Best & Worst of Lollapalooza: Day 2

Best Music for Your Workout: Phoenix

Phoenix has become the Cadillac of pop bands, and the Frenchmen's eye-popping finale to a smashing Saturday found the quartet hitting on all cylinders. Who knew that the little band that gave us "Too Young" (surely you remember Lost in Translation) exactly 10 years ago would turn into a juggernaut who could play on the shores of Lake Michigan and be heard in Indiana? Phoenix has plenty of features—a sleek, Euro-charming exterior with Thomas Mars, plenty under the hood with the guitar and rhythm section, and the deftly engineered songs of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. They're not necessarily dancey, but they are catchy and uplifting and aerobic. Even Mars seemed to marvel at the effect they had on masses at the north end of Grant Park. "This is the biggest crowd we've ever played to," he said. "Thank you." No, Thomas, the crowd (and their fitness instructors) thank you. —KEVIN BRONSON

Best Band to Cover the Man in Black: Social Distortion

If Devo was the Friday entry in the category Bands Who Made You Possible, Social Distortion filled that role on Saturday. A lightly bearded, heavily tatted Mike Ness led the southern California veterans through a rough-edged tour de catalog, interspersing a few songs from their to-be-titled seventh album, due Nov. 7 on Epitaph. Social D's outlaw brand of punk rock so contrasts with this era's eyelinered narcissists that old-schoolers wondered what kind of reception Ness and the gang might get. "This song came out in 1983, when it was dangerous to be a punk rocker roaming the streets," Ness said, introducing the title track to Social D's first album, Mommy's Little Monster. On a day when punks were in absolutely no danger—in fact, the grounds abounded with tykes in Green Day children's wear—Social D was warmly embraced. And as he has done frequently throughout his career, Ness embraced his idol, Johnny Cash, finishing the set with a cover of "Ring of Fire." It rarely has sounded so good than in the dusk at Lollapalooza. —KB

Worst Log Jam: Metric
The people have spoken, and next time Metric plays Lollapalooza it must be on a headlining stage. The Toronto quartet's mid-afternoon set at the Playstation Stage—the fest's second largest—brought Lolla to a pedestrian standstill. Chalk their burgeoning popularity up to "Eclipse (All Yours)," their song on the Twilight: Eclipse soundtrack (which has its own video with closeups of Taylor Lautner, Robert Pattinson, and Kristen Stewart), and the radio play of "Help, I'm Alive," a single off their latest album Fantasies. As singer Emily Haines sang "beating like a hammer!!!" thousands of fans pogo'd and made hammering motions with their arms. —WILLIAM GOODMAN






Best Lyric Screamed in the Face of Danger: AFI

"I feel nothing at all," Davey Havok bellowed during "Medicate," and that couldn't have been true during the goth-punks' set on the second stage, where he was staring virtually straight into the blazing afternoon sun. The veterans ended up getting some welcome cloud cover and shredding for an hour, regaling moshers and crowd surfers with hits like "Miss Murder" and "Beautiful Thieves." Havok went out of his way, too, to throw some gratitude at Lollapalooza's organizers, recalling how, back in the day, he made the long trip to see Jane's Addiction. —KB







Best Way to Get Sucked Into a Dance Party: Cut Copy

Cut Copy is like that pesky department store salesperson who always seems to know exactly what you need. Tired of all those harsh guitars? Let me show you our shimmering synths. Groaning singers got you down? Please hop aboard our soaring falsetto. Bored with merely bobbing your head? We have four on the floor, so move your feet. Before you know it, you've blurted out, "I'll take it!" and you find yourself in a massive sea of bouncing souls at the Playstation stage acting as if your every breath depends on the next strobe or puff of smoke. Don't feel guilty, there are a lot of you. You stay because the Australians insist you do, in the nicest way possible, of course, by providing excellent service with little or no intellectual investment. It's euphoria, and it's on sale, wherever Cut Copy is playing next. —KB