Lolla!

Next summer, I want to go to Lollapalooza, or Lolla. I really want to go this year, but I think I should save that experience for later. See, at Kennedy, going to Lolla is kind of like a senior trip experience. The summer after I graduate high school I will be a completely independent adult, and going to Chicago by myself wouldn't be a problem at all. Being young sucks sometimes, especially the age of 17. I'm old enough for plenty of responsibilities but not quite old enough to go out on my own. Life is a dance around the boundaries of age.
 Lolla is an annual music festival held in Chicago. Lolla started back in 1991 by Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farewell. Back then, the festival was mainly underground Grunge bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees, rap such as Ice-T and industrial music such as Nine Inch Nails. It was at Lolla was where the term "Alternative Nation" was coined. The explosion of alternative rock in the early 1990s propelled Lollapalooza forward; the 1992 and 1993 festivals leaned heavily on grunge and alternative acts, and usually featured an additional rap artist. Punk rock standbys like mosh pits and crowd surfing became part of the canon of the concerts. These years saw great increases in the event with the inclusion of booths for open-microphone readings and television-smashing pits, and tattooing and piercing parlors. Lolla began receiving some criticism when corporate marketing became intertwined with the kiosks at Lolla. Journalist Steve Albini criticized Lollapalooza for its corporatization of "alternative" music. In a 1993 interview, Albini commented:
"Lollapalooza is the worst example of corporate encroachment into what is supposed to be the underground. It is just a large scale marketing of bands that pretend to be alternative but are in reality just another facet of the mass cultural exploitation scheme. I have no appreciation or affection for those bands and I have no interest in that whole circle. If Lollapalooza had Jesus Lizard and the Melvins and Fugazi and Slint then you could make a case that it was actually people on the vanguard of music. What it really is is the most popular bands on MTV that are not heavy metal."
The festival ran annually until 1997. From 1997 until 2003, Lolla became a music tour and traveled all around North America. In 2003, Lolla re-gained its lease with the Chicago Park District and has been there ever since.
Oh man, there are so many awesome bands going this year. My favorites from the long line-up are: Passion Pit, The White Panda, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, Frank Ocean, FUN, Neon Indian, Florence + The Machine, Sigur Ros, Childish Gambino, and Of Monsters and Men. Of Monsters and Men was originally a very little heard of folk-type band in Iceland. I came across them one day on the music website Pitchfork and immediately fell in love. I listened to them for months before one day I was sitting in Pancheros and heard one of their songs playing. Somehow, Of Monsters and Men had been discovered and the were no longer my little secret. They are still considered underground, but I really miss how relatively unknown they used to be.