As Billy Idol’s latest album lands with a relative whimper, my peers and I are beside ourselves salivating over the ’93 edition of Lollapalooza, and are unlikely to have paid Cyberpunk much attention anyway. Although if considering the matter a little more deeply, I might have thought it hilariously ironic that Idol is by now mostly thought of as a past his prime, hair band era rocker, totally irrelevant and passe; meanwhile, these “cutting edge” alternative guys, to my knowledge, are all signed on major labels and did not record their most recent albums at home on a computer.
Regarding Perry Farrell’s traveling roadshow, by the time the second edition rolls around in ’92, a side stage is in play at every show, and I think by most objective standards, you would have to argue it’s an even greater success. So much so that the Chicago stop, for example, sold out before the actual performers were even announced. 1993’s version means even more dates and more popular acts, albeit without any discernible dropoff in the edginess department. This is in part a product of “alternative” music’s unfathomable success in the past year plus, although many of these groups also helped fuel that rise in the first place.
Though missing the first two years of the trailblazing tour, this time around, there’s no question about it, I am absolutely scoring a ticket. This despite a temporary hiatus between me and the girlfriend, Heather, as just about everything else has changed. I’m now a legal adult, no longer borrowing his parents’ car, working a nice steady bank teller gig, weekdays only. It seems like just about every 18–25 year old I know is attending, the show itself is in a much more convenient location — Buckeye Lake — and I’m heavily into the two highest billed acts, Alice In Chains and Primus. With plenty of others on the docket who aren’t exactly slouches.
A few days prior to the show, on my way home from work, I even stop by Matt Wackerly’s mom’s apartment, because a handful of comrades were already gathered there, discussing logistics. Comparing notes on what they’ve heard about the stops leading up to this one, or the often unfamiliar acts, most commonly found on the side stages, and who is or isn’t worth seeing. Of these, Front 242 is easily the most obscure main stage act, to the extent I can’t even remember their name and am at one point asking if anyone knows anything about “R2D2.” In some respects it already seems strange that they would receive a better slot than Tool, Rage Against The Machine, or Babes In Toyland, yet this is just indicative of what a chaotic scene we are dealing with. You almost need a scorecard to keep up, things are changing so rapidly, easily the most fertile, rapidly morphing music climate since at least the punk explosion, and possibly even since the late 1960s.
This is part of what makes it so exciting. So much so that even though this concert is landing on a weekday, meaning I’ll miss at least the first half of it, this deters me not the slightest. From my bank in Mansfield, it’s a straight, hour long shot down route 13 to Buckeye Lake. I’ll pack a change of clothes and hit the road straight from there, catching at least the last handful of bands.
But, alas, the morning of July 8 rolls around, and it’s already quite hot. Soon to become positively scorching. Not that this necessarily has anything to do with my condition, which is apparent fairly early. I’m not overheated, but rather have somehow come down with a rare fever. It’s been years since I’ve suffered one, so of course that would hit today. And as I stand behind the counter at the bank, waiting on wave after wave of customer, head throbbing, all I can think about for the entirety of this grueling shift is that I am going to head straight home from here, and crawl directly into bed. Which is exactly what I do.
It’s a decision I will almost immediately regret, and surely continue to for the rest of my days. An event this singular comes your way, you suck it up, and you soldier through somehow. Even if everything I’m hearing makes me think this would have been a horrible idea if under the weather, I can’t shake this feeling. Now I’m left clutching this ticket I never used, and subsisting on whatever tidbits my colleagues are willing to bestow upon me.
The first such report comes from Kenny, whom I talk to the next day. It’s from him that I initially learn that, despite a thermometer that clocked in somewhere around 103 degrees, Layne Staley of Alice In Chains nonetheless took the stage wearing a three piece suit. At least Babes In Toyland, I can see in the eventual newspaper coverage, had the good sense to wear short dresses. Other than that, I’m aware that this Mansfield kid we know made the evening news for dropping acid at the show, then running up the middle of this nearby highway buck naked. The most hilarious aspect of which is that his prim and proper, stuffed shirt of a grandma is vice president of my bank, and once called me into her office to criticize my appearance. That I was frequently showing up unshaven, with greasy hair, a wrinkly dress shirt. But in light of this most recent development, I’m suddenly finding her a little less intimidating.
As for the show itself, Buckeye Lake holds more bodies than Blossom Music Center, the site of last year’s Ohio tour stop. And therefore this one draws a correspondingly larger crowd, somewhere in the 22–25,000 range. Of which I sometimes feel like I must know half the people who were in attendance. Despite the sweltering heat, fans are only permitted to bring in water or Gatorade, as everything else, even ice, they are forcing patrons to dump. Faucets are available throughout, of course, though despite the presence of these, heat stroke and other maladies remain viable concerns. To this end, by mid-day, concert staff have taken to spraying the crowd with a water hose, courtesy of 4000 gallon trucks that are cycled through every half hour. One teenager from Columbus, as reported by the Akron Beacon Journal, is attempting to convince girls they should mud wrestle with him, to no avail. Among the attendees who are not impressed, despite the water hoses and the potential for cooling down with mud, is one young lady quoted in the paper.
“I liked it better at Blossom. They had more shade and real bathrooms. This is insane,” she says.
One benefit to Perry Farrell’s playing every show with Porno For Pyros is that he remains on hand, though it’s unclear how tight of a leash he and the original founders continue to exert upon day to day operations nowadays. And it isn’t as though the so-called Lollapalooza Village area has lost all its sharp teeth, for there’s some kind of naughty puppet show out there, a political debate forum, various tables handing out related pamphlets, and then this forward looking installation called The Cyber Pit that allows crowd members to program messages into a digital readout mounted atop the stage. Also something called the LSD Simulator, which is some kind of kaleidoscopic goggle apparatus, and a poetry recital tent with scheduled performers.
Naturally, though, most of what matters transpires on the two elevated stages. Here I’m left cobbling together an ad hoc mixture of firsthand testimony from my friends, and quotes or reviews ripped from published articles. I can’t decide if this makes the show seem more or less mythical to me, although I really just wish I were there, particularly as the party raged on past 11pm and I would have had a good six hours at my disposal. You could argue at least I have the ticket, though, and made this decision, good or bad, on my own — my cousin Carrie for example won free passes on Mansfield radio station Y105, only to discover she had to be 18 to claim them. And therefore missed the concert as well.
Though the main stage acts are all signed to major label deals (not exactly what you would call a coincidence, according to tour manager Stuart Ross) as are most of these side stage outfits, one of the cooler, least commented upon aspects of this roving festival is that each stop does feature a slot for a local artist. In this instance that vaunted position is filled by Columbus’s own Scrawl, an all-female trio who might not even have a record label at this particular moment. Better still, they go on immediately after Tool, at 6:30, which is about as prime as it gets if you can deliver the goods. In turn, their 45 minute set is followed by some crowd participation pinata bashing bit, featuring the likenesses of various politicians. A reporter for The Columbus Dispatch even overhears a couple of goofballs discussing this, while viewing a posted schedule:
“Hey, Scrawl is opening for Pinata Bash!”
“Either that, or they’re closing for Tool.”
Speaking of the local references, bass player Foley (Joseph Lee McCreary, Jr.), also of Columbus, performs here as the newest member of Arrested Development. Yet although they’ve enjoyed a few decent hits, the best of these being Tennessee, and my brother even went as far as to buy their CD — either that or had it foisted upon him by Columbia House, I forget which — neither I nor any of my colleagues were ever a huge fan. Nobody mentions their set as a highlight, and the reviews I’ve read are middling, with most stating that they seem to be going through the motions up there. Granted, it’s possible this just isn’t our kind of music, but I like to think I listen to pretty much everything these days. Although then again I do dig them a little more than the somewhat overrated Fishbone, so that’s something, anyway.
Arrested Development might also suffer by way of comparison to a band that went over much better on this glorious day. Though they are known for their politically charged or at least socially conscious lyrics, that diverse ensemble doesn’t even hold a Roman candle next to the explosive fireworks of Rage Against The Machine. This tour is essentially the L.A. quartet’s big coming out party, and by nearly all accounts the response to them, at least at this Buckeye Lake stop, is phenomenal.
Of course it would be naive to suggest there isn’t some race related component to this reaction. Though it isn’t remotely shocking that here in the flat, corn field covered heartland of Ohio, this is an overwhelmingly white crowd, a lot of the articles I’ve read accentuate this point anyway. And I imagine some of these black bands would gain a better toehold in the likely more diverse, major market settings. Then again, the whole point of this enterprise is to showcase a wide range of genres, to encourage an already fairly open minded demographic to broaden their palettes even wider. Those who wished to continue listening to hair metal or Paula Abdul all day presumably skipped this blowout festival, for example, but this crowd is at least open to hearing some fresh sounds.
Getting there is a process, however. The organizers have at least booked a pair of black bands, and an all-female group, just counting the main stage offerings alone. Unlike the first two years, there’s no true hip-hop act to be found in this lineup, but AD are at least halfway there — and their steps in that direction are funkier yet much more modest than the gangsta strut of the previous entries, the pair of west coast rappers with Ice in their name. So it isn’t even the same old thing in that regard, year after year.
Yet you can’t exactly force any of the audience members to declare these groups their favorite. They mostly came here to see what they already knew they dug — and again, it’s something shy of a newsflash to observe that these Ohioans are probably not as culturally advanced, on balance, as residents of New York or L.A. or San Fran or whatever — but you can if nothing else crack the door open to your world and slowly win them over. Besides, the presence of Rage frontman Zack de la Rocha, who mostly identifies as Latino, does to some extent negate the race related angle, correlating this to an act’s reception. I think it’s more accurate to say that this was genre related. Because if I had to summarize the basic reactions I’m gathering about some of these other niches, it would be, yeah, it was cool, it was cool, man, whatever, you know. But that they mostly just came here to rock.
Unfortunately, if you’re catering to the head banging crowd, then you’re also bringing with it a certain element of knuckleheaded violence. Country music festivals might rank highest for attendees getting blasted out of their minds and acting like idiots, but rock shows definitely have the market cornered on aggro buffoons wanting to break something. I mean, you’re now hearing reports of bloody mosh pits breaking out at Matthew Sweet concerts, which is just absurd. At this show, that tendency manifests itself before a single note is even played, when a cabal of morons, impatiently waiting to gain entry, starts throwing objects over the gates. As everyone who had made it to the other side ran for cover, one such projectile, a glass bottle, stuck a young lady in the forehead, leaving a sizable gash, with still others injured in slightly less gory fashion by this airstrike.
The media often likes to portray incidents like these as though the bands themselves have incited these riots (and sometimes this is true), but mostly I tend to think, eh, these people were dunderheaded a-holes long before they showed up at this concert. And if nothing else, once Rage take the stage to get this party started proper, they expertly redirect all this pent up hostility toward a different target: any authority figures whatsoever.
Their set immediately sets the crowd alight, the culmination of which is surely Killing In The Name, a fiery li’l toetapper that finds this sea of youths jumping up and down and jabbing raised middle fingers at the mobile police station, screaming fuck you I won’t do what you tell me! insistently, repeatedly, alongside De La Rocha. One friend admits to all but scooping his jaw off the muddy ground and believing he was witnessing the future of music, watching this furious foursome.
Though typically steering clear of an artist/band’s more well known cuts, I’m going with this one today as their representative track. Anyone in my age demographic, coming of age in the 90s, is surely aware of it, but at this point it’s possible that any readers younger (or older) than this might not be familiar. With this or even the group as a whole. The entirety of their small yet impactful catalog is worth investigating if you haven’t already. Zack certainly made the most of a somewhat limited approach, the lyrics are great, Tom Morello an extremely innovate guitarist who wasn’t content to just rip off fret runs all day (and a great DJ, too, if you catch him on Sirius). The three musicians in the group even went on to form Audioslave with Chris Cornell from Soundgarden, and release three mostly solid albums. Regarding Killing In The Name, it’s still an explosive song, and if it doesn’t inspire you to move around in some violent fashion — even in your office chair — then I have to conclude something is wrong.
