Lollapalooza

The scene was one of barely controlled rock 'n' roll excess. In early January, 8,000 screaming fans mobbed the streets surrounding the Hollywood & Highland complex for a multimillion-dollar video shoot featuring one of Asia's top-selling pop acts: the hard-rocking quintet X Japan . With helicopters circling, the feathery-haired band members ascended to a stage atop the venue to lip-sync new songs. Guitars screamed and drums pounded; pillars of fire erupted from cannons. Technicians deployed fireworks and Hollywood Boulevard traffic was brought to a standstill for more than six hours in the name of a singularly Japanese brand of heavy metal thunder.

Alternative rocker Perry Farrell of the band Jane's Addiction has listed his home in Venice for $1.6 million. It was designed for the musician by architect Steven Ehrlich, who transformed the original bungalow on the site into a modern, Asian-influenced house with three bedrooms and two bathrooms in 2,203 square feet. A two-story barrel vault ceiling runs the length of the building, which has an open plan, a loft office and a roof-top terrace. A glass wall slides into a pocket wall, linking indoor and outdoor space.

CHICAGO -- Moms push strollers through throngs of bare-chested, tattooed twentysomethings. Dads in khakis dole out fruit drinks while guys sporting mohawks and ripped jeans sip beer. And the grade-schoolers cheer as loudly as the hard-core metalheads. Welcome to the new face of music festivals, where everyone from kids in diapers to retirees comes for the same reason: to rock out. "I was too young for Woodstock. I didn't really start going to concerts until my youngest son was old enough," said Dory Schramm of Alamo, Calif.

The second leg of Radiohead's North American tour will include two nights at the Hollywood Bowl in August and an opening-night spot at the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago, the English band announced Monday. Tickets for the Hollywood Bowl on Aug. 24 and 25 and for two other Southern California shows -- Aug. 27 at Cricket Wireless Amphitheatre in Chula Vista and Aug. 28 at the Santa Barbara Bowl -- will go on sale Saturday. At the three-day Lollapalooza in Grant Park, where it plays Aug. 1, Radiohead will be joined by a lineup that includes Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails, Kanye West, Gnarls Barkley, the Raconteurs, Wilco and Love and Rockets.

"You guys having a little bit of fun?" Dave Grohl wanted to know, pausing with his Foo Fighters for a moment Saturday during the KROQ L.A. Invasion concert at the Home Depot Center in Carson. That question for fans came midway through the band's explosive, playful set, and the answer arrived in the form of unsurprising roars of approval.

Pearl Jam will play what is scheduled to be the band's only U.S. concert of the year in August, topping a bill of more than 120 acts at Lollapalooza 2007, festival officials announced Thursday. The event will take place Aug. 3 to 5, once again in Chicago's Grant Park. Info: www.lollapalooza.com.

Kanye West finally got the platform he always felt destined to occupy on Saturday. With the city skyline to the west, Lake Michigan to the east, and about 50,000 fans chanting his name as the closing act of Lollapalooza's second night, the native of Chicago's South Side looked over at his beaming mom sitting beside the stage. "See, Mom, I told ya," he said. "I told ya I wanna rap. It works!"

Kanye West, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Wilco are among more than 120 acts to perform at this year's Lollapalooza festival. The lineup, announced Thursday at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, is about twice the number of last year's festival, when Lollapalooza was downsized from a coast-to-coast tour to a weekend event in Chicago. Lollapalooza 2006 will take place Aug. 4 to 6 in Chicago's Grant Park.

The revived Lollapalooza brought an estimated 65,000 fans and more than 60 bands, DJs and children's entertainers to six stages here, a 20-hour marathon spread over two days. As a test for future concerts in Grant Park, it made a case for the event not being the last. By the time Widespread Panic closed the second night of the festival Sunday, audiences had endured a blistering heat.

Back in the early-'90s heyday of Lollapalooza, the festival was a place where alienated kids could get away from their parents. Today, many of those kids are parents themselves. And for the revived Lollapalooza, a two-day event in Chicago on July 23 and 24, organizers are hoping for full family togetherness.