ALIVE AND KICKING

In an exclusive book extract from Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock's Wildest Festival, we look at how down-the-bill sudden stars Pearl Jam's performances on the 1992 tour sparked crowd frenzies verging on riots.

- Richard Bienstock & Tom Beaujour

By the summer of 1992, Lollapalooza had evolved from a chaotic farewell tour for Jane’s Addiction into a cultural phenomenon reshaping the American music landscape. At the center of this transformation was Pearl Jam, a band booked as an opener but whose explosive popularity was about to change everything.

Initially secured by agent and Lollapalooza co-founder Don Muller despite Perry Farrell’s resistance, Pearl Jam was slotted second on the bill. But as their debut album Ten gained momentum and MTV put Jeremy in heavy rotation, the Seattle band found themselves in a surreal position – playing afternoon sets to increasingly frenzied crowds who would “rush the stage at four o'clock sharp” and sometimes literally tear down venue fences to see them.

At the heart of these performances was frontman Eddie Vedder, whose fearless stage presence defined their sets. As one organiser recalls, “Eddie was a monkey. He would climb anything and everything.” Fellow performers and crew members watched with a mix of terror and awe as Vedder scaled scaffolding high above the stage and crowds.

As Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil notes, this was Pearl Jam’s breakthrough “Black Hole Sun moment”, when a band transcends its origins and becomes part of the cultural lexicon.

Kevin Lyman (stage manager, Lollapalooza 1991-92): Lollapalooza, the name, caught on very quickly within the alternative music scene. And I think there were a lot of people who were like, “Oh, I missed out the first year, I gotta go this year.” Combine that with the fact that, by the time we hit the road in '92, the grunge movement was taking such a grip on the scene. So the shows were crazy. Every day, Pearl Jam would come on and basically the whole venue would blow up.