Chloe Axelrod of San Francisco dances Saturday near the exit of the cabaret tent at Vegoose. Photo by ISAAC BREKKEN/REVIEW-JOURNAL Deborah Ferraro, left, with her arm around Wade Govig, finishes what's left of her drink Saturday while attending the Vegoose wedding of Todd McVeigh, right, and Anna Yardley, officiated by preacher Rusty Meyers. The ceremonies held in conjunction with the music festival were not legally binding. Photo by JANE KALINOWSKY/REVIEW-JOURNAL Members of Vau de Vire's Twisted Cabaret Circus, featuring Lucent Dossier, mingle with the crowd Saturday at Sam Boyd Stadium. Photo by ISAAC BREKKEN/REVIEW-JOURNAL

Even the paramedics wore tie-dye.

The special uniform adopted by American Medical Response workers for the Vegoose festival Saturday blended in nicely among 40,000 colorfully clad hippies, feather-festooned freaks and devoted music fans gathered from across North America to see a wide spectrum of bands rocking Sam Boyd Stadium and three stages on its nearby grassy fields.

The big draws at the oddly named festival might have been Dave Matthews and Beck, but the carnival atmosphere and attendees' bizarre get-ups sometimes proved just as engaging.

Witches and wizards mixed with scantily clad ladybugs, dominatrix cops and what seemed like scores of women dressed as fairies.

"It's Halloween weekend, so why wouldn't I dress up?" said Todd Phrommer of Raleigh, N.C., outfitted as John Lennon on the album cover of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

Perry Lavin wasn't costumed, but the bushy-haired redhead resembled Napoleon Dynamite as he kicked his legs in the air and pumped his fists maniacally to the Southern rock sounds of the North Mississippi All-Stars.

"I can't help but dance; I smoke pot at every show," said Lavin, 20, of Montgomery, Ala.

As Lavin's statement suggests, the pungent smell of marijuana was as ubiquitous Saturday as bare feet and guitar feedback.

But not everyone was getting high, as some bands onstage bemoaned their lack of chemical enhancement.

"Does anybody have any mushrooms? I've never been this sober in my entire life," said Nick Diamonds, singer of the bizarro rock-quintet Islands.

Les Claypool, singer and bassist for Primus, needed no drugs, saying the location was enough to inspire his performance.

"There's a little element of Vegas that makes you step it up a little," Claypool said backstage.

Other performers marveled at the perfect outdoor festival weather: cloudless skies and temperatures hovering around 70 degrees.

"We couldn't have had a nicer day, could we?" Jack Antonoff, lead singer and guitarist of Steel Train, asked shortly after the New York jam band kicked off its noon set.

Even local politicians were out enjoying themselves.

"My teenage daughters here don't know who Dave Matthews is, and I'm going to teach them," Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid said as he took in a performance by The Decemberists.

Reid said he was looking forward to future Vegooses.

"I think we ought to do it every year," he said.

When not catching sets at a massive stage inside the stadium or one of the three outside it, festival attendees participated in costume contests, recited fake nuptials at a wedding chapel with celebrity impersonators officiating or took rides on a towering Ferris wheel.

Many fans who showed up for more than 10 hours of music looked sleep-deprived. A good number of them had attended the initial Vegoose performances Friday night when Matthews, Trey Anastasio and others played venues near the Strip.

"Trey played 'til 3 a.m., and I didn't get back to the hotel 'til 4," Jeremy Greaves, 25, said as he waited to get into the stadium about 11:30 a.m.

"I didn't go to bed."

Review-Journal staff reporter Melissa Sullivan contributed to this report.