Town Hall Seattle Arts & Culture Series

These days, large-scale high-production music festivals take over major cities and regularly attract crowds of every genre — including the current version of Lollapalooza that draws a casual 400,000 people to its resident Chicago stomping grounds. But kick it back a few decades and this kind of maximalist mega-show wasn’t quite the norm it is now, especially for musical tastes outside of the mainstream. In their second collaborative book, Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival, music journalists Richard Bienstock and Tom Beaujour flash back to when the Lollapalooza we know now was a new tour concept bringing 1990s alternative artists and ideas center stage. Lollapalooza first transports readers back to the festival’s origins – a 20+ city summer sprawl highlighting alternative music, art, and counterculture, conceived by Perry Farrell as a farewell tour for his band Jane’s Addiction. From 1991-1997, this breakthrough tour shifted the scope of live music experiences and helpe