All the Concerts Fit to Print

New Rock 102 One threw an alternative rock festival at the Marcus Amphitheater. Phil, Laura, and a bunch of people went down. The bands started at the Summerfest Briggs stage in the early afternoon, and in late afternoon, bands started in the amphitheater.

The Shepherd Express Stage
12:30 The Caulfields
1:30 Letters to Cleo
2:30 Sponge
3:45 The Ramones
5:00 The Flaming Lips

The Night Stage (the amphitheater)
4:00 Faith No More
5:15 Adam Ant
6:30 Bush
8:00 Collective Soul
9:15 Duran Duran
10:30 Violent Femmes

(Times per the program. These times seem strange. The first two bands get 45 minutes, and the rest get an hour? But that is a lot of bands.)

We didn't see The Caulfields. I'm pretty certain we saw everyone else but...

Sigh

The Ramones and Faith No More were on at pretty much the same time. Who would you see? No contest, right? Well... The Ramones would be pretty damn cool, but I also wanted to see Faith No More. And I knew that I probably would never see FNM again, since I would not want to pay money to see them. So I went inside to the Night Stage (didn't much care to see The Flaming Lips, either). I'd have many chances to see The Ramones again.

Later in 1995, The Ramones released ¡Adios Amigos!, and said that if it didn't do well, they'd disband. It didn't, and they did. 1996 Lollapalooza was their farewell tour. Joey Ramone was diagnosed with lymphoma in 1995, and died in 2001. Dee Dee died of a heroin overdose in 2002, and Johnny died of cancer in 2004.

Dammit. Even worse, I was not impressed with Faith No More. I still like their one radio-friendly hit, but the rest is noise.

Adam Ant was all right, as I recall. I don't recall Bush or Collective Soul. I'm sure they were fine.

Duran Duran, on the other hand... Laura was a huge fan of Duran Duran and eighties pop, but I wasn't. I used to hate the band. I had decided that after all these years, they couldn't really be that bad, and the show would be okay. I was wrong. They still sounded awful. Probably worse live than on record. One of my least favorite shows ever.

I don't remember anything about it, but I'm sure I loved The Femmes.