music fan of a certain age, “Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival,” a new oral history of the 34-year-old bacchanal, assembled from hundreds of interviews by music writers Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock, will swing from bittersweetly nostalgic to hedonistic to coldly rational. It begins, as so many festivals once did, with ambitious dreams of cultural utopias, and it concludes, as so many music festivals now do, in spreadsheets and brand marketing.
That’s where Lollapalooza currently stands, as a corporate, and civic, behemoth, so entrenched with local leadership that the 2025 festival already announced it will close most of Grant Park to the public for nearly a month this summer. Now that’s influence.
Though as the authors make depressingly obvious: It used to be about the music, man!
Indeed, if you are either too old or too young to realize, Lollapalooza, by most standards of cool, was pretty cool — decades ago, for a short time. Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips says in the book, tracing Lolla’s trajectory: “At some point, the party is just about people who like to party.”
“It’s a long slog,” former Tribune music critic Greg Kot explains in the forlorn final pages. “So, kids do drugs and pick up girls, or girls pick up guys, or guys pick up guys, and it becomes something other than the music. It becomes this other thing altogether.”
And yet, once again, as summer music lineups land this month and 14-year-olds in Lake Forest hound their parents for a spare $400 to attend another weekend-long sauna along Michigan Avenue, Lollapalooza promises to be a blockbuster. From July 31 to Aug. 3, Grant Park will host its 20th Lollapalooza, a potent reminder of how this festival has remained naggingly immune to the impacts of blah headliners, weak economies and a lack of inspiration. Perhaps that last part is unfair: Lolla, as this oral history lays out, still has a purpose, and even a vision, albeit a broad commercial one.
The lineup of 2025 music acts is expected out at 10 a.m. Tuesday.
My favorite story in the book is about the contemporary Chicago incarnation (which gets addressed briefly, as an addendum to the traveling festival). It’s told by Stuart Ross, a former Lolla accountant and tour director. Because he also handles Tom Waits, a representative from C3 Presents (Lolla’s Austin, Texas-based producer) called one year to ask if Waits would play the festival. Ross said Lolla “skews a little young” now, besides C3’s financial offer was “absurdly low” — Waits could make more playing a single show in a Chicago theater. C3’s reply? “I don’t know how much you know about Lollapalooza …”
1 of 5
ExpandSee, by 2005, by the time Lolla impresario Perry Farrell decided to anchor the festival annually in Grant Park, a lot of generational knowledge, and taste, was tossed aside.
Though to be fair, a decade earlier, when Lollapalooza was only four years old, it was already less interested in turning audiences on to new music than it was a marketing platform pushing a sanitized version of indie college rock to 20-something Gen Xers. Duane Denison, the guitarist of Chicago’s The Jesus Lizard, which played the 1995 edition of Lollapalooza, admits they joined the tour partly because they were being courted by big labels at the time: It was “kind of a strategic move.”
And that’s also the year that nearly broke Lollapalooza.
The lineup (Pavement, Sinead O’Connor, Hole, Beck, Yo La Tengo, The Roots, Sonic Youth as headliner) was too good to appeal to every nook of the country, snooty as that sounds. The authors illustrate this well: Whenever Lollapalooza veered from a streamlined industry cool, toward its craggier inspiration, ticket sales slowed. In fact, as stunning as it sounds: Lollapalooza folded briefly in 1998, partly because the organizers weren’t thrilled with the new lineup. Who knew that was an option?
Few remember, but Lollapalooza was conceived as a farewell tour for Farrell’s band, Jane’s Addiction. He wanted something special, a kind of traveling happening, part Rolling Thunder Revue, part Freakout. The proposal came at a time when the concert industry was still shaking off images from the ‘60s and ‘70s of naked, stoned, sometimes rioting audiences taking over small towns for weekend-long music festivals. Farrell wanted to bring exactly this image to every region of the country, for a day or two at a time. Lolla founder after Lolla founder said the same thing: They didn’t know what they were doing. Still, the premise was eye-popping for 1991: Ask tens of thousands of edgier-minded rock fans to converge on a location, let them get wasted, let them crowd surf, offer them pamphlets and petitions from progressive causes, give them better-than-usual food and expose them to hours of bands they probably didn’t know that well.
Fans watch Depeche Mode perform at Lollapalooza in Grant Park on Aug. 7, 2009. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)As a veteran of the first few traveling Lollas, I’ll vouch: Farrell and Co. didn’t know what they were doing. I recall chaotic crowds, iffy food and badly organized tables for groups such as Rock the Vote and Planned Parenthood. Still, the timing was perfect. Lollapalooza, for its first several years, resembled a rough outline of a social movement. Or maybe a gold rush. Either way, for an all-day show at an amphitheater, it was smart, rowdy and surprisingly organic reflection of where a lot of suburban culture was in the early 1990s, moving away from strictly rock ‘n’ roll toward a mash of hop hop and metal and indie and industrial sounds. My favorite sleeping bag was swept off a lawn by a rampaging crowd, moshing to Ice-T. The next year, during Soundgarden, the audience tore down part of the wooden fence surrounding the theater and lit bonfires across the lawn.
Lollapalooza offered a smoothed-over taste of risk, rebranded as “alternative.” But the tours themselves, the interviews reveal, were straight from a decades-old lifestyle: Drugs and more drugs, with much less sex than before, some pranks and plenty of ego. Not very much nice is said about Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins — especially from the Beastie Boys, which didn’t care for him. Farrell has an issue with Green Day, so the band calls him out on stage, requiring a lot of scrambling assistants to calm frictions. (Billie Joe Armstrong: “He had minions that would come up and say ‘Perry Farrell’s really angry that you dedicated ‘Chump’ to him.’ And I’m like, ‘Tell him to stop acting like one.’”) As the festival returns year after year, and commercial alternative rock sounds ever closer to an echo of actual alternatives, audiences start to mock anything genuinely different. As Gerald Casale of Devo recalls: “When I saw that crowd and when I watched how they interacted, I thought, ‘You know what? De-evolution is real!’”
“Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival” by Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour, publishing March 25, 2025. (St. Martin’s Press)Cracks spread through the festival’s brain trust, and whatever tension exists between faux-alternative and real alternative came to a head when megastars Metallica headlined in 1996. It’s a quaint thought today: Metallica has headlined several times since, and Lolla is now too much part of the mainstream to offer a lineup that’s anything less than mercenary. The history plays this pretty neutral but the point is glaring: Farrell hand-selects lineups at first. By the time the festival arrives in Grant Park, C3 is citing brand studies that claim Lollapalooza is one of the most recognized brands in the world.
As with any rock history, eventually you feel the energy drain and the bones calcify. The irony, of course, is that Lollapalooza rages on, even stronger, as part of the machine. Bienstock and Beaujour offer a lively peek at what was, however vague it was. Times change. Culture shifts. Lolla became much broader to survive, says festival cofounder Marc Geiger. It no longer reflects a niche or a movement anymore because, in the age of streaming, no decade, genre or sensation gets more relevant than any other. Time is a flat circle. A lot of purists still pine for that old idealistic Lolla, he says. “But there’s people who want record stores, too.”
cborrelli@chicagotribune.com
Will Happy Gilmore 2 ever happen?
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
American music festival Lollapalooza recently revealed the lineup for this year's show, including TWICE, KATSEYE, BOYNEXTDOOR, KickFlip, and Xdinary Heroes.
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Netflx ordered a sequel to Adam Sandler’s hit movie ‘Happy Gilmore,’ which starred Julie Bowen, Carl Weathers, Christopher McDonald and more
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Country star Luke Combs will be the very first country act to close out the iconic Lollapalooza festival this year.
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
The original hit comedy movie saw Adam Sandler play a failed hockey player-turned-golfer.
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Lollapalooza has revealed its 2025 lineup, with Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, and more. Read why this year's edition is a true changing of the guard.
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
This summer’s four-day festival will be July 31 to Aug. 3 in Chicago’s Grant Park, with more than 170 bands on eight stages, also including RÜFÜS DU SOL, Luke Combs, TWICE and A$AP Rock…
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
The massive bill also includes Gracie Abrams, Tyler The Creator and Korn.
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Mortal Kombat fans can get the latest game and expansion for next to nothing by taking advantage of this double discount.
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
The BBC announced that the Glasgow-based soap will be axed in 2026 due to 'dwindling viewing figures' leaving fans across the country gutted.
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
A second round of the 1996 golf comedy with Adam Sandler is hitting the fairway.
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
TWICE, A$AP Rocky, Doechii, and Gracie Abrams will also make their way to Chicago.
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Fans have reacted with joy as Netflix release the first trailer for 'Happy Gilmore 2' starring Adam Sandler
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Lollapalooza has unveiled its 2025 lineup led by headliners Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Tyler, the Creator, Doechii, A$AP Rocky, Gracie Abrams, and more.
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
River City fans have slammed BBC bosses and taken aim at rival soaps such as Emmerdale and Coronation Street as they fume 'is this a joke? It's too early for April fools'.
Read more >> : Cick here
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Twitter (X), Inc. was an American social media company based in San Francisco, California, which operated and was named for its flagship social media network prior to its rebrand as X. In addition to Twitter, the company previously operated the Vine short video app and Periscope livestreaming service
Twitter (X) is one of the most popular social media platforms, with over 619 million monthly active users worldwide. One of the most exciting features of Twitter (X) is the ability to see what topics are trending in real-time. Twitter trends are a fascinating way to stay up to date on what people are talking about on the platform, and they can also be a valuable tool for businesses and individuals to stay relevant and informed. In this article, we will discuss Twitter (X) trends, how they work, and how you can use them to your advantage.
What are Twitter (X) Worldwide Trends?
Twitter (X) Worldwide trends are a list of topics that are currently being talked about on the platform and also world. The topics on this list change in real-time and are based on the volume of tweets using a particular hashtag or keyword. Twitter (X) Worldwide trends can be localized to a Worldwide country or region or can be global, depending on the topic's popularity.
How Do Twitter (X) Worldwide Trends Work?
Twitter (X) Worldwide trends are generated by an algorithm that analyzes the volume of tweets using a particular hashtag or keyword. When the algorithm detects a sudden increase in tweets using a specific hashtag or keyword, it considers that topic to be trending.
Once a topic is identified as trending, it is added to the list of Twitter (X) Worldwide trends. The topics on this list are ranked based on their popularity, with the most popular topics appearing at the top of the list.
Twitter (X) Worldwide trends can be filtered by location or category, allowing users to see what topics are trending in their area or in a particular industry. Additionally, users can click on a trending topic to see all of the tweets using that hashtag or keyword.