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Indeed, with Sonic Youth sharing the main stage with the likes of Morrissey, Modest Mouse, Le Tigre, and, on select dates, PJ Harvey, Lollapalooza appears to have returned to its alternative-rock roots. And it’s now broadened its scope to include a second day featuring an even more eclectic line-up: the jam band String Cheese Incident, psychedelic popsters the Flaming Lips, the Brit band Gomez, and, on select dates, the Pixies, Wilco, and/or Basement Jaxx as headliners. Perhaps more important, the second and third stages of this year’s tour are packed with promising up-and-coming acts, from electronicists like DJ Danger Mouse and Sound Tribe Sector 9 to alterna-rockers like Sparta and more indie-aligned acts like Wheat and Broken Social Scene, and from political rappers the Coup and punk vets Mike Watt to hard-to-classify acts like Boston’s Dresden Dolls. It’s difficult to escape the sense that, after returning to the fold last year, Perry Farrell, as the tour’s producer, has set Lollapalooza back on its original course.

"I think we ran into a really crappy few years for music," Farrell says over the phone from his home in Venice Beach. "I don’t think necessarily that there was no good music out there. But bad music was being promoted and marketed more strongly. And it reached a point where I thought Lollapalooza was way too commercial and it wasn’t the sound I was looking for, it was too aggressive. But you live and learn. At that time, I was just a sloppy mess, a junkie, and I couldn’t really fight. So it practically destroyed what we had going. I think people lost faith in Lollapalooza, and we took our lumps. So I decided to put it to rest. But after taking many years off, I just felt I wanted to get back into it because it seemed relevant again."

Farrell’s renewed enthusiasm for Lollapalooza has at least in part been fueled by technological changes. "Downloading has become such a big part of how people get their music, which means they don’t have to rely on radio to tell them what’s good and what’s not. I don’t think people really trust radio anymore. But they definitely trust getting on line and finding out where everyone is hitting. And at the same time, I think it’s made people want to go out to see great music again. Lollapalooza was originally thought of as introducing next year’s headliners this year. And now we’re getting back to that. It’s made Lollapalooza important again."

Farrell, who will be on board this summer’s tour as a DJ, even sees parallels between the socio-political climate that inspired the first Lollapalooza tour and the current mood of the country. "It’s funny, in 1991, we had the same situation in that there was radio that, like today, was really resistant to what was going on. You had a government that was run by similar people to those who are running the government now. So I think there’s a feeling of revolution in the air again. And one of the things you’ll notice these days is that there aren’t a lot of new groups being broken because the music industry itself is broken. They don’t know how to bring new musicians through. In our case, the way we do it is, we like to have the veterans and the legends there, because, number one, they’re looked up to by the new musicians who are interested to come and play if a Sonic Youth is on the bill. They just want to watch Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon and be on the same tour with them. Second, these days, a lot of veterans are having success because people are rediscovering how great they are by downloading their songs. With that in mind, Lollapalooza is going to start an on-line store and a radio station."

Beyond that, Farrell is indeed aiming to bring politics more overtly into the Lollapalooza mix. "Back in September, when I started to think about this summer, I knew that the climate was going to be politically charged, and I wanted to do a great job in finding a balance. I wanted to maintain a line of being intelligent and informative yet also being relaxing and outrageous. So we’re working with an organization called Move On to present a concept called the ‘Revolution Solution.’ Basically, we’re asking and inviting like-minded free-thinkers to enter into our brain trust, if you will, to come up with solutions for this country and for the world. And we’re getting great guys, like, for example, Al Gore, who’s going to speak in New York. And we’re confirming other people for other dates."

But by far the biggest change in this year’s Lollapalooza tour isn’t its expansion into a two-day festival but its inclusion of a band like the String Cheese Incident, who represent a jam culture that, throughout the ’90, was ignored by the alternative nation, if not openly disdained. It may be a bit of a gamble in that the traditional Lollapalooza audience has a very different profile from the jam-band demo. But Farrell himself has had enough contact with artists from that side of the tracks to feel confident. "Looking back at ’91, I feel a similar energy in the jam culture today in that they’re not striving to be pop stars and the fans have faith in the music and each other. And I think with this year being a political year, the jam bands are perfect clients for us to have for Lollapalooza in that they understand what we’re doing. They also really wanted to be a part of what we were doing. So I felt that it was worth taking a chance with, just like it was worth taking a chance in ’91. I mean, I am expecting slightly different crowds on the two different days. But we were smart about mixing things up, like putting the Flaming Lips on with the String Cheese Incident and Gomez, since they fit in somewhere between the two. It absolutely works.

"The last comment I want to make is that we’re all always hoping to go some place to have a new experience. And I think that going out on day two will, for a lot of people, be a chance to be introduced to new music and new ideas. So I’m hoping that there will be a lot of cross-pollination."

Lollapalooza comes to the Tweeter Center in Mansfield on Saturday and Sunday August 14 and 15. For updates and information, visit www.lollapalooza.com. For tickets, call (617) 228-6000.