The bill for 1994's Lollapalooza festival was stacked with the cream of the 'alternative' music scene, from headliners Smashing Pumpkins, Beastie Boys, L7, A Tribe Called Quest and fast-rising Berkeley, California punks Green Day on the main stage, to the likes of The Verve, The Flaming Lips, Girls Against Boys and Luscious Jackson on the event's side stages. Not everyone on the Perry Farrell-curated roadshow that summer looks back upon the experience with joy, and when we say 'not everyone' we specifically mean Australia's own duke of darkness Nick Cave, who joined the caravan with The Bad Seeds.
Talking to MOJO in 2005, Cave recalled, “When we did the Lollapalooza tour in America — 53 dates, I remember — grunge was happening, not one person there in long trousers, and they went for lunch while we played, then came back when we stopped (Laughs). I found it extremely difficult, but, contractually, we couldn't pull out. It was years before we went back to America.”
It may not have helped matters that Cave was regarded as something of a curiosity by his fellow performers. While the American musicians on the tour found lots to bond over, Cave wasn't really up for faking camaraderie and bonhomie with his peers, as was painfully evident when Smashing Pumpkins mainman Billy Corgan attempted to interview him for MTV on July 7, 1994 at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas.
In his initial link, Corgan cheerfully informs viewers that he will soon he interviewing “my good pal” Nick Cave, but when the interview begins, it's very clear that Cave is very much not Corgan's “pal”.
