Porno For Pyros Reuniting For Virtual Lollapalooza
The 2020 iteration of Lollapalooza is, like everything else, not happening. But instead of the usual festival experience, Lolla is going virtual. As Billboard details, the fest has put together four nights worth of programming, set to air on YouTube each evening when the actual event would’ve taken place. It’s going to feature classic, archival video, talks, promotion for social causes, and some new performances as well. Perry Farrell, the founder of Lolla, is appearing a couple times over — a Kind Heaven Orchestra performance featuring Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins on drums, a David Bowie tribute, and most notably a reunion of Porno For Pyros.
The group were originally slated to reunite, in some form or another (i.e., maybe as holograms), at Farrell’s bonkers Kind Heaven experience in Vegas. The opening of Kind Heaven kept getting delayed even before the pandemic, and obviously it’s not having its big debut this year with how things are going. But in the meantime, Farrell still got the group back together to tape a performance for the virtual Lolla. Aside from a one-off appearance in 2009, it marks the first time they’re doing a “show” together in over 20 years.
And it’s a reunion involving Mike Watt, who played bass with the Pyros for part of the ’90s. Watt had previously tweeted a picture from when the band got together to play, and then he gave a lengthier quote to BrooklynVegan, clarifying it wasn’t a practice but instead the band was filming four songs together, with stories about they got together with Watt in ’96.
Meanwhile, Perry Farrell recently announced a career-spanning box set that’ll dig into his endeavors outside of Jane’s Addiction and Porno For Pyros. Dubbed Perry Farrell: The Glitz; The Glamour, it features 68 tracks that go all the way back to his ’80s band Psi Com and up to a bunch of new remixes and collaborations — including one that is built off an unearthed Jim Morrison recording, one of the long-simmering projects Farrell talked about when I interviewed him last year. Below, you can hear a Psi Com track that Farrell recently shared.