Lollapalooza 2003, Nissan Pavilion, Bristow, VA 8/01/03
February 2006
12:45. Dozens of people have filled the X-Box tent to play video games - at a music festival. Some peer into tabletop PC-type setups, while others pound away at standing modules. The Bellydance Superstars could prance through this crowd and, unless they were smeared with the scent of a Playstation II, not a head would turn.
12:55. Passing the booth for American Rags it is noted that folks there are drawn to a Ms. Pac Man machine.
12:57. A 50-something gentleman with multi-colored hair approaches my wife and me, drawing us toward his booth for Rock Show Airbrush, not unlike Oliver Twist's Fagin fishing for new pickpocket recruits. Here you can remove your shirt and have your entire torso painted for daylong public viewing. Whether the designs he seems to have on my wife relate more to art or to commerce are unclear. We move on.
1:10. Dream Circus Theater are performing on the grounds. They seem to be staging someone's dream where young men and women prance about to techno music, wearing green and purple wooly mammoth boots and bikinis, with one dressed as a baton-twirling devil in pointy shoes. Note to self: Don't eat the brown aspirin.
1:25. Two attendants lean on elbows as no one approaches the "Save The Seals" booth.
1:28: Batting cages are spotted where you can show off your batting or pitching prowess. Or, for the X-Box-minded, there are virtual baseball video booths.
1:31: At the Electric Eden booth you can buy huge tapestries of Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison or Kurt Cobain. Apparently no lost '80s figures work well within a psychedelic motif.
1:55. Billy Talent, a band from Toronto, mow down a second-stage audience with a maniacal lead singer and an immaculately pompadoured guitarist. Why aren't these guys on the main stage? Meanwhile a man dressed as a lobster circulates through the crowd getting signers for his alternative-fuels petition. I feel certain that I didn't eat the brown aspirin but begin to question myself.
2:25. Brody Armstrong and the Distillers open the main stage to a sparse crowd. They play their guts out to the scattered few and get the rest of the day off.
2:55. The Bellydance Superstars are workin' it on the second stage. There may be more people gawking at them than for the Distillers. The audience is rapt. This is how those waiting for a turn in the X-Box tent look while in line staring at the busy gamers.
3:25. "Lu-lu-lu-lu-lu! Scree-ree-be-re-be-dee!" announces Donnas singer Brett Anderson as their set got underway. At least that's how it sounded to those stuck in the beer line. A tight set was boosted by a cover of Kiss's "Strutter."
4:15. A great bit played over the speakers between main stage acts: the SNL skit with Will Ferrell and Christopher Walken in the monumental studio moment when it was decided that the cowbell should be turned up during the recording of Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear The Reaper." Walken: "I got a fever. A fever for more cowbell."
4:30. As the MCs of the Jurassic 5 enter the stage through a huge Technics turntable a massive sound is unleashed by the DJs that rattles through my ribs. I realize I'm hungry.
4:50. T-shirt check: A fellow sporting Black Flag's "Slip It In" album cover brushes past another passing shirt showing a young Johnny Cash flipping off the camera.
4:55. The festival's British representatives, The Music, get the second-stage crowd stirred up. These guys have to be in the running with the Donnas for the day's crown of Performers Most Likely To Be Underage.
5:15. Jane's Addiction's Perry Farrell is supposed to be involved in an alternative-fuels discussion at the Hydrogen tent. We're there with a throng who are pretending to be fascinated with the technology as we wait for the absent Farrell.
5:35. Queens Of The Stone Age hit the main stage. Farrell doesn't hit the Hydrogen tent. "So, you're saying that this little car actually runs on stored energy?"
6:05. As I begin to wonder if I'm missing the Queens do the greatest rock set in recorded musical history, Farrell appears. As he and the Hydrogen rep get fuel-friendly for the crowd, the attendees stand and consider, hey, this is WAY closer to Perry than my lawn spot.
6:20. I bolt up the hill to the rear of the lawn-sitters to catch a last-minute glimpse of the Queens as they're halfway through "No One Knows." They rock fiercely for the next two minutes.
6:25: Steve-O of "Jackass" has been arrested - again - and does not make it to headline the second stage. Meanwhile, though the U.S. Marines booth may seem a bit incongruous in the midst of an alternative-themed festival, they know how to play to the base instincts of their objects of attention. Prominently placed in front of their set-up is a chin-up bar where one imbibing gent after another jerks himself, white-knuckled, toward the sky.
6:50. Incubus appears as an inflated condom from the Trojan tent bounces off my head. On the big screens, shirtless singer Brandon Boyd sports what looks like a chocolate-milk moustache. Two crowd surfers who apparently exceed the surfing weight each cover about five feet of arena floor before being dumped unceremoniously on their heads. It's time for nachos.
8:20. Audioslave appear to a huge crowd. Drummer Brad Wilk, for some unexplained reason, plays the entire set facing a mirror with his back to the audience. As I sit trying to decide if Chris Cornell's image on the big screens reminds me more of Tom Jones or Mike "Brady Bunch" Brady, Tom Morello makes it clear that he's probably the most original rock guitarist of the moment. Hats off for the covers of the White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" and Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding."
9:40. Gary Numan's "Cars" and A Flock Of Seagulls' "I Ran" play over the speakers. Since I hope to actually feel like driving back to Richmond in the morning I switch from beer to Diet Pepsi and root through some nacho crumbs. A very young girl hugs a floor attendant to coax entry into the pit. It works.
9:50. Twelve years after headlining the first Lollapalooza tour, Jane's Addiction appears once more. Chris Cornell, while still with Soundgarden, once described his discomfort in being a singer with nothing to do with his hands while onstage. Perry Farrell experiences no such discomfort. While the "Lolla Girls" cavort around the band like hookers on Broadway, Farrell and his flashy white suit leap around the stage, bounding off ramps like a reborn David Lee Roth. Guitarist Dave Navarro, shirtless in lame' pants and a feather boa, fires up the 11-song set (and every female in attendance) that includes a couple of tunes from their new STRAYS plus audience favorites like "Ocean Size" and "Mountain Song."
11:30. During the parking-lot gridlock I watch an immobile fellow who appears to be stapled to the top of his (or someone's) van. Whether his state is due to the brown aspirin, or realizing he'd spent his rent money costly beer, or from being bummed out that Audioslave didn't do "Black Hole Sun," at least he wouldn't have to worry about where he'd spend the night, thanks to local law enforcement. I bump my car up another inch and try once more to remember the name of my motel.