Like any self-respecting almost-30-year-old, Lollapalooza has done a lot of growing up since its infancy. As the brainchild of Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell, the original ‘90s iteration of Lollapalooza was envisioned as a traveling carnival that gathered misfits of all stripes — from punks and goths, to gangsta rappers, to circus freaks who could feed seven feet of plastic tubing through their noses and into their stomachs.
After the alt-rock revolution waned, Lollapalooza underwent an extreme makeover in the mid-2000s, reinventing itself as an annual weekend gathering at Chicago’s Grant Park that attracts the biggest names in pop. With nearly 200 acts spread across its dense ecosystem of stages, Lollapalooza remains, first and foremost, a place for music discovery, where niche artists can play to their first large audience en route to becoming the superstars of tomorrow.
On the eve of the festival’s 2020 virtual edition, let’s look back at the evolution of Lollapalooza through 9 of its most memorable moments.