What started in 1991 as a small farewell tour for Perry Farrell and Jane’s Addiction has since become one of the world’s foremost music festivals: Lollapalooza. And in a new Paramount+ docuseries titled Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza, the rock star and his peers are giving an oral history of how it all went down — as teased in the project’s new trailer, which Billboard is exclusively premiering.
From ’90s rockers to hip-hop stars, Lolla gathers many of the visionaries who were involved in some of the very first Lollapalooza tours. “It felt like a revolution,” Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails recalls in the trailer, speaking on the festival’s beginnings as an anti-establishment, for-the-people musical melting pot.
“We had all been underground bands, but that was changing,” adds Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Flea, while Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello tells the camera, “That was the Declaration of Independence of the alternative nation.”
As time went on, Lollapalooza kept innovating — and in doing so, its own popularity began to overshadow its underground roots. “When the car’s going real, real fast, it gets harder and harder to jump out,” Farrell remarks in the trailer. “We were a victim of our own success.”
Also featured in the project are Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, Ice-T and Chicago native Chance the Rapper, who muses in the new clip, “Lolla picks great people [to perform] when no one’s heard of them.”
Lolla is also sure to feature old and recent footage of Lollapalooza performances through the years, with clips of Green Day, Billie Eilish, Marshmello and dozens of more acts appearing in the trailer. Now a global phenomenon with annual offshoots in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, France, Sweden and India, Lollapalooza was the first festival to mix genres on its billing, expand to multiple days and introduce a second stage. This year, the event will be headlined in August by SZA, Tyler, the Creator, Blink-182, The Killers and more.
Directed by Michael John Warren, the three-part series drops exclusively on Paramount+ May 21. It first premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival in January.
Watch the trailer for Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza above.
