Lollapalooza '93: A Bill With Attitude : A Memorable Jam--in the Parking Lot (2024)

Ask the alumni of Lollapalooza ’91 what they remember most about that year’s groundbreaking festival and chances are good they’ll say the band Nine Inch Nails.

Query attendees of Lollapalooza ’92 as to what was most memorable the second year and they’ll undoubtedly mention either Ministry or Pearl Jam.

Ask the local fans someday what sticks out most about Lollapalooza ‘93, meanwhile, and you’ll probably get an earful about the traffic jam.

That’s partially because none of the ostensible headliners in this year’s cavalcade of alternative stars made the kind of indelible knockout impression that leaves a lingering buzz years after . . . and partially because it really was a hellapalooza of a traffic jam out at Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area. (More on fun with SigAlerts later.)

Still, while lacking a single draw that might unite Generation X as one, the bill surely had its strengths both commercially and artistically:

* Melodramatically heavy Alice in Chains provided the requisite post-dusk star power.

* At the opposite end of the day, show-opening thrashers Rage Against the Machine got just as enthused a crowd response and fit neatly in the epiphany slot reserved for future stars.

* Dinosaur Jr.--one of the world’s loudest and most introverted bands--gave the long show a little of what it was most lacking amid all the other acts’ determined edginess: some soul.

However you might feel about the strength of the eight acts playing on the main stage this year, no one would exactly accuse the line-up of representing the full diversity of “alternative” music these days, with any subgenre carrying the remote possibility of being viewed as wimpy markedly excluded. No jangly power-pop. No post-punk singer-songwriters. Only one--dare we say token?--hip-hop outfit, Arrested Development. And except for Speech’s female sidekicks in A.D., no grrrls, riot-style or otherwise.

So maybe the relative consistency was on purpose. Most of the bands on hand in Irwindale for the tour wrap-up Friday and Saturday were fairly interesting variations on a theme: groovesters gone unapologetically semi-metallic, with attitude (if not necessarily songs, per se) to spare.

The least intriguing of these were Tool, whose power chords proved dull as blunt hardware; Front 242, whose industrialism has taken a more accessible but no more interesting turn with the current expanded line-up; and identity crisis-stricken Fishbone, whose amiable old ska tunes stood out like sore thumbs amid their current bent toward a speed-metallish, mosh-ready sound.

But the highlights were well-spaced throughout the day. Rage Against the Machine opened in the worst heat of the day (and with a good percentage of ticket holders still stuck cooling their heels in the traffic), but thoroughly galvanized those on hand with its Next Big Thing blend of punk, rap, metal and--it’s back!--radical socialism.

Getting past the self-righteously provocative and none-too-subtly profane politics requires a leap of faith for some, but the group’s a kick in the pants whether you’re young enough to hear them as the only band that matters or old enough to take it as a post-Clash guilty pleasure.

The elbow-wielding mosh contingent mostly took off to check out the beads booths and beer stands during the late afternoon set by Arrested Development--definitely the only act to include a “spiritual adviser” among its lineup, and the one group to bring a true festival spirit to the festival.

Those nonviolent remaining had a terrific time swaying to a much-needed supply of The Funk, provided via turntable, bottom-heavy tracks, a live drum kit and the mobile members’ perpetual visual motion. Arrested fans could carp that Speech is doing the same old speechifying he always does in concert, though most here--in a crowd with few African-American faces--were getting his message for the first time.

Dinosaur Jr. led the way into dusk with a too-short set of slacker rock that combined Husker Du’s drive, Paul Westerberg’s dreamier side and Neil Young’s punkier inclinations. A surprisingly straight rendition of the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven” drew in the unwitting KROQ crowd, though it was bangs-masked J Mascis’ own brooding tunes--especially “Out There”--that provided an ink blot of shy, wisened emotionalism in a day otherwise riddled with youthful grandstanding.

Alice in Chains, the first group to be able to make use of the impressive lighting setup, did its fair share of brooding too, albeit with greater extroversion. This Seattle band straddles the line between aggressive rock and what used to be called drug music more successfully in concert than on record, where the pretense in the portent is more obvious.

Singer Layne Staley spent much of the set crouching low between the monitors, as if wanting to be as near the crowd chaos as possible--and indeed he leapt in three times Friday, at least once to go after a fan who’d somehow angered him. Show business, clearly, is his life.

After Alice’s grand seriousness, Primus closed on a note of severe levity, a progressive, absurdist power trio whose enormous talent in the service of ever-changing tempos and goofy lyrics added up at the end of the day to so much musical, uh, self-gratification.

And woe to those who figured Primus was a joke worth waiting out. There’s one two-lane road leading into Santa Fe Dam Recreation Area; now imagine about 30,000 concertgoers trying to exit in those two lanes all at once. The minimum exit time after the concert was two to three hours; smarter stuck Lolla-goers killed their engines and simply called it a sleep-over.

In most ways, Santa Fe wasn’t a terrible alternative to Irvine Meadows, where previous Lollapaloozas took place, given the amount of trees for shelter and the fire hoses regularly trained on the crowd. But unless bicycling suddenly takes off wholesale among music fans, a site this inaccessible is really no place to conscientiously invite this many people.