Chicago just finished staging its 18th Lollapalooza Festival. It showcased contemporary music that’s daring, diverse, and louder than tactical nuclear weapons explosions.
Four days of outdoor mosh pit attendance suggest the population of people with generous aesthetic standards and lots of time on their hands is high — wow, is it high. The 2023 Lollapalooza was so successful, final tallies might even break the record set in 2018 for Lollapalooza attendees arrested or hospitalized.
Most of us decreasingly boomy Boomers, of course, no longer share the injury-prone enthusiasms of mob concertgoers. We’re still recovering from the embarrassments of the second Woodstock, if not the first, back in an era when bands with names like the Velvet Underground and Canned Heat squawked from boom boxes.
Pop culture moves on, if not always forward, with the pop music of this century constantly seeking increased impact (as well as volume).
And music acts keep inventing names so exotic you might need special substances to appreciate them. How exotic? Well, sixteen of the 32 names below are real acts that performed at Lollapalooza 2023. Sixteen are names I made up. Can you pick the sixteen that are real? Pick more real names than anybody else and you’re eligible for two tickets to Lollapalooza 2024, as long as you buy them yourself.
(If you find this quiz so difficult that you have to resort to internet cheating, you’re probably old enough to remember Milli Vanilli . . . and kindred spirits like Bill Clinton.)
Authorized Vandals
Ax And The Hatchetmen
Svdden Death
Bada$$ Mutha
Beabadoobee
Dead Crows Sing Pretty
Sincere Engineer
Timmy Trumpet
Booty & Looty
Uncle Corpse
Chocolate Firecracker
Ekkstacy
Born on Mars
Casserole Sirprise
Peach Pit
Rhythm And Booze
Disco Lines
Richy Mitch & The Coal Miners
Toonz
Destroy Daman
Spacey Jane
Acid Reflex
Motherfolk
Thirty Seconds to Mars
Maggie Magpie
Bad Neighbors
Dehd
True Noise
Jeannie Genius
Dope Lemon
End World Peace
Hairitage
Can’t get enough of Booty & Looty myself.