Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails are reported to be two of the "headliners" at Lollapalooza 2008, according to a wishy-washy report published by The Chicago Tribune last night.

The Tribune article seems to play in to the non-stop rumor game - not a good thing for a journalism organization.

The headline of the article itself implies Radiohead will headline Lollapalooza, the opening paragraph of the story states they are "expected" to perform at Lolla and the following paragraph states Radiohead has been "confirmed" and in the same paragraph the Tribune's catch word of the day - "expected" - appears again.

That's not just lousy journalism, but the hype comes suspiciously close to the implication that the Tribune is trying to pump some life into a local festival that some readers of this blog have 'written off' for 2008. Lollapalooza was canceled in 2004 after weak ticket sales, but came back strong in 2005 with some 65,000 tickets sold.


All I Need - Radiohead from In Rainbows

Isobel - Bjork (2007 Lollapalooza headline artist)

Listen to past Lollapalooza performances from archive.org

Furthermore, aside from the fact (despite the Tribune's rumor-mill reporting) that not one artist or group has been officially confirmed to perform at this year's Lollapalooza Festival, the Tribune makes no mention of the usually costly tickets (ranging from $65 a day up to $195 for a three-day pass in 2007, a 30% increase from the previous year's price of $150).

Lollapalooza 2008 is set to take place in Chicago's Grant Park August 1-3. Early bird tickets go on sale March 25th. Apparently, the early bird tickets that went on sale this week were gone in a matter of hours with many potential ticket buyers complaining about the reliability of the online early bird purchasing process.

According to the Tribune (and obviously you'll have to take this with a grain of salt), Lollapalooza festival organizers will release the entire lineup sometime in the 'next few weeks.'

Let's just hope that the long wait will be worth it in the end, although it would be nice if they held the event in any other month but August (got to sell those drinks to make the vendor unions happy).

If last year's lineup at Lollapalooza is any indication of the lineup for 2008, then it's safe to say there's going to be a lot more lolla than looza.

Here is an article about last year's Lollapalooza, including videos of the performers.

If you didn't hear about last year's controversy regarding AT&T's censoring of Pearl Jam, check out the link to read about it.

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