Osheaga Festival 2012, Day Two: Garbage Proves Timeless, Snoop Plays Dogg and Lion + More

By the end of the second day at the Osheaga Festival, as you approached the large schedule posted near the entrance of the event, it appeared that a fan had scrawled out the "Dogg" in rapper Snoop Dogg's name and, of course, written "Lion" in instead. That was the night's big draw and main source of anticipation -- a headlining rapper who recently reinvented himself as a reggae artist.

After a half-hour delay, a snippet of Snoop Lion's debut single, "La La La," began blasting through the speakers, and shortly after, Snoop himself appeared in red, black, yellow and green attire, complete with Rasta hat and -- as part of his "reincarnation" -- a Jamaican accent.

OK, so this was going to be a Lion set ... except it wasn't. Snoop went on to churn out medleys of his classic rap hits, dropping his usual shout-outs to smoking weed. What we ended up with was a classic Snoop set of Dogg hits with a glimmer of what's to come with parts of his reggae persona slowly taking over. It was quite the bipolar way to end our evenings, but Snoop fans ate it up regardless.

Over on the electronic stage, just prior to Snoop Dogg/Lion's set, Swedish electro-pop outfit Little Dragon ended the night on a high note, rallying up a massive dance party in the muddy rave-like setting. Pulling mostly from their latest album, Ritual Union, with selected cuts from other albums, lead singer Yukimi Nagano commanded the audience with her seemingly non-commanding voice, wielding a racket-shaped tambourine for most of their set. The rest of the band was left to man the myriad of synths and drum machines cluttering the stage. Perhaps one of the best sounding bands of the night, Little Dragon's layers of crystal-clear rhythms and beats, such as those on "Shuffle a Dream" and "Little Man," pulsated through the audience and got the crowd moving the whole time.

Nineties alt-rock heroes Garbage rocked the night with a jam-packed set of greatest hits. Garbage is essentially a band that gets better with age. Songs such as "Stupid Girl" and "Push It" sound like they can be hit singles today, proving how surprisingly ahead of their time their music was. Lead singer Shirley Manson's charisma is so infectious that even the people sitting furthest back from the festival could feel her stage presence.

Elsewhere, Montreal's Young Galaxy returned with their second show in a year. The dream-pop rockers have spent the past year in the studio completing their new album, and while there were no signs of those new tracks in their set, they still appeared to be in tip-top shape, performing hits from their discography including "We Have Everything" and "Blown Minded."