Voodoo Festival Day 2 Brings the Rock With Tool, Cage the Elephant, Ghost & Shakey Graves

Day one at New Orleans’s Voodoo Music + Arts Experience may have been dominated by hip-pop acts like the Weeknd, G-Eazy, and Rae Sremmurd, but day two, Saturday, was all about the rock — featuring alt-prog legends Tool, Taylor Momsen-fronted rockers the Pretty Reckless, prosthetic-headed Swedish metalheads Ghost, the Claypool Lennon Delirium (the “Claypool” stands for Primus’s Les, and the “Lennon” for rock royalty Sean), and even rising bands Nothing But Thieves and the Breton Sound respectively covering the Pixies and the Who.

The day began, actually, in the stripped-down Toyota Music Den with the supremely rawkin’ Shakey Graves, aka Austin’s Americana/blues/self-described “hobo folk” one-man-band Alejando Rose-Garcia. Mr. Graves’s smoky, swampy, ramshackle sound drew a beyond-capacity crowd and plenty of hoots ‘n’ hollers, but the best-received roots-rocker of his all-too-brief set was “City in a Bottle,” dedicated to the now-mythical, septuagenarian NYC prostitute Monique the Freak. “I need an easy dollar, are you trick or are you treat,” Rose-Garcia grinningly rasped, making a probably unintentional reference to Halloween. “If she was six teeth younger and I had half a mind, you know I’d carry her away from that wicked thing outside.”

Over on the main Altar Stage, Kentucky indie-rockers Cage the Elephant were a wild and unexpected revelation, less “indie” or “alt” and just straight-up glam-punk. Floppy-fringed, sweaty-and-shirtless frontman Matt Shultz was the three-headed monster lovechild of Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop (when he crowd-surfed, all that was missing from the spectacle was a randomly passed jar of peanut butter), and Thurston Moore — with a touch of Andrew WK, thanks to the fake Halloween-costume blood smeared across his chin. (At we hope it was fake?)

By the time Shultz collapsed to his knees in some sort of modified rock ‘n’ roll child’s pose, then mopped up his chest sweat with the band’s setlist before throwing the balled-up, soggy paper into the elated crowd, we were sold. Rock ‘n’ roll is not dead. The Elephant has most definitely entered the room. (Even the above-mentioned G-Eazy tweeted “cage the f—king elephant” in awe during their set.)

Perhaps Saturday’s Halloween-ready rock act, however, was the epic and operatic Ghost (think KISS meets Empire of the Sun meets Turbonegro), resplendent in horned Hellraiser headdresses and Victorian suits on Pepsi’s second stage. Pyro blasts, synchronized fist-pumps, rants against “the dude with the bad hair” Donald Trump, occasional keytar solos… (Stefon-from-SNL voice) this band had EVERYTHING, all the tricks and treats a theatrical-rock fan could hope for.

A bit more poppy but just as theatrical, and also on the Pepsi Stage, was Gothic-Lolita chanteuse Melanie Martinez, continuing her shockingly successful self-reinvention from Season 3 teen Voice finalist to Alternative Press cover girl and full-fledged girl-powered phenom. On a pastel-nightmare stage that looked like the haunted set of Tom Petty’s Alice in Wonderland-inspired “Don’t Come Around Here No More” video, bedecked with scary man-sized bunny rabbits, stacks of baby blocks, and a massive birthday cake, Martinez, looking like a piece of Halloween candy in her tea-party frock, charmingly performed her spooky, tinkling carnival pop. Her All Hallows’ Eve-appropriate American Horror Story: Freak Show theme, “Carousel,” went over especially well with a sprawling audience of adoring girls — many dressed exactly like Martinez in frilly pinafores, two-toned Cruella wigs, painted-on freckles, and oversized head-bows, and all chanting her name. Kudos to Martinez for being the rare reality star to make a credible transition to the “real world.” What other Voice veteran could open for Ghost, really?

Wrapping up Voodoo day two’s rocking festivities on the Altar Stage were Tool — who, due to City Park’s strict 11 p.m. curfew, had to keep things short and bittersweet, playing only nine expansive, monstrous songs (including “Ænima” and “Stinkfist,” but no “Schism” or “Sober” — and no encore) in 90 rushed, workmanlike minutes. It was clear that the rabid, Tool-T-shirted fans craved more from the enigmatic Maynard James Keenan and his incredibly tight, machine-precision band (who hadn’t played Voodoo since 2001, and haven’t released as album since 2006). But at least Keenan returns to Voodoo on Sunday with his other band, Puscifer.

Tune in Sunday at yahoo.com/voodoo, starting at 3:30 CT, for Yahoo Music’s final day of live streaming from the Voodoo Music + Arts Experience, featuring what is sure to be a stupendous closing performance by Arcade Fire.