Nothing lasts forever, but this weekend’s Lollpalooza marks the 25th anniversary of the festival. However, Lolla co-founder and Jane’s Addiction singer Perry Farrell appears to be kind of over it, and is starting something new in 2018. Actually, he didn’t even intend on it lasting beyond it’s first year, in which Nine Inch Nails, Ice-T, the Rollins Band Siouxsie & the Banshees and Living Colour joined Jane’s for what was, at the time, their final tour. And it only initially lasted until 1997 before coming back in 2003, then moving from a touring festival to a stationary one in Chicago in 2005. But in an interview in the Chicago Tribune, Farrell sounds ready to move on. And don’t expect EDM to be part of his new venture:
“When they said they wanted to name a stage after me (when the festival relaunched in 2005), I was honored,” he says. “I like the adulation. But now you say, ‘Perry, what’s going on with your area here?’ Believe me, I’ve got questions myself. I hate EDM. I want to vomit it out of my nostrils. I can’t stand what it did to what I love, which is house music, which was meditative, psychedelic — it took you on a journey. … I sometimes cringe at my own festival.”
Farrell goes on to say that he knows the genre is popular, but his new venture, which should launch in 18 months, will include house music, but no EDM. Lollapalooza Co-founder Mark Geiger agrees that EDM has peaked, stating that the ambitious booking of Lollapalooza has diluted some of it’s acts. “When your’e dealing with 14 acts like the old days, it was easy to find ‘great,'” he says. “When you get past 100 bands, it’s hard to get greatness, really inspirational greatness.” That being said, Lollapalooza has expanded to four days this year, and all four days are sold-out, so it’s safe to say that Lolla is more popular than ever. And we’ll have another “music-centric” venture coming from Farrell, which he says will be “a completely new experience.” So pencil January or February of 2018 in on your calendars.
