Edition: U.S. / Global

Review/Pop; At Lollapalooza, Rites of Rock Are Civil, Even in the Mosh Pit

Published: July 15, 1993

Toward the end of a hot and happy day at Lollapalooza, hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people started throwing plastic water bottles into the air. The sun was going down and the air filled with bottles, sun glinting as they soared in arcs. People ran through the piles, or stood underneath the fountain, taking the pelting. Completely safe, the eruption was mildly anarchic, just the right symbol for the whole show: people could go home having participated in something spontaneous.

For all its body-piercing, ostensibly alternative rock, tattoos and bare flesh, Lollapalooza -- held today at Waterloo Village here (where it will be on Friday) -- might be taking place in the 1950's. Politeness and propriety ruled, admirable given the 90-degree-plus heat, beer and a sold-out crowd of 18,000. The audience was here to have a good time, and to say thank you and please. They weren't the Boy Scouts, but neither were they beyond the fringe.

Even the mosh pit at the front of the stage, coursing with male and female slam-dancing bodies, epitomized a kind of civility, a completely ritualized form of sweaty communalism, ecstatic and fun. Bodies sailed overhead, landing in the area between the audience and the stage, and the sailees would shake hands with the security men guarding the stage. With its constant activity -- a stream of raw recruits made their way to the pit, stayed for a while, then left, covered with dust and mud -- the mosh pit offered the feel of an experience, but with no threat of violence or the effort of transgression. It was a ritual, and whether it's the result of growing up in suburbia or the general influence of political correctness, people seemed respectful of one another.

The music, mostly college rock, was surprisingly homogeneous for an alternative rock festival; there wasn't an iota of experimentation the entire day. And on a hot day, in the middle of a field, surrounded by lush mountains, even a group like Rage Against the Machine, which opened the event, seemed tame. The band put on a tough, precise set that mixed rap and hard rock, all drenched in politics.

As people found their way past the 28 food stands, the Forum Tent with its political displays and the 51 crafts stands, where everything from earrings and Guatemalan hats to posters of Eric Clapton and hemp fabric could be bought, the band's lead signer, Zack De La Rocha, dedicated a song to all the "Latinos and Latinas out there," of which there couldn't have been more than a handful. "We gotta take the power back," he chanted as people bought their Cajun food and lemonade.

While the main stage offered the bigger names, the second stage, off to the left, brought in performers who hadn't quite made it yet, groups on the verge of releasing major label debuts. Unrest, a band from Arlington, Va., offered an alternative to the alternative. Where the main stage had been all thrash and noise, Unrest put on a nicely minimalist show. The lead singer and guitarist, Mark Robinson, likes to use open strings, so the band's tunes, often based on falling and jumpy rhythms, felt open and airy; the band stretched out the pieces, jamming on them until the drone of the music became euphoric.

Tool came out next, and it drew a crowd, having a new record and an underground buzz behind it. The band, rough and raw, used riffs to make its way through tunes. Its lead singer, Maynard James Keenan, dressed in long johns, jerked around the stage. He sang "Intolerance," with lines like, "You lie, cheat, steal," while the band ground away at sweaty riffs.

Meanwhile, back at the main stage, Front 242, an industrial dance band, came out and performed dirty, electronic dance music that seemed like night music, odd to hear in the sunlight. People went crazy dancing and throwing themselves toward the stage. Fishbone came out and played "Freddy's Dead" over a hyper funk groove; it mixed ska and funk and noise, and the troops streamed to the pit, as bodies cartwheeled in the air over the audience. The pit, dusty and dry, sent up a column of dust.

Near the end of the show the fire department came and hosed down the crowd, and the water seemed like some sort of heavenly deliverance. Alice in Chains, which a good portion of the audience had been waiting for, came out and did songs from its album "Dirt," sludgy and thick. The band plays standard 1970's rock, but doctored and made unconventional by the lyrics, which went deeply into heroin addiction, with a little psychedelia thrown in.

When Alice in Chains left, so did much of the audience. Too bad, because Primus, the last act, offered some genuine eccentricity. Les Claypool, the band's leader, writes funny lyrics, and sings them in odd voices while snapping bass lines that form the core of the music. As people headed toward the exits, stepping around the sleeping bodies and piles of trash, Mr. Claypool sang, "My name is mud, not to be confused with Bill or Jack or Pete or Dennis."

Photo: J. Mascias of Dinosaur Jr. performed at Lollapalooza in Stanhope, N.J., while the front-row audience engaged in moshing, the passing of bodies toward the stage -- one of modern rock's more physical rituals. (Ebet Roberts for The New York Times)