For such a new blog I'm already breaking one of my mental rules. When I started doing this, a whole two days ago, in my mind I would just use my ticket stubs and they would all be in order and all would be right in the world. I also thought about the things I would say about Lollapalooza 1993, my first Lollapalooza experience. After posting the Primus stub I realized that something was missing...that show happened after Lollapalooza. I looked in my box just now and can't find the Lollapalooza stub anywhere.
How can this be? Well, it was about 100 degrees and it rained and I wasn't wearing a shirt for most of it and it probably disintegrated sometime throughout the day. What makes thing worse is the fact that I actually remember this experience and it would pain me not to include it so I stole a scanned stub from my friend Dan. I hope he's not mad.
I find it amazing that Dan's ticket was in such good shape. I mean, did he not experience the same torture that the rest of us did which resulted in a couple friends suffering from heat stroke? Maybe Dan is immune to sweat and rain (he is not). I also find it amazing that Lollapalooza used to cost $28.50. I sold my ticket for this year's festival, happening right now as I type, for $200 (although it is three days now and only in Chicago).
Anyway, this, as I mentioned earlier, was my first Lollapalooza experience. I was too young to go the two previous years, and even if I wasn't there were limits to Michael's generosity when it came to dragging his little sister around. My friends and I went in several car loads and I remember the traffic getting to Milan Dragway being horrible. Milan isn't really that close to anything so after driving the 45 minutes and then waiting for what seemed like forever to park our cars the anticipation was killer.
The full lineup that year (thanks to Wikipedia) was:
Main Stage:
Primus,
Alice in Chains,
Dinosaur Jr.,
Fishbone,
Arrested Development,
Front 242,
Babes in Toyland,
Rage Against the Machine
Side Stage:
Tool,
Sebadoh,
Cell,
Unrest,
Mercury Rev, Mosquito,
Free Kitten,
Royal Trux,
Tsunami,
Mutabaruka,
Coctails,
Scrawl,
Luscious Jackson,
Genitorturers,
Truly,
Eggs,
Girls Against Boys,
Thurston Moore,
A Lighter Shade of Brown, Glue,
The Karl Hendricks Trio, Hurl,
The Goats, The Runties
I was most excited to see Dinosaur Jr. and wore my (maybe Michael's, who knows) Green Mind shirt with the cow and the gorilla (it was purple) and combat boots, because they're perfect attire for 100 degree heat. There was no shade or water anywhere in sight. I mean, it's a race track. No one wants to watch cars drive under the cover of trees. We paid $7 for a gallon of water and it was the best $7 I've ever spent. They had hoses that they were letting us drink out of but the water was not really potable. We drank it anyway. It was so hot that I took my shirt off and walked around in just my bra and at 15 that seemed perfectly reasonable.
I remember watching Primus, Fishbone, Alice in Chains, Rage Against the Machine, Tool and Dinosaur Jr (well, sorta but I'll get to that in a minute). I'm sure I saw more bands but, again, spotty memory.
During Tool I stood in the pit, which was something I did back (but not anymore. In fact, just last night while seeing Death From Above 1979 I was on the outside edge of the pit and was distracted and annoyed by the whole thing). Anyway, back to 18 years ago, out of nowhere I felt hands on my shoulders and this large man pick me up and remove me from the pit. He said "you don't belong there" patted me on the head and then walked away. I was so dumbfounded by the whole incident that I said nothing to him, despite usually being a giant brat.
Dinosaur Jr., who I was so very excited to see for the first time, ended up playing 2.5 songs. The day was the usual hot and muggy Michigan summer day and so there was always a chance of rain. The clouds started to roll in right before they took the stage. In my mind, just after they started playing, a part of the stage that was big and heavy was blown down by wind, landing inches from J Mascis and causing him to scoot off as fast he could, which isn't very fast, off the stage. . The internet told me, however, that a tarp was blown from the stage causing them to have to cut the set short. It also told me that J said "everybody ready for the twister?" and that they played Little Fury Thing, Freak Scene and Just Like Heaven. All I know for sure is that I was heartbroken and after that it rained super hard.
The night ended with Primus and a bunch of mud covered, exhausted teens dragging themselves back to the Detroit suburbs, probably stopping at Farmington Denny's to annoy our waitstaff before going home.
