McCartney highlights a happy, muddy, ready-to-party Firefly Fest

DOVER, Del. - It doesn't get much cheerier than the scene round about midnight on Friday at the Firefly Music Festival. The world's greatest surviving Beatle was bringing his headlining set at the largest music fest on the East Coast to a crescendo by leading thousands of fans - most more than 40 years his junior - in a sing-along, dance-in-the-mud version of "Hey Jude."

For Paul McCartney, who turned 73 on Thursday, the celebration had begun two hours earlier when he opened at the Woodlands at Dover International Speedway, singing an exultant, rocked-out rendition of his former band's "Birthday" before a sold-out crowd of 90,000 spread over Firefly's sprawling grounds, soaked with heavy rains earlier in the week.

(That weather took a more serious turn Saturday night, as organizers told concertgoers to take shelter when severe storms threatened the grounds.

(NBC10 reported that organizers cleared the festival grounds just before 10 p.m. as headliners Kings of Leon were set to take the main stage, and organizers urged people to take down any tents and canopies.)

It was a much different scene Friday night. "Good evening, Firefly!" the enduring, cute Beatle greeted the crowd, before following "Save Us" from his 2013 album, New, with a robust "Got to Get You Into My Life" - "It's a bit of a party, isn't it?"

It was. Beach balls were flying during performances by bands like the Durham, N.C., neo-trip-hop duo Sylvan Esso - one of more than 40 acts playing each day on seven stages throughout the Woodlands' green, whimsically decorated grounds, where the Killers are to close out Sunday.

The mood was generally joyful throughout McCartney's 32-song set. The genial septuagenarian started off sounding a bit hoarse but loosened up as the night wore on, through Beatles crowd-pleasers like "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" and "Back in the U.S.S.R.," as well as 1970s Wings highlights such as "Live and Let Die," punctuated by fireworks.

But it wasn't all mirthful musical merriment for McCartney, who will stay in the area to perform at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia on Sunday night.

Early on Friday, he made mention of the nine victims of a massacre in a historic black church in South Carolina, dedicating "The Long and Winding Road" to "the people of Charleston. While we're all here, we need to pray for peace and harmony." Later, he sang a lovely solo acoustic version of "Blackbird," which, he reminded listeners, was inspired by 1960s civil rights struggles.

There was also seriousness of purpose to the acts that came immediately before McCartney. To his left on the seriously muddy Pavilion stage, the interracial rap duo of Killer Mike and El-P known as Run the Jewels, one of Firefly's few hip-hop headliners (Snoop Dogg is playing Sunday night), delivered a hard-hitting, commanding set.

Pulling equally from their two self-titled albums, the politically minded tandem dedicated "A Christmas F- Miracle" to the Charleston victims, as well as sending out "Early" to "anyone who was ever shot and killed unjustly by a . . . police officer."

On the main stage, McCartney was preceded by another famous British vegetarian: Morrissey, the mordant Mancunian and former leader of the Smiths who was scheduled to headline the Academy of Music on Saturday. Opening with "Suedehead," from his 1988 solo album, Viva Hate, he asked the crowd the musical question "Why do you come here when you know it makes it hard for me?"

Backed by an occasionally lumbering band and plagued by some sound problems, Morrissey was effective nonetheless, whether empathizing in "World Peace Is None of Your Business" ("Oh Egypt, Ukraine/So many people in pain") or wishing for the end in "Everyday Is Like Sunday." With his closing "Meat Is Murder," however, he drove people from the stage, in some cases to the cheesesteak stand.

Earlier on, the Brooklyn electronic band Big Data proved to be an amusing surprise, with a set that playfully satirized digital culture in the surveillance age. Before the group took the stage, a disembodied Siri-like voice introduced the crowd to "your new favorite band" and announced that during the set, the band would be "collecting your personal data and selling it back to you."

As the heat of a muggy, 90-degree day bore down - more than two-thirds of the crowd camped out, making driving in and out of the fest surprisingly easy, even on a Shore-traffic Friday - the Philadelphia power-pop band Cheerleader took shelter on the shaded Coffeehouse stage. The group - one of three Friday Philadelphia acts, along with the hip-hop tandem Chiddy Bang and electro-pop duo Marian Hill - put on a strong showing with tunes drawn from their inviting debut album The Sunshine of Your Youth. Singer Joe Haller made sure to thank the Cheerleader converts who had also seen the band earlier on the Forest stage and decided just once on a sweltering Friday was not enough.

Besides the music, what makes Firefly, now in its fourth year, such a massive draw for the millennial masses with flowers in their hair and funny hats on their heads? It's its ready-to-party presentation, on grounds that would appear surprisingly bucolic to motorists accustomed to being stuck in Route 1 traffic alongside the hulking Dover Downs.

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