Book: Lollapalooza
Author: Richard Bienstock & Tom Beaujour
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Year: 2025
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Synopsis : “Through hundreds of new interviews with artists, tour founders, festival organizers, promoters, publicists, sideshow freaks, stage crews, record label execs, reporters, roadies and more, Lollapalooza chronicles the iconic music festival’s pioneering 1991-1997 run, and, in the process, alternative rock’s rise – as well as the reverberations that led to a massive shift in the music industry and the culture at large.
Lollapalooza features original interviews with some of the biggest names in music, including Perry Farrell and Jane’s Addiction, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails, Sonic Youth, Tool, Smashing Pumpkins, Ice-T, Rage Against the Machine, Green Day, Patti Smith, Alice in Chains, Metallica and many more.
[…]
A nostalgic look back at 1990s music and culture, Lollapalooza traces the festival’s groundbreaking origins, following the tour as it progresses through the decade, and documenting the action onstage, backstage, and behind-the-scenes in detailed and uncensored and sometimes shocking first-person accounts. This is the story of Lollapalooza and the 1990s alternative rock revolution.”

Review : Lollapalooza is a tremendous body of work, indicative of the importance Lollapalooza holds in the annals of alternative, and mainstream, rock history. Bienstock and Beaujour have done a masterful job of showcasing just how revolutionary the conception of such an event was in the 1990s and the impact it’s had on the world of traveling festivals and tours as much as thirty years later. Though I haven’t reviewed many books about music, you may remember my review of Rise of a Killah last year – I found it difficult at times to connect with a book whose stories didn’t relate to me as someone who isn’t a die-hard fan of the Wu-Tang Clan; there was so much that went unsaid, without prior knowledge, some things felt hard to discern. I can definitively say Lollapalooza did not suffer from the same issues for someone, like me, who isn’t necessarily a lifelong fan of some, if not many, of the bands who played during the seminal 1991-1997 run of the festival. While there were many bands and artists whose work I’m familiar with to varying degrees, there were, of course, many whose work I’m unfamiliar with – particularly those who played on the second-stage, designated for local, indie, up-and-comers, and performance art / spoken word (at times). At no point was I lost. Bienstock and Beaujour covered an absolute mountain of information and did so in a wildly comprehensive way, anything that I might have gone “…wait, what?” about was cleanly and thoughtfully explained through hundreds of interviews, not only detailing events, but doing so in a way that felt approachable and easy to imagine.

Throughout this ridiculous honker of a book I found myself, at multiple stages, completely staggered by the sheer volume of work that went into the story telling. Laid out in a format I initially found myself disinterested in, each year is formatted through varying chapters that are told exclusively through the words of band members, backstage hands, tour founders, managers, journalists, and more. Each chapter is broken up by these exclusive interviews, which I immediately thought would leave the book feeling choppy and broken, but in fact read like a conversation with all the people who had a front row seat to the US’ first real traveling music festival. It was an incredible feat, I can’t even fathom the amount of time and effort involved in not only gathering these interviews, but putting them together in a coherent flow that jeopardized nothing in terms of story retelling. It never once mattered that I didn’t know who each person interviewed was, Bienstock and Beaujour not only included details about each interviewee at the start of every chapter (regardless of whether they’d been introduced previously or not), they also provided an alphabetical list in the front of the book detailing every person quoted throughout this 400 page compendium. I really can’t emphasize enough how impressive and monstrous Lollapalooza is.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading accounts of musicians I love, bands I’ve listened to for years, and people I’m only somewhat familiar with – the love that came out of so many people involved in the festival for 6 years is really something special. Without ruining it for you, it felt like the absolute height of nostalgia to read that so many people look back on their time with Lollapalooza with nothing but love, admiration, and joy. Described by multiple people over the course of multiple years as feeling like being part of a summer camp, the details of their exploits while not on stage, the highs of playing with their fellow touring bands, and the lows of addiction and alcoholism all set against the backdrop of teen angst, pre-internet, and exploration made for a deeply meaningful read. It was unexpected, to say the least.

So, then, why the 4 star review and not a 5? Well, Lollapalooza suffered from the antithesis of what Rise of a Killah suffered from : too much information. And I don’t mean to say that the details given were personal, though at times they were, or that they were shocking (largely, they weren’t) – what I mean to say is that by the time I reached page 300-ish, or what would be year 1996 of the festival, I was bored. There were too many overlapping stories, too many details about things I’d already read about, and as the tour was winding down, I cared a bit less about it than I did reading about 1991 – 1994. If anything, the book suffered the same fate Lollapalooza did. And perhaps that’s the shine of a great work, that the book literally mirrored what was happening in the tour at the time, but the magic was dwindling and my interest was fading. It’s easy to make me feel excited about the height of Lollapalooza in the early 90s, as grunge was gripping the nation, bands were finding their footing, and something new and exciting was happening with this new form of tour (in the US). It’s a challenge to make me excited to continue reading about the festival’s demise, the sell-out nature of alternative music into mainstream art, and the poor booking choices that ultimately led to the end of the festival, at the time; Bienstock and Beaujour didn’t succeed in this arena. Perhaps for a nostalgic Gen-X reader this will have a different feel than it did for me, but ultimately it cost a star for this Millennial reader.

Advice : If you’ve been a fan of counterculture, alternative music, grunge, or just love a music festival, I think the history involved will be of interest to you! If you love making the band or just enjoy a backstage look at all your favorite musician’s lives, this is a great read.