And so it is. Commodore Quake achieved the Kafkaesque proportions of randomness to which it aspired this summer, but alas, on a minor league level. Maryland staple O.A.R. (listed as a potential opening act this summer in the futile act of democracy) will headline the event with Pitbull opening. My disappointment that Lady Gaga is not opening for the Black Crowes knows no bounds.

On the one hand, baby, I party like a rockstar, look like a movie star, play like an all-star, f--- like a pornstar, baby, I'm a superstar. So there's that. Squaring off with this: Pitbull does not, in fact, look like a movie star; rather a heavily Photoshopped latter day Robin Hood with a stick-on mustache, who steals cars from AIG executives and gives them to strippers.

O.A.R., of course, bears an impeccable reputation as a Great Live Act (especially for those from the Mid-Atlantic), and slides seamlessly into Guster's slot two years ago. Critically, however, Guster opened for KANYE WEST. So, for seniors, this will shake out like: Ludacris, Kanye, Lil' Wayne...and O.A.R.? Well, they're not rappers. Crack open the old ledger for the charts:

• Lil Wayne: one number one single, nine top ten (one number one album)
• Kanye: three number one singles, 10 top ten singles (three number one albums)
• Luda: four number one singles, 14 top ten singles (three number one albums)

Perhaps I underestimate their collective worth in my mind. After all, there is no quantitative measure of cultural prevalance. If there were, O.A.R.'s Great Live Act status would lose. Lose in a way that the Pittsburgh Pirates sometimes (often) lose. Objectively speaking.

Removing the distributer that Music Group uses and inconvenient prison sentences, O.A.R. would be a great Rites band, and T.I. an excellent Quake act. Not that he wasn't also an excellent Rites act -- I commend Music Group for tripping over the great truth of Lil' Jon's quest to make the final Rites act a massive frat party, and latching onto that truth and hammering it into an awesome, awesome suit of armor.

The thing about Quake, and I suspect the Music Group knows this, is that people care mightily about the ability to say to their friends elsewhere, not in Vandyland, I am seeing Common open for Ludacris, Guster for Kanye, Lupe Fiasco for Lil' Wayne. Those are quality mixes. The sentence "I am going to see Pitbull tonight" is like saying "I watched 'Obsessed' last night."

The Music Group has serious constraints as a college campus booker, but no single fact illustrates the disappointment here better than the two Nashville concerts bookending Commodore Quake: Girl Talk on Sept. 25, and Kings of Leon the day after Quake. THAT would have been a legendary Homecoming show.