Pimlico Special

West wasn't the most gifted rapper at the festival (Lil Wayne and Lupe Fiasco are ahead of him), but as an entertainer, he's in a league of his own. His set was flat-out electrifying, featuring a superstar at the peak of his powers.

And doesn't he know it? The megalomaniacal rapper repeatedly declared his own greatness. But he backed it up with his performance, during which he claimed ownership of the two-day mega-concert. Indeed, one got the feeling that West didn't think of this as a festival but rather a Kanye West show that happened to feature a bunch of opening acts.

Does Kanye love himself more than Trent Reznor hates himself? Probably a coin flip.

"Help me get away from myself!" Reznor pleaded in the depraved "Closer," over a throbbing electronic drum pattern whose low-boiled cadence suggested a slow death march.

Reznor was the festival's dark knight, and he was backed by a band that played (mostly) hard-charging, confrontational songs filled with dissonant guitars, pealing licks, violent synth stabs, echoing drums, tricky changes and a remarkable amount of sonic texture. (Didn't hurt that the sound was perfectly mixed -- no small feat at an outdoor festival.) The performance was at once terrifying and thrilling.

Dylan's set didn't feature any truly revelatory moments. But for a 21st-century Bob Dylan concert, it was a winner. His voice was in fine form (Lil "Weezy" Wayne's was wheezier). There was no croaking, just the playful rephrasing that's become Dylan's norm. The songs from his recent trilogy sounded best: "Rollin' and Tumblin'," "Spirit on the Water" and especially "Highwater (for Charley Patton)" were excellent showcases of Dylan's new version of retro Americana, made all the better by Stu Kimball's stinging guitar leads. "Highway 61" was a fun romp, and "Ballad of a Thin Man" remains a lyrical powerhouse even the reinterpretation made it impossible for festival-goers to sing along -- no doubt to Dylan's delight. (A festival spokeswoman said attendance figures weren't yet available for either day.)

Sunday's lineup was headlined by Jack Johnson, the Foo Fighters and Underworld, three artists who couldn't possibly be any more different.

Johnson is the new king of soft rock, specializing in slight, breezy songs that have about as much edge as the beach balls that a Baltimore radio station was giving away during the festival. His music is the very definition of anodyne: Mellow vocals, wiki-wiki guitar strums and laid-back, island-inspired grooves that tend to sound soporific. Perhaps that's why he was allowed to perform past the 10 p.m. Pimlico curfew: His music was putting the neighbors to sleep.

The Foo Fighters were the big draw on Day 1, as evidenced by the dense crowd and the frenzy when the band tore into "The Pretender" and "Times Like These." Dave Grohl's band is an ideal festival headliner, drawing on a seemingly endless supply of hit singles and rock-star charisma. Sometimes, he went a little too far, as with the drawn-out band-intro segment that included a triangle solo. (In a way, it was perfect. Since there was no music being played, one could hear the twitchy electronica anthem "Born Slippy" booming from the dance tent; if so inclined, one could have raced over there in time to catch the euphoric Underworld anthem.)

The lineup actually had a healthy -- or, depending on your worldview, unhealthy -- dose of '90s alt-rock, between STP, Nine Inch Nails, the Foos and the Offspring. Makes sense, since the teenagers of that era are now disposable-income-having young adults.

What doesn't make sense is the enduring appeal of the Offspring's big, stupid songs. How could a guy who was so close to getting his PhD in molecular biology (singer Dexter Holland) write such mindless, aggressively simple songs? That's not to say that the hits of yesteryear, including "Gotta Get Away" and "Come Out and Play," aren't catchy. But it's the worst kind of catchy, with songs such as the "Ob-La-Di" rip-off "Why Don't You Get a Job?" relying on cheap, expletive-filled lyrics for their lowest-common-denominator appeal.

One of the festival's most galvanizing performances came earlier on Day 1 -- just before Chuck Berry's streamlined set of proto-rock-and-roll -- and it was delivered by a most unlikely source: the Silver Beats, a Japanese band that plays perfect note-for-note re-creations of classic songs from the great Beatles catalogue.