[Rock Music]
- A wild, new alternative rock tour kicked off in Phoenix, Arizona,
on Thursday night.
It's a multi-act package called the Lollapalooza tour,
and it features Jane's Addiction,
along with such opening act as Living Colour, Ice-T,
Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Butthole Surfers.
Our man Dave Kendall was on hand
for the Phoenix opener, and here's a quick preview.
- [Camera operator] OK. - Alright?
It's 109 degrees, and the excitement is running high
here at the opening date of Lollapalooza,
a traveling carnival of music, information, and art.
Let's have a look.
- [Interviewer] OK. So, Perry, this —
the Lollapalooza tour was your idea in the first place and everything.
Now that we are just about ready to go
with this tour, do you think things are shaping up
as you had originally envisioned them?
- Yeah. I think they've surpassed them.
From what I can tell now, it's kind of like —
kind of like the whole country's involved [laughs].
It just started out —
I wanted to keep it kind of low-key
because I thought alternative music was
a shoo-in to keep it kind of alternative, but it seems like
maybe people are so f**king bored with the mainstream.
Maybe its time has come, you know? Something —
some kind of egg's about to crack, I think.
- [Interviewer] How did you decide on the lineup, you know, which bands would play?
Are they all personal favorites of yours, or how did that —
- Yeah. I put together about 100 —
a list of 100 people,
and then, I said, "May the best manager win."
There you have it.
- Oh, we heard about it, maybe, four or five months ago,
and I guess it was kinda up to Jane's Addiction,
who was gonna be on the tour.
I mean, we've always been fans of theirs, played a couple
shows in L.A. with them, and was flattered to be asked
to be part of something that could be pretty cool.
- We heard about this —
they've been planning this for about seven months now?
Seven, eight months now?
And so, we heard about this in actually, like, December,
and, at first, we were thinking about it,
and we're like, "Eh, we don't know."
And then, we saw who else was gonna
be on the bill, and we were like, "Yeah, we can do this."
- Last year, we changed over agents to Marc Geiger at Triad,
and he suggested it about a year ago,
that we should go on some sort of package.
And we said — - [Laughs] Package.
- We wouldn't do a sort of all-English package,
but we might consider something else.
And then, about six months ago, the offer came through,
and we thought, sounded like a good idea.
- I don't know how we weaseled into it.
We, like, went up to the offices at Triad agency,
booking agency, and,
somehow, we hit a couple of people,
and they finally said, "Yeah, [you] could be on it."
- I worked with Perry on one of his songs
in his long-form video,
and that's how I met him,
and me and him became real cool friends,
and I told him a little stuff I was doing in business and stuff,
and he liked it, and we were hanging out.
And then, when they asked him about doing a tour, they said,
"Let's take a rapper out."
And I think he said, "Let's take Ice,"
'cause me and him had been friends.
At first, a lot of eyebrows got raised,
"Aw, we gotta take a rapper out on the tour,"
but then, it was like,
some people did that, and other people were, like, "Cool!" Like that.
So, we're here, you know? We're real happy to be here.
- It's real cool, man.
We're having a great day, man.
It is so hot out in Arizona.
I tell you, I'm from New York, man, and it's so hot.
It's gotta be 122 [degrees] out here, right?
It's gotta be 122,
'cause it's so hot.
- [Interviewer] So, what do you think about
this part of the idea?
- [Audience member] It's great. It's f**king great, I love it.
- [Interviewer] One more time, without the F-word, darling.
- It's great, I love it. It's hot.
- [Interviewer] What about just the opening show here?
I mean, it's been really hot here,
you know, like 112 degrees. You guys —
- Well, it was my plan to get all
the opening acts, like, completely heat prostration.
And then, we come in and clean up.
- [Rollins] It's hotter than hell outside.
- [Interviewer] How did you prepare for that?
- [Rollins] How did I prepare for that? - [Interviewer] Yeah.
Extreme mental discipline,
six days a week of weight training,
climbing the rope,
doing the bar dips, and
a real belief in the total apocalypse.
- Here, I don't know. It's really hot. It's very —
- Are those aluminium seats? Hoo!
- It's hot. It's gonna be very hot. - [Laughs]
What a concept.
- [Producer] Try not to lean against that metal.
- [Camera Operator] OK. - Do you like this hand wave, or not?
- [Trent Reznor] Two, one, two, two, two, two, two, two, one, two.
Check, one, two, two, two, two, two.
Hello! Two, one, two, two, two, two.
- [Interviewer] Do you guys have any special
game plan, or anything for the hot weather?
- I mean, the whole idea of playing outside for us
is a real foreign idea, because we're a definite
inside, controlled environment, dark kind of band,
and initially, when we were asked to do this,
our reservations were trying to translate to
a big venue, and be outside in the daylight, and
not have the things that we're accustomed to.
- I don't know. It's like opening up on the moon,
if you really want to ask me.
I mean, it's like —
we're 20 miles from anything that really could hear and stuff.
Kind of makes me feel like I'm at Woodstock
or something, the feel of this big field.
- [Audience member] Everybody feels joined, almost.
Like, we were in line, and
we were, like, 25 cents short for a drink,
and they were like,
"Hey! We're all one. Here, have a quarter."
So, it's just, everybody's a lot more friendly and stuff.
- And it's a lot of different bands.
It's not the same bands that you would see, you know, every day.
It's alternative bands, which is nice.
- [Interviewer] A lot of people are saying,
this is kind of the biggest tour of the summer, you know? I mean,
it's a lot of big-name bands. What do you guys —
- Could be.
Isn't that great, to be on the biggest tour of summer?
- What makes it different? I mean,
do you think — what's good about this?
- It's probably the variety of the acts,
and the way it's been presented,
I think, as sort of a gathering of the alternative tribe, if you will, or whatever.
The monsters of alternative rock.
- I think it's a pretty cool idea to have a bunch of
different styles of music go out,
and it's the kind of thing that, you know, even if
there was not one band that I wanted to see,
as a consumer, I would go see it, just 'cause it would be fun,
and there's rarely outdoor shows like this,
where you could potentially have a lot of fun.
It seems like a good idea.
- [Interviewer] Who'd you come to see tonight?
- [Audience member] I just came 'cause, you know,
everybody, you know —
wanted to see Rollins, the Butthole Surfers, Ice-T.
- [Interviewer] What's the best part about
this festival, so far, today?
- So far?
Just rocking out with all these different types of people,
you know?
Everybody, different types of people coming in,
sitting around, hearing different bands
they might not be exactly into, but just enjoying it, you know?
Everybody kickin'.
- I came to see Ice-T and
Jane's Addiction, mostly, you know?
Living Colour is pretty cool, but —
- [Interviewer] Getting your money's worth, so far?
- Yeah! Actually, I am.
Ice-T was pretty good, I liked him.
- [Interviewer] Who did you come out to see today?
- Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction.
- What do you like so much about them?
- What I like about 'em?
Their beat, the way they sound.
- It brings a bunch of different groups together,
like Ice-T, and all them together, and then —
- A lot of different cultures.
- Yeah, all different cultures.
- [Interviewer] Who's your favorite?
- Siouxsie [and the Banshees].
- No! Jane's Addiction.
- [Farrell] I want everybody to just, you know,
meet each other and know each other,
you know? Like a big body of musicians that all know each other.
Only good things can come of it.
You know, whenever in history artists have gotten together like that,
heavy things have come out of it.
So, it can't hurt.
- I think it's great they're putting all these bands together, you know?
We just heard a little bit of Nine Inch Nails’s soundcheck.
They sounded really good.
Ice-T's band, I haven't heard them,
but I heard that they're killing, too, you know?
So, I look forward to seeing Siouxsie and
the Banshees, everybody, Henry Rollins.
- [Interviewer] Have you met any of the other bands yet?
- I've met a few members of the other bands.
I met Ice-T, and I met Vernon Reid,
and they're really great people, really cool.
And so, I guess we can all become friends
by the end of the tour, should be great.
I think everyone on this tour is just gonna have a good attitude.
Everyone just wants to play.
So, there won't be any of that ego stuff, I don't think.
- I have no idea. It'll be interesting to see that,
see if, like, Henry [Rollins] and Siouxsie are,
like, great friends by the end of the tour,
or whatever, who knows?
- We just think it's great that
there's such a diverse collection of bands.
The audiences that will come to see one certain band will go to see —
will be seeing another type of band,
whether they like it or not.
- I'm real positive. You know, I'm —
I wanna see everybody really just
basically get together and have fun, you know?
So, it might seem one way,
but I'm, like, with this whole event.
I hope this starts a lot of other, you know,
combining of different musical format tours, you know?
- [Farrell] I would like to make —
work more with the Lollapalooza, work on it,
'cause it is a really cool thing that's evolving, here.
It's like multimedia, which is what I like anyhow.
So, I would like to keep working with music
because it's one media, but I would like to, you know,
bring the arts together, you know? Just put things together,
'cause, I mean, that's the modern predicament, anyway.
Everything is kind of becoming integrated,
human beings, you know?
- [Interviewer] I mean, do you think that after this tour is over,
that you possibly may put another tour like this together,
and tour with Jane's Addiction? I mean, is it —
- I wouldn't say it's with Jane's Addiction,
but I don't really wanna talk about that yet,
because it's not — this hasn't been done yet,
you know what I mean?
But I don't have plans for Jane's Addiction.
- [Kendall] Ready? OK. - [Camera Operator] Tape rolling.
- [Kendall] If tonight's opening date is anything to go by,
Lollapalooza could be the tour of the summer.
How about, "Back to you, Kurt [Loder]," anything like that?