Red Hot Chili Peppers to head new Lollapalooza Paris
The Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Weeknd and the Pixies will play the inaugural Paris edition of Lollapalooza as the longstanding US alternative culture festival expands. Lollapalooza will take place on July 22-23 at the Longchamp Racecourse in the west of the French capital, the Parisian government announced in November. Unveiling the lineup on Tuesday, promoter Live Nation said the headliners would include veteran Los Angeles alternative band Red Hot Chili Peppers, fellow US rockers Imagine Dragons and R&B sensation The Weeknd.
Other performers will include indie rock icons the Pixies, the sultry baroque singer Lana Del Rey and Liam Gallagher, the volatile former frontman of Oasis. Lollapalooza Paris will also have a share of French artists including DJ Snake, the producer who has won vast success on the US dance music scene. Other French acts include psychedelic rockers La Femme and IAM, one of the formative French hip-hop acts. Lollapalooza was launched in the early 1990s by Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell during the US boom of alternative music, with the festival conceived as a traveling festival that would explore nonmainstream music and culture.
After criticism that the festival was becoming increasingly commodified, Lollapalooza shut down but re-emerged as in 2005 as an annual event with a regular venue of Chicago. The festival has since expanded to Latin America, with versions in Argentina, Brazil and Chile, as well as Europe starting with a 2015 edition in Berlin. The Paris edition comes as the Western world sees a surge of music festivals, which increasingly are seen by artists as a vital source of revenue as traditional recording sales sag. — AFP