Sometimes the early bird just gets rained on. Such was the case with the 25,000 alternative fans who rushed to get their Lollapalooza tickets for the Friday show in New York City – unaware that a Saturday show would be added, and unable to foresee that Friday’s frigid rainstorms would clear the way for Saturday to be the best day of the summer so far.

The odd downpour has been known to invigorate a festival crowd (think Christy Moore, Féile ’92). But 6-8 hours of incessant rain, dampened spirits to such a degree that moments of real crowd enthusiasm were few and far between. If any of the acts had half a clue, they would have thrown together a cover of ‘Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head’ and rallied a crowd that was desperate to get its forty dollar’s worth, but incapable of mustering up anything more than ten seconds of applause after each song.

Ironically, the fact that the sound was so crisp and wonderful and the performances so generally stellar only made matters worse by driving home the fact that if it hadn’t been for the weather, this would have been a cracker of a concert.

As it was, half the crowd missed Greenday because they were stuck outside of the gates listening to inept ticket-takers threaten to cancel the concert if we didn’t behave. (Who knew they wielded such power?) L7 – a thousand times better in theory than in reality – kept calling the audience ‘nice’, to everyone’s annoyance, as the rains gained confidence. Fact was, it was a pretty nice crowd considering that security types were scarce. Outside of the occasional shoving matches instigated by those dense people who always think there’s plenty of room up front (and the widespread misconception that pot had been legalised for the day) the crowd handled its freedom well.

Lethargy set in during a forty-five minutes postponement that was supposed to be Nick Cave’s set. Amidst cries of disbelief and Moses jokes, most of the crowd fled the field seeking refuge under the stands and (if you were cool) in the boiler room. Thankfully downpours turned to sprinkles for A Tribe Called Quest and ‘Scenario’ got a few people grooving. Then The Breeders opened their set with ‘Divine Hammer’, and sounded divine, showering the crowd with praise for its endurance. ‘Cannonball’ almost felt sunny.

By the time the Beastie Boys went on, the crowd was showing signs of life. For all intents and purposes the Beasties were the headliners here and at least half the stadium moshed to ‘Sabotage’ – voluntarily or not. A round of “Is Brooklyn in the house?” . . . “Is Queen’s in the house?” elicited more reaction than any of the day’s previous call and response attempts, but the set still fell short of typically raucous Bestiality.

With the benefit of downright pleasant weather, Smashing Pumpkins should have fared better. Courtesy of a grating new song, based solely on bullshit “poor ’ole me, I’m a pop star” cynicism, the band actually solicited boos and hisses before going on to deliver some of the day’s finest moments (notably ‘Disarm’ and ‘Today’).

Many Lollapalooligans went home early. Many totally blew off the tents and attractions (some of which involved electricity and seemed a bit hairy) because the areas was filled with pools of rain and mud. So many people sought refuge under the stands between mainstage acts that second stage bands would have gotten better crowds if they’d been serving hot tea.

Moan. Moan. Moan. Rain. Rain. Rain. Hardly the best circumstances under which to pass comment on Lollapalooza, The Concept. Nonetheless, it is only fair to say that Portosan lines were tolerable, beer only vaguely warm, food selections exotic, and the New York City Transit Authority heroic in its bussing system. So somehow when all was said and done and dry, and the rest of the wet weekend crowd far away, the day didn’t seem that bad after all. Thankfully hindsight isn’t always 20/20.