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What a difference seven solid hours of sleep and a day without any official duties to attend to makes! Having spent Saturday mostly behind the scenes, I was ready to get my fan girl on come Sunday. So many shows to see, so many lobster corndogs to eat, so much ... rain to contend with! Yes, unfortunately, the day began rather damply with a big, fat rainstorm. Stalwart festgoers trudged through the puddles (did you know Tom's shoes foam when totally saturated? I did not) until -- wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles -- the sun broke through somewhere around 1:30. After that, the weather took a turn toward the swelteringly, punishingly hot. At least one of the festival's green-leaning water-refilling stations even ran out of water!

The wide-ranging weather was not only quintessentially Midwestern, but also an appropriate complement to Lollapalooza's own commitment to musical diversity. OK, that's a stretch, but come on -- I'm trying to make a metaphor out of a miserable weather front! Anyway, the point is that I decided to spend the day taking in a tour of Lolla's vast and varied musical landscape, seeing artists I was really excited about but also taking in acts that aren't necessarily in my wheelhouse as a pop writer. It was a good trip. Here are the highlights:

Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Parry catches some rays.

When you wake up on festival day and it's raining, you quickly begin imagining a circus of mud and sludge, bodies covered in brown paste like Arnold Schwarzenegger at the end of Predator. I was up for it, having made no preparations for such circumstances. Alas, it was only the first couple performers of the day, Nneka and Health, who had to deal with the showers during their sets. The former I felt bad for, the latter, well, their racket of sub-bass and squelching seemed like it could only be improved by a good dousing. And even if I was slightly disappointed that thunderstorms failed to majestically appear during Arcade Fire's dramatic, emphatic set, the day, on the whole, went just swimmingly.

Public service announcement: water, people. Drink it! I'm amazed that after all these years I'm still witnessing concert goers being carted off by medical staffers drenched in sweat, clearly experiencing acute dehydration. Chicago is hot, and up near the front of these stages it can be like a million degrees, and you can get stuck up there, sandwiched between hundreds of equally sweaty fans. It's easy to lose track of one's basic bodily needs. Take Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zero's barnburner yesterday, where thousands of people totally lost their minds.

Day two at Lollapalooza and both the festival and your trusty team of Rhapsody reporters were hitting our stride. What that meant, however, is that we spent most of the day flitting around the loooong festival grounds and hanging out in the media area on "official business." Much of the time, working a festival from its backstages and bowels can be an exciting! Incredible! Glamorous! (OK, not really glamorous. Have we mentioned that it's hot? Also, there are biting flies! And they are vicious!). This experience is what we are here to convey to you -- the insider info, the behind-the-scenes beef, the "real story" behind your favorite artists' fest experiences (or as much as they'll admit to). Sometimes, however, having a media pass can mean you end up with festival tunnel-vision. Not that I'm complaining or anything -- goodness knows I love my job (you hear that, bosses?) and feel very lucky to slip that dirty, sweaty media bracelet on each day! But since Saturday involved a good deal of writer-ly tasks, I thought I'd just roll with it and provide a glimpse of Lollapalooza from the perspective of someone working it. Then on Sunday, I'll put my fan girl hat on, do nothing but see shows and eat and give you the fest-goer perspective. Sound good? Yes, yes it does.

This is Jamie Lidell. He's wearing somebody's carpet.

I guess most of you probably know this, but for those who don't let me say this: Chicago is awesome. There's like this big reflective sculpture thingy affectionately known as "the bean," a Frank Gehry-designed concert auditorium that throws free shows in the summer, this inexplicably huge lake the far shore of which you can't even see, and then, on certain days of the year, there's this massive festival going on right in the middle of it all, and that's awesome, too. Having been to my share of these Death Star-sized music festivals, I'm pretty close to pronouncing Lollapalooza as the A-No. 1 can't-miss event of the summer. A couple reasons why: 1. The Line-Up is untouchable; 2. the setting (nestled in the belly button of downtown Chicago, flanked on three sides by skyscrapers that cause the sound to echo throughout the whole city so that Lady Gaga's set is audible from literally miles away) is utterly magical; and 3. the beer lines are short! Plus the water's cheap. Plus there's an area in the shade full of hammocks you can just go lay in. Plus did I mention the beer lines are short? It's like they've thought of everything. Anyway, here are my highlights so far:

Lollapalooza is many things. It is a sprawling, sweaty, cacophonous music and arts festival, of course. But it is also, to name just a few: A throwback to a classic era of music (reunited Soundgarden!), as well as a showcase for today's hottest artists (B.o.B.!). A (new this year!) example of environmentalism en masse, complete with recycling contests, boxed (as opposed to bottled) water and "green" fest schwag (whatever that means). An opportunity to hang out with a few thousand of your sweatiest best friends while you're all trapped together on the lawn waiting for Lady Gaga. A place where, as the good Lady herself said, "young people can come together to talk about things that are important to them and get drunk."

Lollapalooza is also a story of rebirth and reinvention. Founder and Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell was reborn as a successful businessman and musical curator, and he reinvented the once-rambling fest itself in 2005 as a destination showcase hosted by Chicago. And, of course, the festival is a tribute to popular music's penchant for constantly inventing and reinventing itself. What better headliner, therefore, than an artist who not only reinvented herself as Lady Gaga, but whose entire career is predicated upon the idea that her fans can be "whoever and whatever they want," as she shouted more than once during her Friday night performance? Not every Lolla attendee would agree with us, of course: Despite the fest's rebirth as an anything-goes affair, it's still a holy site for rock(ism) for many, including the guy at Gaga's concert, who, when she told a story of an ex-boyfriend derisively asking her what she knew about Mark Bolan and glam rock, bellowed back "What do you know?" Ugh.