FORCE AND FURY

Eyes as wide as dish plates, chest heaving, hair flying, veins bulging, Zach de la Rocha seemed like the kind of dude who was born with a raised fist.

"Your anger is a gift," the Rage Against the Machine frontman bellowed, a thunderbolt of righteous indignation who puffed himself up like a cat with its back arched, ready to pounce.

Less a band than a battering ram, Rage closed Vegoose on Sunday night with force and fury, their tunes hitting the crowd like cinder blocks hurled from the stage.

Driven by an airtight rhythm section with a bassist, Tim Commerford, who just bulldozes through the band's repertoire with abandon, Rage loosened hard rock's limbs with some steel-toed funk.

Guitarist Tom Morello uses his instrument to mimic turntables, wailing sirens and buzzing circuitry, rendering riff fests like "Know Your Enemy" and "Calm Like a Bomb" monster jams that combusted like paper on fire.

Their fat-free set was far short of the two-hours they were given to play, but it was still a knock-out blow after two long days of music, $6 beers, greasy fingers, sweat, grass stains, wild costumes, bored-looking cops, clouds of reefer and shirtless 60-year-olds.

Speaking of which, the bare-chested Iggy Pop demonstrated what it feels like to get your bell rung by Grandpa -- you know, if your grandpa was a swaggering ball of sinew and sex with an equally seductive and sinister voice that sounds as if it was Fed Exed from the depths of hell.

It wasn't a minute into the band's set of lean, no-nonsense, powerhouse rock 'n' roll before Pop was dry humping the stack of amps that he'd hoisted himself upon, only to hurl himself to the ground, sing from his back, unzip his pants and smash half-a-dozen mics into scrap iron.

"Out of my mind on a Saturday night," he yowled. "Beautiful baby, feel my love."

The crowd did just that, invading the stage at one point.

A similar scene erupted during a chaotic performance from Brit firebrand MC M.IA., whose riotous, intensely percussive set on Saturday night ended with the stage shaking from all the dancing fans who had clambered atop it.

In past years, Vegoose has been defined by a loose, laid-back vibe abetted by a healthy lineup of jams bands. That presence was still felt this year with groups like moe., ALO and Umphrey's McGee, but there was also a newfound surplus of bombast this time.

Rappers Public Enemy fleshed their sound out with a hard-hitting backing band, adding beefy guitar riffs to their fiery politicking. The Queens of the Stone Age led a tutorial in air guitar during a rock 'em sock 'em "Misfit Love," understated indie rockers The Shins tackled Pink Floyd's sweeping "Dark Side of the Moon" and Brit power trio Muse paired jungle-dense riffs with gravity-defying vocals for a sound that was beatific and bracing at once.

There were plenty of smaller pleasures -- the intricate, dissonant guitar interplay of Battles, the digital psychedelia of Ghostland Observatory-- but Vegoose ultimately belonged to the larger than life, like French electronica duo Daft Punk, who headlined Saturday night amid inverted pyramids of light and a nonstop buffet of beats.

The band's a study in delayed gratification: They toy with the crowd by stripping the bottom end from the start of their songs before eventually dropping the beat -- like a refrigerator thrown from a two-story window -- as the audience erupts.

There may never have been as many arms in the air in Las Vegas as when these two dove into the opening strains of their hit "One More Time."

It was a suitably overwhelming preface to Rage's climactic conclusion the following night, helping to engender what seemed like a bigger crowd this year than last, which should bode well for Vegoose's uncertain future.

"All hell can't stop us now!" de la Rocha bellowed shortly before Vegoose was all said and done.

Let's hope the same can be said of the fest he set fire to.

Jason Bracelin's "Sounding Off" column appears on Tuesdays. Contact him at 383-0476 or e-mail him at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com.