Best Moments of Lollapalooza: Final Day

Best Ergonomic Solution for Killer Drum Fills: X Japan
Among all the big-ticket reunions that festivals bank on, one of the biggest featured a band most Lollapalooza attendees had likely never heard of before Sunday. Prog-metal giants X Japan -- no relation to Exene Cervenka, John Doe et. al -- sold millions of records at home before breaking up in 1997. (Their flamboyant guitarist hanged himself under mysterious circumstances in 1998.) But the band had never played America. A reconstituted version rectified that yesterday looking like anime characters dropped into a 1987 Manowar video. There was pyro, sure, but the most lasting impression was left by multi-tasking drummer Yoshiki, who pounded away at his kit -- and, more lovingly, at a white baby grand for the ballads -- all while wearing a thick neck brace, kinda like Joan Cusack in Sixteen Candles. The Japanese Tommy Lee quickly became the hero of the day and was last spotted driving a boat on Lake Michigan -- with his dick. -- STEVE KANDELL

Best Blazing Set: Yeasayer
Few indie bands have elevated their game in a shorter period of time than the Brooklyn-via-Baltimore trio. Or maybe it's the fans who've elevated their game, attuning to Yeasayer's manically labyrinthine art-pop. Whichever, the band's blistering main-stage performance, delivered as afternoon heat waves turned Butler Field into a mirage, was a happy collision of synths and beats, with songs such as "O.N.E." and "Ambling Alp" inducing fans to sweat away their sunscreen. Which was cause for concern not only among the increasingly busy medical staffers but for Yeasayer singer Chris Keating as well. "All you pasty Jewish people like me have got to be careful," he said. -- KEVIN BRONSON

Best Festival Vets: Cypress Hill
The weed-blazing Los Angeles rap troupe played Lollapalooza back in 1992, and it's hard to imagine their set Sunday was much different. And that's a good thing. Hard steppin' and head-rockin' rappers B-Real and Sen Dog spit their hits, including "How I Could Just Kill a Man," the shotgun rap buckshot that launched their career in 1991. A heavy-lidded throng moshed, slam danced, and smoked weed by example. B-Real puffed a two-finger fatty, then invited percussionist Eric Bobo to hit a six-foot bong center stage, no more than 20 feet from four cops. When Bobo coughed, B-Real asked, "Is there a doctor in the house?" The beat dropped on "Dr. Green Thumb" and the crowd went apeshit. Cypress Hill's roadie was put to good use -- he ran around collecting each bag of weed thrown onstage. -- WILLIAM GOODMAN

Most Industrious Aussies: Violent Soho
Who knows what Lollapalooza promoters pay first-album, mid-afternoon sidestage bands -- but Brisbane-based neo-grungers Violent Soho took the opportunity to pass around their version of the tip jar, sending a ball cap into the crowd to solicit "cannibus" donations. Raucous, noisy, uncouth, and way catchier than they need to be, the band came to make an impression -- and did they ever. If this were 1995, you'd be hearing "Jesus Stole My Girlfriend" coming from the main stage, where Violent Soho would be right under the headliners. Their final take? Five joints. Lord knows, they earned them. -- DOUG BROD

Best Breezy Pop Delivered on the Breeze: Freelance Whales
The Brooklyn quintet's orchestral pop can come off as exceedingly precious -- winsome boy-girl vocals colored with synths, guitars, and the occasional xylophone, glockenspiel or banjo, played as if not to offend rather than to entertain. Not so in the shady nook in front of the BMI stage on Sunday, where the music from their album Weathervanes seemed to ride the lakefront breeze. If frontman Judah Dadone seemed especially upbeat, there was reason. "It's the two-year anniversary of the first time we ever got together to practice," he told the smiling fans, who, by then, had made an impression on the lead singer as well. "You guys are all intimidatingly attractive, by the way." -- KB

Best Case of Killing Them Loudly with Her Song: Erykah Badu
The beautifully blonde Erykah Badu preached her message of self-empowerment, talking about young girls she grew up with who wanted to "be a doctor" or "be mall security." Badu said she dreamed only of being "funky," and backed by a band so rhythmic it could rearrange your vertabrae, she was—and then some. But her brand of funk was blissfully cool, serene—on the verge of exploding, but always holding back. That is, until Wolfmother kicked off their set from the adjoining stage with guitars louder than jet engines. But Badu, who had started late at this otherwise perfectly-timed festival, wasn't going to go quietly. She revved up her musicians, shook her fist, shouted "Come on!, and got some 15,000 fans to pump up the funk with cheers while she played out her last two songs as if that stray guitar noise had been part of her ultimate plan all along. —MARK BAUTZ

Best Blessing from a Rock God: Wolfmother
"I saw a dragon fly. It's Jimi Hendrix," singer-guitarist Andrew Stockdale said midway through the Australian quartet's afternoon set. "Jimi came to bless the festival." While Stockdale's voice is indebted to Ozzy Osbourne, he plays with a similar pomp, style, and skill as the guitar legend. His band's sound is essentially "Foxy Lady" or "Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire," but cranked up to 11 and given a hard rock edge. On "New Moon Rising," Stockdale high kicked and strutted while ripping riffs tailor-made for a joyride in a Trans Am circa 1972. On "Woman," he addressed the ladies -- "I've got the feeling of love!!!" -- then dropped into an extended jam. And on "Sundial" he played a psychedelic wah-wah riff with keyboard accompaniment, and got all Jimi-esque philosophical: "And now it seems like no time at all / The sundial wonders / Sometime people like to take away all of your love and power." Dude has the spirit, for sure. Maybe he picked it up when recording demos for their latest album Cosmic Egg at Hendrix's Electric Lady studios in New York. – WG