Remembering Lollapalooza 1995 With These 4 Headlining Bands

For those of a certain age, Lollapalooza 1995 may have been the festival’s last great year. What began in 1991 as a farewell tour for Jane’s Addiction transformed into the zeitgeist-influencing traveling circus of alternative music and underground culture. The tour ran until 1997 and was later revived in 2003. Two years later, Perry Farrell parked the yearly gathering in Chicago, and though it’s still a big deal, Lollapalooza is now just one of what seems like an unending list of music festivals.

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But 1995 marked Lollapalooza’s last year where indie and underground bands were the headliners. Grunge had already peaked, and alternative rock would soon begin its steady decline as post-grunge and nu-metal surged. Metallica headlined in 1996, and electronic acts dominated 1997 before the festival was paused. So here’s a look at four headlining bands from Lollapalooza 1995 as alternative music reached its zenith.

Sonic Youth

In the documentary 1991: The Year Punk Broke, Sonic Youth takes Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr., Babes In Toyland, and others on a short European tour. This is just before Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” becomes a culture-changing hit. Although Sonic Youth never had hits of their own, the film demonstrates just how influential and groundbreaking the New York band was. Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo, and Steve Shelley helped make noisy alternative rock and punk mainstream. And their headlining set at Lollapalooza 1995 was a crowning achievement for the iconic band.

Hole

Courtney Love also appears in the above documentary, and there’s a scene where Thurston Moore is giving an interview, and you see Love in the background, making her presence known. Hole’s 1991 Live Through This features the hits “Violet” and “Doll Parts”, which launched the band onto the main stage at Lollapalooza. Love did her own launching, stage diving, and allegedly punching Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna in the face.

Cypress Hill

Cypress Hill had some of the biggest hits of any headliner at Lollapalooza 1995. “Insane In The Brain” and “Hits From The Bong” were ubiquitous on alt-rock radio. Speaking of “hits,” the West Coast hip-hop group has been advocating for legalized cannabis for decades, and no one on this tour ever had to guess where that smoke was coming from. “Inhale, exhale / Just got a ounce in the mail.”

Pavement

Like Sonic Youth, seeing Pavement at Lollapalooza put the beloved indie band in a much larger spotlight. Stephen Malkmus caused some controversy in the 90s when he mocked The Smashing Pumpkins and Stone Temple Pilots in “Range Life”. Billy Corgan was so angry that he’s rumored to have blocked Pavement from taking part in Lollapalooza 1994 when the Pumpkins headlined. But the hard feelings didn’t last; Corgan invited Pavement for a Smashing Pumpkins reunion tour in 2018.

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