In one of only a handful of dates announced this year, Eminem will headline Lollapalooza 2011. Also taking the main stage at Chicago”s Grant Park for the Aug. 5-7 festival are Foo Fighters, Coldplay and Muse.
Among the secondary headliners are My Morning Jacket, Deadmau5, A Perfect Circle and Cee Lo Green. We guess no women were available as headliners?
Nearly 100 acts will appear over the three days, including The Cars, Bright Eyes, Arctic Monkeys, Big Audio Dynamite, Flogging Molly, Damian Marley and Nas, Sleigh Bells, Lykke Li, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, Fitz & The Tantrums and Deftones.
Another 30 or so acts will be part of Perry”s, the electronic and dance music stage named after Lollapalooza co-founder Perry Farrell.
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Eminem will also headline Bonaroo, which takes place two months earlier in Manchester, Tenn., as well as the inaugural Kanrocksas Music Festival in Kansas City, Mo., over the same weekend as Lollapalooza.
The news of Coldplay as a headliner means that we will likely see that fifth Coldplay album sooner rather than later, although no release date has been announced. The band, who are working with producers Brina Eno and Markus Dravs on the new set, is also headlining England”s Glastonbury Festival in June and Australia”s Splendour in the Grass festival in Australia in July. In fact, the band is filling their summer with headlining festival gigs, starting with Germany”s “Rock Am Ring Festival the first weekend in June.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the first Lollapalooza, which existed as a multi-artist traveling festival started founded by Farrell and William Morris Agency in 1991. They pulled the plug on the traveling version, which was on hiatus from 1997-2003, for good after the 2004 edition was canceled because of poor ticket sales. The next year, in 2005, they resurrected the festival as an one-city, three-day event in Chicago. The brand is so strong that the team, which now also includes C3 Presents, bowed Lollapalooza Chile in Santiago in April.
The last time a rapper headlined the Chicago festival was in 2008, when Kanye West took over the mainstage alongside such alternative music headliners as Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine and Nine Inch Nails.
Last year”s line up included Soundgarden, Green Day and Lady Gaga. In 2009, the headliners were Depeche Mode, Tool, the Killers, Jane”s Addiction and Kings of Leon.
Early bird tickets have already sold out. Three-day passes are available for $215. A limited number of single-day tickets will go on sale June 7. For more details and the complete line-up, go to www.lollapalooza.com
What do you think of this year’s line-up?