By Michelle Hart, Staff Writer

Thousands upon thousands of sweaty, scantily-clad teenagers packed the Meadowlands Sports Complex parking lot on Sunday for day two of the annual Bamboozle Festival.
The festival’s second day, easily the better of the two days, featured performances from Weezer, MGMT, Girl Talk, Motion City Soundtrack and Minus the Bear. Over the years, however, Bamboozle has morphed from a more low-key version of the Van’s Warped Tour into a full-blown festival in its own right, with rides and attractions that would not feel out of place at Six Flags supplementing the music.

Of course, the music is still the main attraction and, if anything, Sunday revealed just how much both the music and its audience have changed over the years. A few years ago, it was unthinkable to consider people like Ke$ha and Girl Talk as playing Bamboozle. Yet, the audience still packed in tightly to bands like Minus the Bear and Motion City Soundtrack, two veterans of the “pop-punk” arena. Though, arguably, Minus the Bear’s popularity amongst this particular demographic—the kind who flocks to absolutepunk.net for their music news—remains puzzling. Their unique brand of synth-pop and progressive rock creates a vast separation between them and their counterparts.

The stars of the current “scene” mostly played during the day, and it is rather interesting to note that the Meadowlands parking lot really seemed to come alive towards the end of the day. Chalk it up to the heat (and the ridiculous water prices), or chalk it up to the audience’s change in music taste; the fact remains, the highlights of the show came at the tail end.

Girl Talk’s set began as the sun went down, a fitting ambience for the party-like atmosphere created by DJ Gregg Gillis and his turntables. Girl Talk’s live show is a phenomenon unlike any other, a spectacle that had hordes of fans takeover the stage in a coup d’état of dancing. The mash-up mastermind mixed all of his “songs” live, churning out such experimental hybrids like “Party in the U.S.A.” and Dr. Dre’s “The Next Episode.” The show quickly transformed into a veritable dance party—complete with strobe lights, fog machines, and giant balloons—that even the most uptight of hipsters and “emo” kids could not help but sing and dance a long to.

Weezer headlined the show, and their nearly two-hour set proved why. Sure, they played though what was essentially a greatest hits collection, but the band’s two encores—which included teases of Van Halen’s “Hot For Teacher” and Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” as well as a cover of co-headliner MGMT’s “Kids”—made it very clear why Rivers Cuomo and the gang have garnered a reputation as one of the most entertaining bands of modern rock music. Ultimately, the set placed a heavy emphasis on Blue Album material including “Undone (The Sweater Song),” “Say It Ain’t So” and “Surf Wax America,” and ended with a explosive rendition of “Buddy Holly” that had virtually everyone in the audience singing along.