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Next weekend, Perry Farrell will once again take over Chicago’s massive Grant Park and welcome some of the biggest names in music, including Eminem, Coldplay, Muse, Foo Fighters and My Morning Jacket, to Lollapalooza.

The long-running festival celebrates its 20th anniversary this year (the very first Lolla, in 1991, traveled across the country and featured Jane’s Addiction, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Nine Inch Nails, Living Colour, Ice-T & Body Count, Butthole Surfers, Rollins Band, Violent Femmes and Fishbone), and in honor of all those epic sets and crazy tales, here are Farrell’s five favorite Lollapalooza memories.

Ice-T & Body Count (1991)
“On the first Lollapalooza, Ice-T used to come out during the Jane’s set and we would perform [Sly Stone's] ‘Don’t Call Me N—–, Whitey.’ It was always a real heavy experience. [To start] I would tell a ‘n—a’ joke to the audience and everybody would laugh, and as they’re laughing, out Ice-T would come from the shadow. He’d slip right behind me and he’d go ‘Don’t call me n—a, whitey!’ That’s how we’d get into it. Then we would end up doing a square dance together.”

Pearl Jam (1992)
“Pearl Jam played the second Lollapalooza. Eddie Vedder is just the consummate showman and gives you every last bit of sweat and blood and guts in his performances. I remember him jumping into the crowd off a speaker stack that was really high. I couldn’t actually believe he did it. The crowd carrying him away will stay in my memory as one of the moments when I knew that Lollapalooza was really an important component to modern music.” READ FULL STORY »