Global music festival that started 32 years ago all set to make its debut in India next weekend with close to 40 artistes and four stages
“It started out as a waking dream,” says Perry Farrell who came up with the idea of global music festival Lollapalooza, when their band Jane's Addiction was almost at a breaking point. “William Morris [the agency representing the band] came to me with the idea of doing one more big tour. They said you can do anything you want,” adds the artist and founder of Lollapalooza. So the festival started as a multi-city venue for the band’s farewell tour in 1991. Thirty-two years later, the festival is one of the largest festivals the world over, in the leagues of the likes of Coachella and Tomorrowland.
This year, for the first time ever, the global festival comes to India—in Mumbai—making it only the eighth city in the world where the festival takes place and the only Lollapalooza in Asia. The India edition is being produced by Farrell, William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, C3 Presents and BookMyShow. The festival will feature close to 40 artistes—global and Indian—across four stages, on January 28 and 29, with close to 35,000 people attending per day.
For starters, the most fascinating thing about the festival is the name itself. “Lollapalooza the word has a description that I first read in a dictionary—you know the books that used to be on everyone's shelves before we searched online or on our phones,” says Farrell. “When I saw it there, I thought the description was perfect. It said something and someone that is wonderful or impressive. The second definition was a giant swirling lollipop. I really liked that because giant swirled lollipops are a great symbol for what we are doing in that we are swirling culture, sound, and art into one experience.”
Though the festival saw quite a few ups and downs initially, since 2005 the festival has only grown—starting from a two-day format to a four-day festival globally. For Farrell, the goal is to start a dialogue among people with music as the common language and for the festival to be a vehicle for bringing people together.
In the early days, Lollapalooza would travel to 28 states across the United States. Eventually, they settled on making Grant Park in Chicago as the annual festival’s home base. “There is something about the force of a caravan of musicians and artistes travelling around the country, the planet!” says Farrell. “When we come to a new place, we want to know what they are talking about, what their culture is, what is important to them. It is a way to build a family of artistes and musicians and promoters whose business is celebration.”