Edition: U.S. / Global

Lollapalooza Love Story

Published: July 11, 1993

Amy Stewart spent a full June week fretfully rehearsing how to tell her parents that she'd changed her plans for the summer. No, the 18-year-old repeated into the mirror, she wouldn't be taking college art classes and working at McDonald's. Instead, she went on, she'd shortly be going on the road with Lollapalooza, rock-and-roll's summer circus.

Amy was worried. How would she ever convince her folks that Lollapalooza wasn't a traveling bacchanal but simply the way-hip annual convention of her generation?

She was counting on the fact that her parents knew and approved of Chad Johnston, 22, her boyfriend of six months, who would accompany her on the trip. Chad had endeared himself to Mr. Stewart in particular by helping him work on his cars. Amy's past boyfriends didn't do that.

"Just tell them," Chad said. "They'll trust us."

"Lollapalooza?" said Evelyn Stewart, Amy's mother, when her daughter finally told her of the revised summer plans. It was the night before the tour started.

"It's like Woodstock, only the music's better," Amy said. "We'll be working." Chad and Amy planned to run one of the vendor booths that travel with the two-month outdoor festival.

Mrs. Stewart was not reassured, and she called in her husband, Stan, a machine operator in the oilfields of central California. Where would the kids sleep? What would they eat? Would Amy be back to start her sophomore year at California State College at Bakersfield?

"Of course," Amy said. "But there are things you can't learn in books. I want to go on the road and see America." She'd read Jack Kerouac the previous semester.

Debate ensued, and finally, grudging approval. Amy could travel with Lollapalooza. While Mrs. Stewart prepared packages of canned fruit and sandwiches, Mr. Stewart addressed Chad. "Keep an eye on Amy," he said, "and keep an eye on yourself. Call from the road. Eat. If your van breaks down, don't buy car parts from a gas station."

That night, after her parents went to bed, Amy quietly put on a tape of "Pork Soda" by Primus, the young couple's favorite band, and danced with joy around her bedroom. George, Wash.

It took Chad and Amy 24 horrific hours of nonstop driving to get from Bakersfield to the first of Lollapalooza's 34 United States stops (after a warm-up show in Vancouver, British Columbia, the day before). "Mostly," Amy said, "we sat by the side of the road waiting for jump starts. We finally had to get a new battery. My dad would be burned if he knew we bought it at a Chevron." There was a little petty bickering that first night, but the couple were buoyed late that morning when they pulled into the Gorge, a capacious rural field 150 miles east of Seattle. Soon the Gorge would begin to fill, eventually drawing 25,000 screaming fans of alternative music to the 11-hour concert.

The late Max Yasgur -- the farmer who spent a weekend in 1969 watching his upstate New York acreage turned into the quagmire created by Woodstock -- would have been impressed by Lollapalooza's organization. Here, there would be plenty of toilets, security guards and licensed vendors. Order would also reign onstage, where bands would hustle on and off with a punctuality not seen since the tightly choreographed 1960's Motown cross-country revues.

Though Lollapalooza, in its third year, is run with 90's-style efficiency, the atmosphere among the gathered was often redolent of another generation. "It feels like our 60's, the one day when it's cool for kids to do whatever they want," Amy said as she scurried around Chad in their booth, accompanied by the sonic blasts being played several hundred yards away onstage by Fishbone. "It's when even if people don't dig what you're doing, they'll still say hi."

Despite 90-degree heat and a wind that turned the Gorge into a choking dust bowl, business was booming. Chad and Amy sold handmade bracelets and earrings for $2 to $5. But their real money would come from doing hair wraps, those vaguely Rastafarian braids woven with technicolor threads. A wrap could take half an hour to do, for which they'd charge from $10 to $20, depending on the hair's length.

Like many of their customers, Amy and Chad were coiffed, dressed and pierced in the anarchic fashion of Generation X. But despite his shaved head and the ring coming out of his eyebrow, and her braids in psychedelic colors and the four holes in her left ear, the two definitely weren't slackers. They'd be putting in 18-hour days in the booth.

On this first morning, they'd already done 10 wraps and had reservations for the entire afternoon. "We're making money!" Chad whispered. "It's working!"

The couple finally took a short break as Arrested Development came onstage. Chad opened one of Mrs. Stewart's CARE packages, while Amy set out on the midway.

Chad said he had never had a crush like this before on a woman who shared his dreams, his vision and his belief that Primus was the greatest band on the planet. Even though Primus was on the Lollapalooza tour, if Amy had decided to stay home, Chad would have spent the summer in Bakersfield, delivering cars for Autoland.