Jim DeRogatis

Lollapalooza promoters C3 Presents have announced the addition of Iron & Wine, Toadies, Saul Williams, DeVotchKa, Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears and Wild Sweet Orange to this year's concert in Grant Park, Aug. 1-3. And, in using the same press blast to hawk a "design a festival T-shirt contest," they've announced that the concert has a theme:

"Something large and wonderful."

This, of course, is opposed to something puny and pathetic. Or big and bad. Or maybe massive and miserable?

Also announced today: The Rock the Bells tour featuring A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, Mos Def, the Pharcyde, De La Soul, Rakim, Method Man & Redman and, among others, Chicago up-and-comers Kid Sister and the Cool Kids, but the latter two acts will not be performing when the rest of the tour pulls into the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre in Tinley Park on July 19. Since they're playing at Lollapalooza, the radius clause prohibits them from doing another gig in the area for most of the summer.

Posted by Jim DeRogatis at 03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Today’s announcement of the lineup for the Austin City Limits Music Festival on Sept. 26-28 – organized by C3 Presents, the same Texas promoters behind Lollapalooza in Grant Park – offers new fodder to consider a question that many in the concert industry have been posing of late: Is there a festival glut?

The new model of a multi-day “destination festival” packed with more than 100 bands and presumably offering “something for everybody at a bargain price” has increasingly come to dominate the summer months in many markets.

But it’s resulting in a homogeneity of many of the lineups, which are starting to look all too similar – and less special or distinct.

Continue reading "ACL Announced -- and pondering festival glut" »

Posted by Jim DeRogatis at 11:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

As it turns out, the much-hailed (and hyped) British art-rock giants are starting their summer tour, their first U.S. visit in three years, at Lollapalooza in Grant Park on Aug. 1 (thereby kicking off the festival -- and leaving open the question of who will close it on Aug. 3. Nine Inch Nails? Kanye West?).

The rest of Radiohead's summer tour dates follow the jump. Meanwhile, Time Out Chicago's blog makes some interesting points about local bands (and the lack thereof) at Lollapalooza, now that promoters C3 Presents are becoming an increasingly active part of the concert business hereabouts.

Continue reading "So you wanna see Radiohead somewhere else..." »

Posted by Jim DeRogatis at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Though he has always positioned himself as a futurist, Perry Farrell, founder and designated figurehead for the reinvented Lollapalooza in Grant Park, really hasn't grokked how this much-ballyhooed Inter-Web thang has rendered irrelevant anyone's attempts to carefully manage and market the news -- not that those ever made much difference to reporters of any era who came by a scoop fair and square.

Upset by the story about the headliners and other bands on this blog and in the Sun-Times Thursday night and Friday morning, Farrell lashed out in an interview with Vh1.com and branded this reporter "a stinker... a skunk... Pepe LePew."

All I have to say about that is: 1.) If you're feeling chatty, Perry, I'm still waiting for your response to my open letter last year suggesting ways Lollapalooza could improve its relations with the Chicago music scene and make its ubiquitous corporate sponsorships slightly less obnoxious, and 2.) Wasn't Pepe the one who always got the girls? What the heck is wrong with that?

The full lineup of bands for Lollapalooza 2008 follows the jump. So let the commentary continue: How good a job did promoters C3 Present do in year four? I am eager to hear your thoughts.

Continue reading "Perry, Pepe and the full Lollapalooza lineup for 2008" »

Posted by Jim DeRogatis at 05:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (24) | TrackBacks (2)

Lollapalooza’s Austin, Texas-based promoters C3 Presents are not scheduled to make their official announcement of the acts performing at this year’s weekend-long music festival in Grant Park until Monday, but the Sun-Times has confirmed through industry sources all of the major artists.

Continue reading "Lollapalooza 2008 headliners confirmed" »

Posted by Jim DeRogatis at 08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (47) | TrackBacks (4)

Yeah, there's still snow on the ground. But the regular-price Lollapalooza tickets go onsale at 10 a.m. Tuesday via the concert's Web site, and prior to the full lineup being announced on April 7.

Rumored headliners include Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, Wilco and one other act said to be of the same caliber — though, as always, Texas promoters C3 Presents refuse to confirm or deny that list or any other act before their official announcement. (One thing's for sure: This rumor is probably unfounded. We hope.)

For now, three-day passes will be available at the "early-bird" price of $175 per ticket. The concert takes place in Grant Park on Aug. 1-3.

Posted by Jim DeRogatis at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The other reason I arrived early to this year's South by Southwest festival was the opportunity to interview the “three Charlies” who run Austin-based C3 Presents — Charlie Jones, Charles Attal and Charlie Walker — the men behind Lollapalooza, and the trio who just secured an exclusive deal to book the Congress Theatre, in addition to bringing more music and other entertainment events to Soldier Field. Their home office overlooks Town Lake here, and the conference room where we met includes a beer keg and a giant fish tank stocked with piranhas — which may or may not be a metaphor for the company’s voracious appetite.

Continue reading "Rage and Wilco to play at Lolla, too?" »

Posted by Thomas Conner at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (4)