Lollapalooza Report: Saturday [Scott Plagenhoef]

Photos by Kirstie Shanley; text by Scott Plagenhoef

Yeah Yeah Yeahs [AT&T stage; 6:30 p.m.]

This is a rock star. Karen O and bandmates Nick Zinner and Brian Chase showed up the vast majority of their mainstage counterparts so far this weekend with a muscular and assured set that drew from throughout their career.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, of course, were always a great live act, but it's the last word of that clause ("act") that got them a frankly bizarre rep from some of the more douchey, clenched elements in indie culture (including at the time, um, yeah, this website). So, this just in, Karen O is a dynamic performer, and being on stage is often just that, a performance, rather a reflection of one's actual self. Sadly, however, being a strong woman with a personal style, a penchant for spitting beer, and an affinity for sexual lyrics, she was long-considered a big fraud by people who prefer detached cool and the illusion of reality to livewire stage antics. But she shone here because, like fellow Lollapalooza 2007 succeses Craig Finn of the Hold Steady and James Murphy of LCD Soundsytem, her professionalism and ability to leave it all out on the floor every night allowed her to rise to this occassion. She has fun, and that fun is contagious.

Karen O played around with all of those notions of performance and her stage persona yesterday. She wore black stockings and a skirt cut up to there while taking on and off a masquerade-party mask and beaded veil, playing with elements of anonymity, silence, and brazen sexuality. A half-decade on from the peak of New York's rock revival and Yeah Yeah Yeahs seem like they'll be outpacing their more honored contemporaries such as the Strokes and Interpol in a few years. Hell, they probably are doing so now.

Interpol [Bud Light stage; 8 p.m.]

Confession: All three of your Pitchfork correspondents wanted to see Muse rather than Interpol. That wasn't so much a matter of musical preference, but…we've all seen Interpol. And in their element, too: Dark, smokey clubs built for moody gothic rock. A stadium-sized outdoor show? Well, that's Muse's element, in part because their completely over-the-top prog-pop has something for everyone from Guitar Center geeks to conspiracy theorists to Radiohead fans. (On second thought, maybe that's not such a wide range of people.)

Interpol, on the other hand, are staunchly single-minded, and even with some new bells and whistles on third album Our Love to Admire, their sound is unmistakably theirs. (Or, as some wags would say, Joy Division's or Kitchens of Distinction's.) Headlining an event such as this, however, was a bit out of the group's reach, although it did as well as one could expect. Placed in an almost no-win situation, Interpol thrilled their fans but found it difficult to win over the uninitiated, playing to tens of thousands on such a grand scale. Friday's Daft Punk show did it, but it was also a different class altogether; the Hold Steady and Spoon seemed to do it on the smaller stages, and there's no doubt Interpol would have there as well.

For those of us who knew and maybe lately have taken for granted the group, they delivered. Admire highlights "Pioneer to the Falls" and "The Heinrich Maneuver" here seemed the equal to the band's more critically lauded works, and "Obstacle 1" and earlier classics were reminders why they've swiftly gone from a jaw-dropping Matador EP to the Billboard top five.

The problem here won't so much be Interpol's but Lollapalooza's. This is a strongly rock-oriented crowd and event, one that is still attempting to attract quality acts, not just large ones. This year, Daft Punk was a great "get," Muse a smart gamble, and Pearl Jam is getting a bucketload of money, but the event is in the first year of a five-year deal with the City of Chicago and, perhaps, is going to struggle to find new and thrilling headliners each year without soon repeating itself or going the reunion/Baby Boomer route.