Onward to the second day of Catalpa Music Festival, as Jeep, Heineken, Absolut, Got 2 B hair cream, and a few noteworthy musical artists try to make Randall's Island happen.

And, indeed, if you could look past the dizzying commercial exploits, there was some pretty rad music going down. Highlights? City and Colour delivered a show that made you wonder why they weren't given an evening slot, while The Cold War Kids reminded this author of their great track "Hang Me Out to Dry." (Remember it? I think I got it off an Urban Outfitters Free CD back when CDs were still a thing.)

Also, do you remember when Matisyahuh took that giant leap for Hebrew-kind by becoming the Jewish rapper of our generation, or possibly every and all generations? We didn't really either, and don't think Matis didn't notice. He calmed an overeager front row, syaing ,"Yes we will play "King without a Crown", yes we will play "One Day." They are the only two songs anybody knows, you think I'm not going to play them? Patience, children." Amen.

Matt and Kim hopped around onstage in their first concert of 2012. Kim was particularly bouncy, covering the crowd in confetti, booty dropping, and inadvertently hitting Matt's mic during their predictable finale "Daylight." "I get crazy and just wanna hit shit," she apologized. They recovered quickly, starting over again from the top of the very long introduction.

I obligingly observed the 2nd (or 3rd? Who can keep track) Girl Talk set of my short life. As I predicted, it was the same act, with slightly new 20-second sound bytes, wisely pulled from this year's top 40. As usual, he compensated for his lack of showy instrumentation by hopping up and down like an over-amphetamized Energizer bunny, pulling dozens of wide-eyed youngsters on stage, and blinding the crowd with neon letters ordering us to "JUMP JUMP JUMP." In the unabashedly sky-high carbon footprint camp, a few alcohol-soaked guys shot streamers of toilet paper into the euphoric crowd. Gimmicks aside, Girl Talk's patented fast paced szchiophrnetic electronica is well suited to the ADD Twitter generation. Proof of his resonance? Nowhere were the usual "ill-advised white person dance moves" more flagrantly on display than here. (Guy in the "Phish" tee-shirt, I'm talkin' to you.)

AraabMusik delivered some unremarkable electronic beats to keep the party going. Amiss my lackadaisical nodding, I was spontaneously adopted by a lively foursome of Irish lads, fresh off the proverbial boat, who had noted my lack of a +1 (which, of course, belonged to your charming photographer, Malcom, who was deep in the photo-trenches, cheers!). For research's sake, I asked them their thoughts on A$ap Rocky.

"They are just hiLARIOUS," cried out one of them.

"Americans are soooo stupid!" agreed another. Then they went to steal beer out of the backside of the alchohol tent. (We don't condone thievery at Baeble, but come on, at nine dollars a bottle, Heineken was basically robbing us blind all weekend. Not to mention the subtle brainwashing that went down in the planetarium-like "Beer Dome.")

Off to the "Church of Sham Marriages," a 400 foot blow up house of God that was being as nondiscriminatory with their marriage licenses as a San Francisco governor after a solid smoke-out. The highest tower of the church had deflated sadly, "That was our fault," bragged one of the boys.

Next, the weekend's grand finale, with none other than the ineffable SnoopDogg, who was a lively 41 year old. Old music video clips preceded every song, as the crowd erupted. All were dropping it like it was, indeed, scorching-hot.

The early-on Saturday rainstorm may have brought plenty of mud, but, rest assured, babes, this was no Woodstock.



Matisyahu













Matt and Kim















AraabMusik











Girl Talk











A$AP Rocky

















Snoop Dogg