Lollapalooza in Chile, a Different Chi-Town
By JON PARELES
SANTIAGO, Chile — A franchise expands to an unlikely spot this weekend as Lollapalooza, the giant rock festival that has become an annual event in Chicago, opens a new front here in the capital of Chile.
In Chicago, Lollapalooza books more than 100 bands for three days in August. Here, more than 50 acts are scheduled to perform on Saturday and Sunday in O’Higgins Park, the second-largest park in Chile, taking advantage of its existing performance spaces (including a disco with room for 15,000 people) as well as a giant outdoor stage. Like Lollapalooza in Chicago, the event is located within the city, easy reachable by public transportation and bicycle. Two-day general admission tickets are about $160.
The headliners are American, among them Kanye West, the Killers, the Deftones and Jane’s Addiction, led by Lollapalooza’s founder, Perry Farrell.
But the early portion of each day’s bill, out of necessity or local pride, features Chilean and other Spanish-speaking bands, among them Bomba Estereo from Colombia, the Spanish rapper La Mala Rodriguez, the rapper and singer Ana Tijoux (born to Chilean expatriates in France) and the singer and songwriter Javiera Mena from Chile. The local radio station Radio Uno (97.1 FM), which plays Chilean pop, also claimed Mr. West in a way, promoting Lollapalooza Chile with a snippet from his “Homecoming”: “I’m talking about Chi-Town.” Chi as in Chile, perhaps.
In an interview, Mr. Farrell said he does not expect the first Lollapalooza Chile to be profitable, or necessarily to break even. The park, about one-fourth the size of New York’s Central Park, can hold more than 100,000 people, he said; he is expecting about 40,000 each day. This is the proof-of-concept Lollapalooza Chile, said Mr. Farrell, who is determined to make it an annual event. He said that some performers were paid a premium to appear at a festival far off their usual tour itineraries. (His own Jane’s Addiction performed in Argentina on the way to Lollapalooza Chile.)
This year is the 20th anniversary of the first Lollapalooza, a very different touring festival that was a startling confluence of punk, hip-hop, new wave, electronica and (then as now) Jane’s Addiction. After long gaps, Lollapalooza returned as the Chicago festival in 2005, and Mr. Farrell said he had wanted to expand somewhere.
“We could have gone into Europe and the U.K. and tried to bust out another festival,” he said, “but they’ve got a thousand festivals over there.” He met the Chilean producers of Lollapalooza Chile, Lotus Producciones, and its leaders reminded him, he said, of the young promoters of the original Lollapalooza.
“They were available and they were desirous, and we were available and we were desirous,” he said before quoting “Jane Says,” an early Jane’s Addiction song: “I only want ’em if they want me.”
