The major rain held off until after festival hours Friday, but it came a crazy flood not too terribly long after midnight (complete with explosive lightning here in Midtown!) and hasn’t let up all that much, which means today (Saturday) is going to be mucky. (And, yes, Muck Sticky*.)

I managed to catch at least a glimpse of nearly every act on Friday’s bill. Matt Nathanson started out cussing and won me over when he started hootin’ and hollerin’ about the Tigers, only to immediately admit that he knew nothing about the Tigers but that people had told him to mention them if he wanted the crowd to love him. I was pleasantly surprised that The Cult (I keep wanting to write The Cure, but I can’t get everything I want, now can I?) brought the rock as hard as they did. Super Chikan picked and grinned. Ben Harper wailed his heart out. Lurrie Bell (at left) tore that guitar up. Rise Against let their fans nearly kill me. G Love & Special Sauce, uh, did things I’m not familiar with that could probably be described as moderately funky. Tommy Castro and his suggestively dancing bass player laid it down right. Katy Perry wanted all the girls who weren’t prom queen in high school to sing along at the top of their lungs. All American Rejects were painfully attractive and energetic and threw T-shirts and picks into the crowd after the show.

I don’t know how much weather has to do with the turnout, but the crowd size seemed pretty big to me. Clearly the recession and the swine flu and the impending robot takeover and the giant radioactive satellites hurtling toward Earth aren’t keeping people inside this year. That’s excellent. I always feel really bad for a band that has to get up and play in front of a sparse festival crowd.

One more thing: I am kind of digging the altered layout this year. Sure, it means that I have to haul serious haunch to get to the Blues Tent, which I’m used to seeing in the middle of the park, but the trek doesn’t seem as tedious. I may have spoken too soon, of course. We’ve yet to start day two.

— Lindsey

* He plays the Budweiser stage at 2:25 p.m. to kick off the afternoon. I just got done watching the “Head Change” episode of $5 Cover, which is really my first more-than-a-few-seconds-long exposure to Muck. Aaaaand I still don’t get it. But, whatever, he’s got plenty of fans. I can’t imagine he’d care about another snooty art rock fan shrugging her shoulders at his schtick.