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By Judy Pak

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

The heat was on, the lineup was hot, the meat was cookin’, the crowd was massive, but, surprisingly, the concert ended up cold.

Yes, this year it was bigger, longer and louder. And with that under consideration the concert should have been a day-long, hulking, sun-drenched, beer-soaked, hormone-charged, rockin’ heaven for rock fans.

But it was just nowhere near that.

Instead, KROQ’s annual Weenie Roast offered 50,000 fans a numbing 12 hours of bleak modern rock at Anaheim’s Edison International Field.

Over the past eight years, the Weenie Roast has been known to be bigger and badder each time, but this year it was kinder and gentler than ever before, resembling Lilith Fair more than anything else.

It wasn’t difficult for Third Eye Blind to sedate the audience with its complete lack of flair and aggressiveness. Lead singer Jenkins doesn’t have the greatest voice as is, and one too many times he slipped into an annoying whine that sent thirsty throngs out of their seats and made it increasingly difficult to navigate the concession area.

Creed crooned too many sound-alike songs until even the band’s fans got nauseated. But the fireworks compensated for the band’s unexplosive music.

Ozzy Osbourne reached one of his lowest points for someone who had once played such an integral role in one of heavy rock’s seminal bands. He lost the visceral and metaphysical élan he had helming Black Sabbath during those awesome peak years.

Apparently, Ozzy rates his solo stuff much as we do, feeling compelled to include a Black Sabbath reunion in his performance.

From several key acts it seems like if you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it all. For example, if Cypress Hill is tired of rap or has simply lost the creative spirit for the music that brought them to the forefront, why beat the listeners to death by revisiting old territory with the same routine over and over again?

The Offspring, however, did deliver a solid performance but never really ascended the innovative plateau. Sure, they’ve still got the chops, but their mild sermonizing and positive messages, admirable as they may be, are beginning to sound a little, uh, parental.

Godsmack’s unbearable performance proved there shouldn’t be any more room for inspired imitators in metal. Anaheim’s own Lit and opening act Incubus really didn’t offer anything memorable but its sets were still strong enough to make Third Eye Blind look like a sister group.

In this day of pseudo-macho, kitchen-sink, smarmy acts dominating the Weenie Roast, the women were not forgotten. The huge video screen’s camera scanned the crowd encouraging the females to represent with bare breasts. Finally, the crowd began to generate a raucous ambiance when No Doubt’s Gwen Stefani, the lone woman on the bill, whipped up a schizo, bouncy set of ska-inflected rock. With her unique riot girl-meets-fragile babe personality, she displayed a broad palette of emotions, styles and sounds through her dynamic ballads, testosterone-fueled rock, diaphanous slow rock, and a dash of power pop.

It also helped that Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots was as eccentric and spontaneous as ever, appearing in a bight red wig and a tiny silver dress, making a point to the crowd that he wanted to show cohesion with underrepresented women.

Despite the singer’s much-publicized trials and tribulations with drugs, he and the band have not lost their ability to tantalize the crowd with clarity and vibrancy.

The spell was been cast by the undisputed leader of the night, Korn. Overloads of angst-ridden teens everywhere released their frustration and used their heavy music as a punching bag for their daily lives, a temporary antidote to their bitterness.

Lead singer Jonathan Davis’s pained vocals rode high above the quintet’s creepy metallic grind, as it engendered a kind of narcotic mood, a condition seething with the vulgar frustration of the young and disillusioned.

However, Korn didn’t misplace its rage in a wash of complicated indulgences, and it hadn’t forgotten the importance of humor in such bizarre and monstrous musical expression.

On the other hand, Davis’s good pal Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit was unable to initiate a lively response from the crowd in his attempts to recreate the pandemonium at last year’s Woodstock. And, boy, did Durst try hard. He was as restless as a caged leopard, hyping the crowd to jump and “bum rush the stage” with his lame rendition of House of Pain’s “Jump Around.” And during “Nookie” he evoked fans to break through the security barricade.

The crowd’s reluctance to turn annihilative demonstrated that Fred has lost his trademark ability to incite a teeming horde to hostility like he did last summer. Maybe security was doing a better job, or maybe some people are sick of Durst’s typical anthem of anti-authoritarianism.

As the eccentric card in this year’s lineup, Moby bore the challenging mantle of bring the only electronic act. His performance only proved that the entire genre’s mettle and live viability was greeted with indifference of tens of thousands of kids. Moby lost the crowd’s attention by running around and doing a little of everything and nothing, while his venomous comments about frat boys lowered the energy level.

All in all, the Weenie Roast did do a good job of being an open-minded festival, providing a little something for anyone and nothing for everybody. It’s just too bad the quality of music and atmosphere had to be sacrificed for the immensity of the concert.