We casually slipped into line next to a friend of my brother's, cutting off 80% of the wait time. As we passed through the portals of pleasure, we realized that a band was already playing. My brother wandered off with his friends to establish a grassy beachhead, upon which they could replenish themselves against the sterility and elitism of our choice pavillion seats.

I followed my journalistic impulses to the source of it all: the stage. It wasn't until I actually penetrated the pavillion proper that I realized what an unholy ruckus the Rollins Band was making. Henry Rollins, the South Bay Poet of Pain, whom I had met ten years before when he was a nobody just signed on to sing for Black Flag, was the first of the Lotza Palookas.

And frankly, a palooka Rollins is: covered head to toe with tattoos and belching metallic tales of power run amok and self-sufficiency. A worthy philosophy to be sure, but the old punk-Rollins is preferable to the newer metal-Rollins. At least if you didn't like a Black Flag song, it was over in a minute of so. Now the songs are longer, the beat is more ponderous and the message largely humorless.

Rollins was altogether too everything at 2:30pm on a nice summer day. Hank and the band were barely audible on the grass as they pulverized the air into its component elements within the pavillion. The sound system was attempting to crank out enough sound to cover the entire lawn as well as inside the pavillion proper - an impossible task that left the pavillion denizens dazed with auditory overload and the lawn loungers wondering who was playing.

The lawn shouted "turn it up," the pavillion shouted "turn it down," the beer line shouted "tastes great," the restrooms added "less filling." There should have been speakers on the lawn.

I had an interview lined up with Rollins for after his performance through his record company, Imago. However, there was nary a pass, nor a message, nor acknowledgement of my existence by the backstage people. 0 for 1.

Next were the Butthole Surfers. The Surfers should never play in daylight: they can't show their gross videos, nor their light show, and lead singer Gibby Haynes' abundant embonpoint is all too clear.

I stood by an acquaintance at the stage exit because the acquaintance of mine was an acquaintance of the Surfers, and wily to their woolly ways. However, instead of spewing forth aphoristic answers to my insightful inquiries, one of the Surfers - I didn't catch who - spewed forth something altogether more noxious and tangible. He just missed my shoes. 0 for 2.

Ice T rapped, then rocked with his metal band Body Count. While his rapping rocked harder than his rocking, both seemed fairly pointless in this context. In fact, both the Ice T performance and that of Living Colour seemed to be preemptive strikes against possible charges of racism rather than integral musical components of the show.