Will It Be a Long Way to Lollapalooza?

Metallica fans across the country turned out in droves last week, buying a whopping 680,000 copies of the hard-rock band’s new “Load” album--but will the group’s Southern California faithful be willing to drive more than two hours to see them as part of Lollapalooza ‘96?

That was the question being asked in industry circles Wednesday as Lollapalooza organizers confirmed that they are considering two sites for the only expected Southern California stop by the traveling rock festival this summer.

The rival facilities: the Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion in Devore and the Buttonwillow Raceway, a stock car facility near Bakersfield, both of which can handle up to 60,000 fans.

Metallica and its management favor the latter site for the show, which will be held in early August--not in spite of its 100-mile distance from L.A. and its unfamiliarity to rock fans, but because of those factors.

“The fact is [the members of Metallica] don’t want to play the standard places [on Lollapalooza],” Metallica’s co-manager Peter Mensch says. “We were looking for something new and exciting.”

The group was reportedly also seeking to stay clear of most major markets on this tour to avoid undercutting its own U.S. tour in the winter. Plans call for the Forum and the Pond of Anaheim to host three Metallica dates each in December.

With that in mind, the band asked Brian Murphy, president of the L.A.-based concert promotions firm Avalon Attractions, to scout for a novel site. He found Buttonwillow, a 384-acre venue located just off Interstate 5, and won approval for the event from the Kern County Board of Supervisors last month.

However, with initial sales slow at some Midwest and Eastern “nontraditional” sites, the Lollapalooza producers have been leaning toward the Blockbuster Pavilion as a more familiar, closer location. A decision is expected within a week. The San Bernardino County facility is about 60 miles from L.A. and far more accessible from Orange County and San Diego than Buttonwillow.

Whatever site is chosen, the first-week sales figures of “Load,” which were announced Wednesday by SoundScan, were good news for the band and the Lollapalooza staff. The Metallica figure was the highest first-week total registered by any album since the Beatles’ “Anthology Vol. 1” sold 850,000 when it debuted in November.

According to SoundScan, the veteran Bay Area quartet’s showing far outpaced any first-week figures this year, beating the previous high--2Pac’s two-disc package “All Eyez on Me”--by almost 125,000 copies. The album also topped the first-week totals of the Beatles’ “Anthology Vol. 2” and Hootie & the Blowfish’s “Fairweather Johnson” by almost 200,000 each.

The first-week record since SoundScan began monitoring U.S. sales in 1991 was the 950,000 set by Pearl Jam’s “Vs.” album in 1993.

Thanks to the enthusiasm over the new album and the end of the school year, ticket sales in the Midwest and East for all Lollapalooza shows that have been announced so far have picked up.

Still, the most successful dates so far are the ones closest to major population centers and in the most familiar settings. A July 10 show at Downing Stadium on Randalls Island in New York City--the only truly urban show currently on the schedule and the only locale that had hosted previous Lollapaloozas--sold all 25,000 tickets last weekend, and a second date there is expected to go on sale soon.

The slow initial sales magnified some Lollapalooza question marks. Besides the use of “nontraditional” sites and avoidance of large markets, the presence of hard-rock leader Metallica on a bill that also includes hard-edged Soundgarden, punk veterans the Ramones, punk-ska heroes Rancid and Seattle alternative band Screaming Trees gives the tour a somewhat different image than the alternative-rock emphasis of the past.

But the anticipated hot start for “Load” buoys the tour’s standing. For one thing, it leaves little doubt about the loyalty of Metallica’s following.

“This is where the word fan comes from,” says Lew Garrett, vice president of buying and merchandising for Camelot Music, a Canton, Ohio-based chain of 380 record stores. “They’re truly fanatical. There’s a core base of very loyal consumers for this band.”

More significantly for Lollapalooza’s fortunes, sales patterns suggest that the band is attracting new fans, especially from the alternative market--the people who have gone to past Lollapalooza shows.

That’s most clearly demonstrated in the fact that the band’s previous albums also received a huge boost in sales in the past week. The 1991 “Metallica,” which has never left the Top 200 since its debut, had been rising on the charts in recent weeks as anticipation for the new album built, and this week it climbs to No. 61 with 19,000 sold. That album, whose first-week sales total was 598,000, has now sold more than 9 million in the United States.

The band’s four other studio albums also saw sales jumps this week.

“There are definitely new fans coming in,” says Bob Bell, new-release buyer for the Wherehouse chain. “It’s spreading to alternative fans and mainstream rock fans who may be curious because the new album’s release is such a big event.”

* Times staff writer Cheo Hodari Coker contributed to this story.