The World Wide Web was just in its infancy in 1993, so venues for online publishing were limited for a cheeky bastard such as myself. My R.A.D! (Review and Discussion of Rock 'n' Roll) was one of the first online music zines, published in Usenet news groups like alt.zines and alt.music.alternative and downloaded through FTP sites like the University of Michigan. Digging into my archives, I found this "review" of the 1993 Lollapalooza Festival in Nashville:
"Well, the infamous Lollapalooza tour hit the "Music City" yesterday (June 6th) and, like most things here in Nashville, the "Bible Belt" mentality caused trouble...
Before the show began, officers of the Metro Nashville Police Dept. messed with the Cannabis Action Network booth (located in the Village), forcing them to all but shut down. Claiming that the C.A.N. folks were distributing "materials" which promoted drug use (what kind of materials? their flyers? of course, Metro cops have never heard of the 1st amendment!), making them remove unnamed items from their booth...
Later, one of the vendors in the Village was displaying a sticker which said "Fuck The D.E.A.!" which Starwood Amphitheatre claimed was obscene and made the vendor remove from his booth. After he replaced it, Starwood security evidently got a little "stern" with the guy, claiming that the word "fuck" wasn't in line with Starwood's "image" as a family kinda place (this coming from a 15,000 seat open-air arena which schedules drunken redneck orgies every summer with Hank, Jr. and Jimmy Buffett shows...and a year or two ago, a drunken redneck killed his wife in the parking lot after a Judas Priest show!).
The result was that a lot of people were buying the guy's stickers and giving them away, while others were sticking them to their bodies and dancing around the venue. The other Village vendors got upset about the treatment given the two booths and also got up in arms, which caused Starwood security to loosen up a bit and let the fans actually have a good time (Starwood is notorious for messing with concert goers).
The show came off without a hitch, with Arrested Development, Fishbone and Dinosaur Jr. being the crowd's favorite acts for the night. My own personal faves were Babes In Toyland and Arrested Development...
It's business per usual in Nashville when a large "counter culture" event like Lollapalooza (and I won't argue that statement here) is harassed by the local militia. Only in the Bible Belt... "
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