Music: The Bands of Summer

THE BANDS OF SUMMER BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN -- GENESIS -- GRATEFUL DEAD -- BONO OF U2 -- ERIC CLAPTON & ELTON JOHN -- METALLICA & AXL ROSE OF GUNS N' ROSES -- HAMMER & HIS ENTOURAGE -- LOLLAPALOOZA '92 WITH RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS -- ICE CUBE -- THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN -- PEARL JAM & MORE Touring shows are booming again, as superstars hit the road with performances in which the sounds are enhanced -- and sometimes swamped -- by high-tech, multimillion-dollar special effects and gimmicks, from floating autos to body piercing

The event lasts all day. It is part love-in, part crafts festival and part political rally. On the midway, vendors hawk everything from T shirts and tattoos to voter-registration cards and safe-sex instructions. There are demonstrations of body piercing and Caribbean cooking. Amnesty International, Greenpeace and the National Rifle Association are there. And -- oh, yes -- there's also a concert. In fact, quite a concert, with a nine-hour lineup of alternative bands including Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ministry, Ice Cube, Soundgarden, the Jesu and Mary Chain, Pearl Jam and Lush.

The whole thing is such a lollapalooza that that's what they call it -- the Lollapalooza '92 tour. The show, which began on July 18 and will play 30 cities through Sept. 13, has already sold out in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and New York City, where it took just 30 minutes for fans to snap up all 36,000 tickets. Lollapalooza, now in its second season, is the cutting edge of summer concert action, and it is pioneering the new byword of touring: value-added. Superstars aplenty are plying the circuit this summer -- Phil Collins, Hammer, Bruce Springsteen and Elton John, among others -- but almost all of them, like Lollapalooza, are burnishing their marquee appeal with a little something extra.

Like high-tech, multimillion-dollar special effects. The Irish band U2, which used to pride itself on its spartan, no-glitz performance style, has invested $2.5 million in an extravaganza it calls the Zoo TV Outside Broadcast, to be unveiled when the group begins a 15-city U.S. swing that will run from Aug. 11 into November. Dates are still being added, but the tour will also hit Toronto and Montreal. The show employs nine screens, with the two largest measuring 20 ft. by 30 ft., three dozen 27-in. television monitors and a satellite dish. During the concert, the screens will carry a random, computer-triggered mix of prerecorded material, live feeds from the satellite and shots of the onstage performance. Lead singer Bono will make impromptu phone calls that will be broadcast over the speaker system. (Hello? David Letterman?) The recipients could range from the White House to a local pizza parlor. And check out the show's lighting, some of which comes from the headlights on six German Trabant automobiles suspended by giant cranes at heights of up to 40 ft. above the stage.