Lollapalooza’s Success Doesn’t Trickle Enough

Spend a while chatting with a Red Hot Chili Pepper about life on the Lollapalooza ’92 tour, and you get the penthouse view: The vista could hardly be more panoramic or the accommodations more satisfactory.

Then pay a conversational visit to one of the principals in the Jesus and Mary Chain, and you find that even this eight-week, sold-out, alternative-rock juggernaut--the hottest concert ticket of the summer--has, figuratively speaking, cold, bare basement lodgings.

Flea, the antic but articulate bassist of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, is in the penthouse these days. His band is headlining the seven-act Lollapalooza bill; the tour exposure has helped vault its album, “Blood Sugar Sex Magik,” into the Top 10, and, in the one area that looked a little iffy, Flea said the Chili Peppers’ new guitar player, Arik Marshall, has worked out fine on this, his first tour with the band.

From a personal standpoint, Flea (nee Michael Balzary) said, Lollapalooza has regenerated his formerly flagging enthusiasm for live performance. And, as a player who loves to jam in new settings, Flea finds a kennelful of appealing possibilities in the on-stage and back-stage opportunities for cross-band collaboration.

“I’d say it was probably the most fun tour I’ve ever been on,” the bassist said on the phone last week in New Orleans, speaking already in the past tense about a tour that ends with a three-day stand starting Friday, Sept. 11, at Irvine Meadows (in addition to the Chili Peppers and the Jesus and Mary Chain, Lollapalooza features Lush, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Ice Cube and Ministry).

“It’s a community moving from town to town. There’s a lot of people to hang out with, and everybody gets along with everybody. If you had asked me about touring three months ago, I’d say I hated it and was sick of it and never wanted to do it again.

“Now, you see these people every day, make new friends and develop relationships. It’s definitely a communal type feeling. I get there sometimes six hours before we play, which is extremely unlike me.”

However, it’s hard even for friendly communities to live in perfect comity. Flea admits that there have been a couple of small altercations behind the scenes at Lollapalooza.

“A member of one band punched a member of another band in the face. That’s all I’m saying,” he said.

There also were some ruffled feelings over the unsanitary disposal of a quantity of Flea phlegm during a magazine photo shoot in New Jersey involving all the Lollapalooza guitar and bass players.

“It was a case of me spitting a loogie and someone from another band telling me I’m disgusting,” Flea said. “I had a lot of phlegm because I’ve had a throat infection. (One of the Jesus and Mary Chain sidemen who accompany bandleaders Jim and William Reid) said, ‘It’s really disgusting; you don’t do that in public.’ I went up and stuck my finger in his face” in a universally recognized gesture of ultimate contempt.

“Then I felt bad about it--it’s a bad vibe; it’s not a nice thing to do.” Flea said the incident was smoothed over, with apologies on both sides.

“I’m sure if there’s a traveling circus, once in a while they punch each other--the clown punches the juggler or whatever,” the bassist said. “But dude, it’s cool--those are the only incidents. On the whole, I’ve had more peace of mind and been more relaxed than on any other tour. I think this is a great gig, and I’m proud of what we’ve done.”

While Flea buzzes with enthusiasm, one can imagine the post cards that William Reid, guitarist of the Jesus and Mary Chain, might be scribbling for the folks back home in Great Britain: “Having an awful time; wish people would stop having lunch while we try to play. Also have discovered how Dracula must feel after sun-up.”

“It becomes pretty oppressive going on at 3 or 4, and the sun is in your eyes,” Reid said from New Orleans on a day off from Lollapaloozing. “Some places have been great, but some of the shows have been awful, where people haven’t even looked at the band, or are walking about buying hot dogs or pop corn” while it plays, he said.

“Also, it’s not really our audience. I think because Pearl Jam and the Chili Peppers have sold 5 million records between them, 90% of the people come to see them. Playing to 10 empty rows at the front--that can be very off-putting, very discouraging.”

The band knew going in that it would be playing in daylight, which might not be the best setting for an act whose interesting duality--an introverted personality, combined with songs that reach for vitality and exuberance--might not come across on a big, sunlit stage.

“Getting a lot of media exposure, and the chance to play to an incredible amount of people in North America” were inducements enough for the band to warily try its luck in the sunshine, Reid said. “We’ve been a cult band for too long, and nobody wants to be a cult band. What it means is lack of sales. All my favorite bands were mainstream bands--the Beatles, the Stones and Sly and the Family Stone.”

Taking on Lollapalooza “was a challenge, a huge challenge, something you may feel uncomfortable with, but you have to take something on.”

Taking the challenge doesn’t seem to have paid off, Reid said. “I doubt this will propel us further.”

The Jesus and Mary Chain is the one band on the tour that hasn’t interacted musically with any of its counterparts, Reid acknowledged. “As people, we’re probably fairly awkward and maybe a bit . . . not aloof, but I don’t think we’re as sociable as we’d like to be. I’m not a jammer.”

Reid said the tour’s extracurricular highlight for his band has been a private, command performance in its dressing room by the Amazing Mr. Lifto, one of the circus side-show attractions that has been traveling with the Lollapalooza (see accompanying story).

Customarily, Reid said, the Jesus and Mary Chain members don’t speak at all to their concert audiences. On this tour, though, his brother Jim, the band’s singer, has occasionally had a few things to tell the audience, none of them meant to ingratiate.

“Usually, what he says tends to be insults,” the guitarist said with a laugh. “ ‘Stop eating those hot dogs, you stupid, moronic bonker.’

“What I’ve learned from watching the other bands is that they do put on a performance more than us. They communicate and whatever barriers there are, they break down. In an eight-year career, we haven’t communicated to the audience in any way but playing our music. We thought that was enough. Sometimes I think we put up a barrier between us and the audience. Even when Jim insults people--’You (expletive) American creeps’ or whatever--people like it, people cheer. They seem to like some kind of communication, even if it’s an insult. If we’ve learned anything, it may be that. I don’t think we could do it in the way the other bands do it. We’d have to figure out some other way. Maybe a bit of communication with our audience wouldn’t be bad, to be honest.”

Setting aside his own band’s problems, Reid said, the Lollapalooza tour should be considered a success and a hopeful indicator that the mainstream rock audience is embracing better music.

“Just because we get pissed off, that’s just us. Just about everything is going right, and I don’t think there is anybody (in the audience) walking away from it disappointed.”

“I think mainstream rock in America has been pretty disgusting for a long time,” Reid continued, on a more optimistic note. “If I had a choice of seeing Van Halen in the charts or Soundgarden, I’d choose Soundgarden any time. I think if Nirvana and Soundgarden and Pearl Jam are the norm in rock music, instead of it being Def Leppard, Van Halen and Motley Crue, it’s going to be better, a less dumb attitude.

“Maybe it’ll be a better musical world in America and maybe more of a chance for us to sneak through and Sonic Youth and Stone Roses and Happy Mondays--a lot of bands that are big on college stations and alternative charts and can’t get through to the mainstream.

“Wouldn’t it be great if Casey Kasem were introducing (mimics the bright-voiced, radio hit-parade announcer), ‘Sonic Youth, on the Billboard chart at No. 8.’ It’s got to be better than the regime that’s lasted so long.”

Flea agrees that Lollapalooza’s success certifies the mainstreaming of music that was once viewed as out on the fringe.

“Obviously, media hype brings in all kinds of people, and any time this many people come, you’re reaching a conservative element of society--it’s beyond people who think for themselves and who come because they love to see music. Once those people are there, we do our hardest. The only idea is to try to get a band to make the magic happen. We were doing the same when we were playing in clubs for 50 people.”

As alternative rock grows more popular--the Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden all currently have gold or platinum albums--a bill such as Lollapalooza can even come to seem too conservative.

If the event, in its second year, returns, Flea said, “I would say they should mix it up more culturally and musically. Between us and Pearl Jam and Soundgarden and Ministry, that’s four male white rock bands.”

(In fact, Jesus and Mary Chain makes a fifth, with Lush’s two female singer-guitarists the only exception to the boys-club nature of the tour, and black rapper Ice Cube the only non-rock, non-white entry.)

“I think it would be cool if it was not that much of a white male rock thing. But perhaps it wouldn’t do as well commercially if it was mixed up more,” Flea said.

“I would say that if they’re going to bill Lollapalooza as an alternative festival, they’d better well get some alternative bands on the list,” Ministry’s drummer, William Rieflin, said in a separate interview. “Get some bands who aren’t on major labels and could do with a big, heaping spoonful of exposure.”

Even if Lollapalooza isn’t truly alternative as advertised, it at least represents the advancement of some healthy ideals. Instead of calling it “alternative” music, maybe it’s time to find some other label that includes rockers who graduate to the mainstream but carry with them some serious aspirations and a disdain for safe content and soothingly familiar formulas.

“These are people who have something on their mind other than, ‘Let’s get a lot of people together and rock for an evening,’ ” Rieflin said, trying to cite what’s common to all the Lollapaloozans. “They care about what’s going on in the world, and they occasionally say something about it. Their music is intense, without overtly commercial intentions, although certainly we’re all commercial groups, and we all have to make money doing this. A way of describing it is a level of sincerity in the people that you might not find somewhere else.”

2 Stages Are Better Than 1

Lollapalooza ’92 features two stages for musical acts: the main stage where the Red Hot Chili Peppers and other headliners play, and a second stage located on the green, which--along with the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow--features additional alternative bands.

The schedule of acts on the main stage is the same for each of the three concert days. Performance times for second stage acts will be posted on the days of the shows.

MAIN STAGE

Noon: Doors open.

2 p.m.: Lush.

3 p.m.: Pearl Jam.

4 p.m.: Jesus and Mary Chain.

5 p.m.: Soundgarden.

6:15 p.m.: Ice Cube.

7:30 p.m.: Ministry.

9:15 p.m.: Red Hot Chili Peppers

SECOND STAGE

Friday, Sept. 11: Rage Against the Machine and Cafe Tacuba.

Saturday, Sept. 12: Stone Temple Pilots, Pigmy Love Circus, Failure and Rage Against the Machine.

Sunday, Sept. 13: Samba Hell, Cypress Hill and Boo Yaa Tribe.

What: Lollapalooza ‘92, with The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ministry, Ice Cube, Soundgarden, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Pearl Jam and Lush.

When: Friday, Sept. 11, through Sunday, Sept. 13, at 2 p.m.

Where: The Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, 8800 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine.

Whereabouts: San Diego (405) Freeway to Irvine Center Drive exit. Turn left at the end of the ramp if you’re coming from the south, right if you’re coming from the north.

Wherewithal: $30.75 and $25.75. All three shows are sold out.

Where to call: (714) 740-2000.