September 5, 1992  -  Lollapalooza  -  at the Fort Bend County Fairgrounds

EDIT: 2012/01/07 - LOOK~!   I found some video of the 1992 Lalapoloza~!  The footage includes Soundgarden playing Jesus Christ Pose (at 4:50), Ice Cube (at 31:00), Ministry playing New World Order (at 36:30), plus a lot of the side stage antics.

BINGO! I've been searching the internet from one end to the other, but never found much of anything about this show - until today.

PLEASE NOTE: All of the content posted below was taken directly from www.chronologicalsnobbery.com. When you are reading it - remember, I did not write it. Everything below was written by chronological.snobbery@gmail.com.

EDIT (January 24, 2010): I recently received an email from Mr. J.Ransom - owner of www.chronologicalsnobbery.com - asking me to include direct links to his site for each sectoion below. Of course, I am more than happy to give him credit - these are his pics, and his words. I'm just happy he allowed me to re-post them. THANK YOU!!

Direct link for below: http://www.chronologicalsnobbery.com/2007/09/1992-lollapalooza-pearl-jam.html

Photograph of Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, taken during the band's 50 minute set at Lollapalooza '92, on Saturday, September 5, 1992 at the Fort Bend County Fairgrounds in Rosenberg, Texas (just outside of Houston, Texas).

The first Lollapalooza skipped Houston for Dallas, but a year later, the mistake was rectified. In 1992, promoters estimated the Houston Lollapalooza crowd at 32,5000, while law enforcement guessed higher at 50,000 (only ten of whom were arrested). After the show, Marty Racine of the Houston Chronicle summed up Pearl Jam's set as follows:

Pearl Jam (4:05-4:55 p.m.) was this listener's favorite band of the day. Look for these guys to break out in 1993. Hailing from Seattle's celebrated alternative scene from the remnants of Green River and Mother Love Bone, this group went rocking without pretense -- a precious commodity on this day -- ending with a rollicking jam (joined by members of fellow Seattle band Soundgarden) of Neil Young's "Keep On Rockin' in the Free World."

It's difficult to imagine Eddie Vedder without at least some pretense. And break out in 1993 the band did, although in my memory, the band had already achieved a great level of success by September of 1992, at least for a new band. After all, Ten, its debut album, had been released over a year before in August of 1991 (although Wikipedia's entry on the album notes that it "took over a year to become a success."). I never understood why Pearl Jam was so closely associated with Nirvana and Soundgarden during the great grunge explosion of the early 1990s. Sure, Pearl Jam, like the other two bands, hailed from Seattle, but the musical similarities really end there. (To boot, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden did both tour as part of Lollapalooza '92.). However, Pearl Jam had more of a traditional and rootsier rock sound than the punk-influenced grunge of Kurt Cobain or Chris Cornell. That said, Ten was a marvelous record, and I listened to it ever so often in those days. I believe that I purchased the record shortly after hearing "Alive," but the slower, more melancholy "Black" became my favorite song from the album. Despite the fact that I've heard the songs so many times since then that they should be drained of any meaningful level of nostalgia, I still hearken back to the early 1990s whenever I happen to hear one of the album's tracks. Any excuse to hearken back to then is welcome.

Direct link for below: http://www.chronologicalsnobbery.com/2007/10/1992-lollapalooza-soundgarden.html

Photographs of Chris Cornell and Kim Thayil of Soundgarden, taken during the band's 55 minute set at Lollapalooza '92, on Saturday, September 5, 1992 at the Fort Bend County Fairgrounds in Rosenberg, Texas (just outside of Houston, Texas).

Back then, Soundgarden was a bigger draw than Pearl Jam and many of the other acts which appeared on the bill at Lollapalooza '92. They had been around longer, had released more albums, and had even produced a Spinal Tap cover sometime in the late 1980s. Heck, they had to have had at least some indie street cred to have appeared on the 1990 soundtrack to Christian Slater's Pump Up The Volume, right? After the show, Marty Racine of the Houston Chronicle summed up Soundgarden's set as follows:

Soundgarden (6:25-7:20 p.m.) is credited with establishing the buzzword "Seattle Scene," developed years after the city had produced such other national entities as Queensryche. It offers a bottom-heavy sonic attack that sludges through the muck of metallic riffing, turning every lick into high melodrama. Touring behind the new "Badmotorfinger," band members culled doses of "Louder Than Love" and perhaps their best disc, "Temple of the Dog," into their most persuasive set I've heard. They easily surpassed their tedious set at The Summit in January opening for Guns N' Roses.1

In 1992, Soundgarden was perhaps at its peak, artistically, although it still had commercial success two years in its future with the 1994 release of Superunknown, an album which spawned way too many radio friendly hits for a band with such roots. (If you were in Austin in the mid-1990s, you could not escape the KLBJ-FM television ad featuring "Spoonman."). The 1992 tour was in support of 1991's far better, far more original Badmotorfinger (which, if you were lucky, came accompanied by a second disc, the EP Satanoscillatemymetallicsonatas (or SOMMS). In the pre-Internet days, it was a coup to discover such a rarity existed, much less that it could be found at your local record store.

As Racine mentioned, before Lollapalooza '92, Soundgarden last played Houston in January of 1992 opening for Guns N' Roses at The Summit. (It seems as if the reference in his review is thrown in there only to alert the reader that yes, he did indeed attend the earlier show, and isn't he above it all of finding it tedious.). By coincidence, the very day before Lollapalooza '92, Guns N' Roses also returned to Houston with Metallica and Faith No More for a show at the Astrodome. Many Houstonians attended both that and Lollapalooza. (Soundgarden would play Houston's Astrohall arena in July of 1994 and not play "Outshined.").

I didn't bother to check to see if the Chronicle ran a correction, but "Temple of the Dog" was most definitely not a Soundgarden record. It was the self-titled and only album by a group featuring Cornell, Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, Mike McCready, Matt Cameron and Eddie Vedder. Of the six members, only Cornell and Cameron were of Soundgarden, the rest being with Pearl Jam. (How amusing it is to discover a fifteen year old error.).

I couldn't tell you without looking it up when exactly the band fell apart, but I know they did, and that their last work with which I was truly familiar came in 1994. I understand that Cornell later fronted Audioslave, but by that point, I couldn't have cared. And, yes, the photographs above were indeed taken by me, using my photo pass.

Direct link for below: http://www.chronologicalsnobbery.com/2007/09/1992-lollapalooza-photo-pass.html

Behold, a 1992 Lollapalooza Festival Photograph Pass, used on Saturday, September 5, 1992 at the Fort Bend County Fairgrounds in Rosenberg, Texas (just outside of Houston, Texas). Note the date stamps indicating usage, just above the band name abbreviations. Among the acts that played that day on the main stage were Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Soundgarden, Ministry, Ice Cube, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and Lush. Interestingly, just a day before, on Friday, September 4, 1992, Metallica and Guns N' Roses, with opening act Faith No More, played the Astrodome as a part of their stadium tour. What a weekend for concerts it was, fifteen years ago this month.

Direct link for below: http://www.chronologicalsnobbery.com/2007/10/1992-lollapalooza-red-hot-chili-peppers.html

Photographs of Anthony Keidis and Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, taken during the band's ninety minute set at Lollapalooza '92, on Saturday, September 5, 1992 at the Fort Bend County Fairgrounds in Rosenberg, Texas (just outside of Houston, Texas).

After the show, Marty Racine of the Houston Chronicle summed up the Peppers' set as follows:

Headliner the Red Hot Chili Peppers (10:30-midnight) are a Houston favorite, having appeared here in such diverse venues as Rockefeller's, the Unicorn and the Ensemble Warehouse.

Touring behind "Blood Sugar Sex Magik," the Peps have endured the death of their original guitarist, the sudden departure of "his" replacement, and doubts about their own sincerity (due, in part, to their tendency to perform in various stages of undress) to emerge as the dean of white funk rock groups.

The emergence, too, of rap has been good for the Peppers. The high strut has been accepted into the group's attitude and spat out alongside the hard beats. Now, few doubt the band's commitment to the trinity of funk and its place near or at the top of alternative -- safely secured until the sixth or seventh rock 'n' roll generation displaces it.1

What, if anything, does this review say about the show? I've been picking on Racine's reviews in my series of posts on Lollapalooza '92, but really, the three paragraphs above read as if he did not even attend the Peppers' set. No specific information is provided about the Peppers' performance that night; no songs are mentioned, no stage banter is recounted, and no characterization of their stage antics is offered. (He doesn't even mention the fact that at the show the Peppers donned helmets with flames shooting out of the top.). He refers to the death of Hillel Slovak and the departure of his replacement John Frusciante but identifies neither by name. Considering Racine's lax review of Ice Cube's performance, and the reference to the late hour of the Peppers' set, it may be that Racine simply left the concert early to avoid the inevitable traffic from Rosenburg back to Houston. If so, what kind of review is that?

In the early 1990s, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were at the height of popularity with their album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. One could not turn on MTV for half an hour without seeing the video for that album's "Under the Bridge" at least twice. (Time was, one could also raise eyebrows if one, upon discovering that CD in a jukebox, played "Sir Psycho Sexy."). After 1992, though, it was really all downhill for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There were, of course, hints of their downfall before then (including Flea's appearance in the dreadful Back to the Future sequels), but it was only after 1992 that the band fully committed to its downward slide. 1993 gave us the awful and soulless "Soul to Squeeze," a non-album single which they contributed, to of all the things, the soundtrack to the Coneheads film. Their 1995 album One Hot Minute was forgettable and paled in comparison to that which came before, and by the time the Californication album was released in 1999, one wondered if it was truly the same band. Though they've remained popular, but they've lost all relevance, which is a sad fate for any entertainer. But no one knew that was what the future held in store for the band as he headlined Lollapalooza '92 fifteen years ago.