Smith, Stooges join Lollapalooza

NEW YORK (Billboard) - Reunited punk rock group the Stooges, chart-topping rockers Modest Mouse and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee

Patti Smith are among the top acts joining previously announced headliner Pearl Jam at the annual Lollapalooza festival, to be held August 3-5 in Chicago.

Daft Punk, Muse, My Morning Jacket, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs,

Ben Harper, Snow Patrol, The Roots, Kings of Leon, the Black Keys and Spoon also are on the bill.

Lollapalooza, which will take place at Grant Park, comes near the end of a busy festival season, following California's Coachella and Tennessee's Bonnaroo. It is being held the same weekend as the V Festival in Baltimore, which will feature the Police, the Smashing Pumpkins and Beastie Boys.

"The thing we can't do is look at everybody else, because you start copying other festivals. But you have to stay current with what is happening in the music business," said Charles Attal, who booked Lollapalooza. "We always book from the bottom up. You can't go chasing headliners first, because you wind up chasing your tail."

Attal said he spent several years chasing Pearl Jam, who have not played an American festival in nearly a decade. The group largely stopped performing in general admission venues after the tragedy at Denmark's Roskilde Festival in 2000, when nine fans were killed in a crowd surge during Pearl Jam's set.

"My partners and I flew down to Monterrey, Mexico, to see the band, and their crew has come to Lollapalooza to see what it was all about," Attal said. "They checked out the operation to make sure it was safe, and I think the amount of trust we've built up over the last few years led them to say yes."

Lollapalooza attendees have previously complained about the distance between one end of the Grant Park venue and the other, but Attal said there are no plans to revamp the positioning of the nine stages this year. "I walked it 50 times last year and had a blast doing it," he said. "There are so many cool things in the middle of it. There's also always a place you can go sit down in the shade and take a break."

Reuters/Billboard