Music For The Masses

Of course, a music festival is only as good as its performers, and it's here that Area: One breaks the bank. Nelly Furtado, 19, glissades across the stage with girly energy and a womanly voice. Incubus, the least tattooed and most melodic of the bands that advertise mutilation in their names, rocks hard and shows promise as a headliner down the road; and lead singer Brandon Boyd has an unintimidating charisma that the girls seem to enjoy. The Roots dutifully combines old-school rap with a jam band's focus on craft, and Paul Oakenfold lights up the dance tent with a scalding, nightclub-worthy set that proves why he's every bit as big as Moby in his native Britain.

Then there's OutKast, the Atlanta hip-hop duo of Andre Benjamin and Antwan Patton that may be America's best live act. Taking the stage shirtless, in billowy, blue harem pants, a platinum wig and wraparound shades, Benjamin looks like nothing so much as a genetic-engineering accident among Stevie Wonder, Carol Channing and Yul Brynner. It's impossible to peel your eyes away from his elastic moves, even with a trio of booming backup singers, step dancers and a catalog of big hits that had the whole place jumping.

So what's missing? The HiFi Buys Amphitheater was pretty full but not filled. Unlike movies, concert-ticket sales take a while to trickle in; and although venues are reporting solid sales, they're not breaking records. Area: One SFX producer Gerry Barad notes that's partly the result of the weak broader economy but admits that the tour's name causes confusion: "Area: One? People are asking where it is, not what it is." Because of the genre cross-pollination, the show has fewer of those spine-tingling moments when the audience sings along as one, though when those moments do come--as in OutKast's B.O.B. (Bombs over Baghdad), which had everyone chanting along gospel-style, "Pow-er, music, electric revival"--they tend to mean a little more.

Moby didn't do himself any favors by following OutKast as Area: One's headliner, but, then, he seems to know that. Taking the stage in an OutKast T shirt, he performed a career-spanning set that didn't try to compete. He played his hits, jumped around like a pixie and worked up a serious sweat. And when it came time for some obligatory rock-star patter, he offered up anything but. "I really do hope that everyone is having a nice time." Not exactly "Hello, Cleveland," but, like Area: One itself, it was Moby at his most sincere.