Foo Fighters and Journey will headline Lollapalooza 2021. The long-running Chicago festival is back this year at Chicago's Grant Park and will run from July 29th to August 1st. Also appearing are Miley Cyrus, Limp Bizkit, Post Malone, Tyler, The Creator, Modest Mouse, All Time Low, and Young The Giant, among many others.
Tickets are now on sale, with four-day general admission passes are initially going for $350, but will increase in price as the festival date nears. For complete info, log on to: https://www.lollapalooza.com/
Ultimate Classic Rock posted the health stipulation for concert-goers: “In accordance with current local public health guidance, full Covid-19 vaccination or negative Covid 19 test results will be required to attend Lollapalooza 2021. For patrons who are not fully vaccinated, a negative Covid 19 test result must be obtained within 24 hours of attending Lollapalooza each day. Details on the festival entry process will be available in early July. Lollapalooza is excited to partner with the City of Chicago to encourage vaccinations in Chicago in the weeks prior to the festival.”
Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins confided to us a while back that even though he's spent years on the road, he still gets nervous before going on stage: “The drummer's got the hardest job, man. If the drummer falls apart at any given moment, you're done. The band, it's over. It sounds awful, you have to start again. So I mean, I feel a lot more pressure behind the drums even though that's all I've been doing my whole life is play drums. I still have massive stage fright every night.”
Journey's appearance at the festival comes as a bit of a shock, seeing as how the alterative bent of Lollapalooza always ran on a far different track than those featuring classic rock icons. The band will be premiering its new lineup, featuring co-founder Neal Schon, longtime keyboardist Jonathan Cain, frontman Arnel Pineda — and rounded out by returning bassist Randy Jackson, and drummer Narada Michael Walden.
We recently caught up with keyboardist Jonathan Cain, and he walked us through how one of his and Steve Perry's greatest team-ups — the lead single and opening track to 1983's Frontiers album — “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)” — came into being: “We took Escape on the road and we knew we needed more teeth. We knew we needed something like 'Separate Ways,' y'know? Like, what would make our set undeniably great? And we tried to fill in what we were missing musically. I think we all sensed it. And I remember writing 'Separate Ways' with Steve (Perry) on the road. We wrote that in a hotel room — (bassist) Ross (Valory) was going through a divorce and boom — out comes 'Separate Ways,' and we're playin' it at the end of the Escape tour. Y'know, 'cause we needed it in the set. Now, we start fine tuning ourselves, y'know? And that's how in tune we were with our music. It was all of us, man.”
