Lollapalooza may as well be entitled “The Reunion Fest” this year. The re-united Black Sabbath, with all four original members including Ozzy Osbourne, will headline this year’s Lollapalooza. Meanwhile Red Hot Chili Peppers will return after a six-year festival absence and At the Drive-In will play their first live show in 11 years. And if that wasn’t enough, the Afghan Whigs will appear as part of their first tour in a decade.

Among other major rock talent, the highlights will be Jack White in solo form, the Black Keys, Bloc Party and Delta Spirit. It’s not all rock though, Lollapalooza will be stocked full of electronic artists like Justice, Avicii, Bassnectar, Kaskade and many more.

Pulp have thankfully reunited for a big reunion tour that includes a high-profile Coachella performance. So, of course, they are making the late night rounds as well. Catch the Britpop band playing their classic “Common People”, one of the greatest songs of the ‘90s, as well as “Like a Friend”.

Photos by Nicky Digital / Makeup by Erin Green

POPMATTERS SPONSOR—Erika Forster, pictured here in a look from GAP’s new spring collection, is no stranger to serendipity.  Stepping on board a train in 2003, little did she know that, on that same ride her life would change forever. She would bump into Annie Hart, then a stranger, and the two would share their common dream of starting an all-keyboard band.

Flash forward a few years, and these two women, along with Heather D’Angelo, make up the all-female alternative folk band, Au Revoir Simone.  Similarly, few could have anticipated that Pearl Jam’s decision to hold a 1993 concert on the grounds of the Empire Polo Club in the desert of Indio, California, once seen as too dry of a climate to accommodate musical events, would lead to that site becoming host to what is now one of the largest music festivals on the circuit: Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

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For 17 years, the Vans Warped Tour has been a punk rock juggernaut, a misfit circus crisscrossing North America every summer as a wandering minstrel show for youth culture.  Embracing a powerful, unifying ethic created by its founder Kevin Lyman, the Vans Warped Tour has grown and prospered as the music industry itself imploded and continues to sift through the rubble in search of a new way forward. Along the way, Warped has provided a launching pad for a dizzying array of talent, from Green Day and Blink 182 to Ice-T, Eminem and No Doubt, along with perennial punk legends such as Pennywise, All, Bouncing Souls and Bad Religion.

Canada’s Polaris Music Prize, now in its seventh year, awards a $30,000 prize to the best Canadian record of the voting period June 1-May 31. The criteria are broad, but clear: jurors are to assess records any consideration of commercial success, sales figures, track record, or live performance. The idea is that if a band puts out an exceptional record it will stand a chance, no matter what genre it emerges from (however obscure), what region the band calls home, what following it enjoys, or what preconceived notions critics might have about them. This is really, really, difficult, it turns out.

Every year the pool of some 200-plus Canadian jury members debate, complain, exclaim, and declaim various records. Often 50 or more albums are suggested and debated on the jury’s listserve before the Long List of 40 is finally compiled in early June. That Long List is then voted on and whittled down to a Short List of 10. Finally, a Grand Jury is pulled from the pool of 200-plus regular jurors and these intrepid souls gather on the evening of the Gala in late September to battle it out in a back room all 12 Angry Men-like and emerge with a winner. It’s all very fun, and also extremely exciting for those involved, especially when the band you were hoping for comes out on top (which has happened, for me, only once.)