On July 28, Grant Park welcomed thousands to the highly anticipated Lollapalooza music festival. The event, bustling with fans, contained hydrating stations, rows of food stands, and music blasting in all directions. 

Lollapalooza started as a touring event in 1991 and had some complications along the way, but it eventually made Chicago the permanent location for the annual music festival several years later. It takes place over four days in the middle of summer, and a myriad of music genres are represented, like pop, techno, house, hip-hop, rock, and alternative. Scarlett Pencak ’21 started going to Lollapalooza in second grade.

 “My mom worked in the music business and wanted to expose me to live music from a young age,” Pencak said. “When I was younger we would go to the family/kid section during the day and stay in the back for the headliners.” 

Once she reached high school, Pencak continued to go to Lollapalooza with the exception of the year it was canceled due to COVID-19. In relation to the Parker community at the huge festival, she finds it “both comforting and fun” when she runs into alumni or current students. 

“I have also run into Parker parents many times,” Pencak said. “Seeing members of the Parker community at the festival provides me with a reassuring feeling.” 

Pencak attends Southern Methodist University and went to Lollapalooza with three of her college friends this year. When friends reconnect at Lollapalooza post-Parker, there is often worry of change in the dynamic. After high school, students will grow at college with new friends, and there will also be memories with high school friends that would mix with new college friends. Pencak enjoyed spending time with both friend groups at Lollapalooza.  

“I really enjoyed seeing my best friends from Parker connect with my best friends from school,” Pencak said. “Each of my friends from Parker had at least one of their college friends staying with them for Lollapalooza, and some had up to six.”

“It was really fun to be able to put a face to the name of my friends’ friends,” Pencak said. “Because all of my high school friends and I go to different colleges, are in different sororities, etc., our friends from college are different from each other in many ways. However, because we were friends from high school and still stayed close, our friends from college also have many similarities. All in all, it was a really great experience bringing everyone from different sectors of our lives together.”

Aiden Hargis ’14, is not sure that Lollapalooza is the best venue for all bands. In college Hargis majored in  “Contemporary Urban Pop”, focusing on instrument studies. He explained that this degree was a “jack of all trades” and had a “bit of everything” regarding music. This knowledge of songwriting, music theory, and working on computerized instruments, later helped him when founding his second band “Conway”. 

During the depths of the pandemic, Conway’s YouTube channel released a few videos. One featured  Hargis talking about the history of Lollapalooza. The video explains the founding of Lollapalooza. It started as but was not limited to an alternative traveling concert around the US by Perry Farrel and others. Between 1991-1997 it remained this way and around 2003 it became an annual standing Chicago festival. Hargis has never been to Lolla. He said he could “never justify the price for only seeing a few artists, along with all the walking around and chaos that may take away from the performances.”  

When asked if Conway would ever perform at Lollapalooza, Hargis said, “I would much rather be at a place where I can build a relationship with fans, give them my appreciation for coming and seeing my music, or stumbling across it, and becoming a fan just kind of by accident.” 

Andrew Rosenstein’99 is a former member of “JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound.” The band performed at Lollapalooza in 2012. He is currently a producer at a design and production company called Swarovski. His involvement with music started at an early age in the Parker community. 

“Parker was amazing for me as a young musician who didn’t really know what he wanted to do but knew that he loved music,” Rosenstein said. 

Rosenstein engaged in various musical activities at Parker including jazz band and Grape Jam. Lollapalooza takes place in Chicago, and he confirmed that the festival ensured local bands were being heard. After playing some big venues on their own and opening up for other artists, Rosenstein’s band played at Lollapalooza.

 Rosenstein attended Lolla the year before he performed and noticed a difference between being in the crowd and looking out into it.  

“When you play Lollapalooza, as a Chicago band, there’s always a hometown band that gets to [perform],” Rosenstein said. “We ended up getting the Chicago band slot.”

Rosenstein described his 150-person crowd at Lollapalooza as “a little underwhelming,” but “fine.”

Rosenstein claimed performing at Lollapalooza is something that looks good on paper for bands, but the better performances are the ones where you connect with your fans.