Field Day, as it turns out, wasn’t

The show went on, but it’s safe to say that the Field Day Music Festival was nothing like the show its organizers envisioned. Radiohead, the Beastie Boys and other star performers still took the stage Saturday but the crowd was faced with 10 hours of steady rain, long lines at concession stands and the drab environs of Giants Stadium in New Jersey, rather than the bucolic setting of Calverton, N.Y., the show’s planned setting.

Permit hassles and last-minute bureaucratic challenges forced the Field Day organizers to move their European-style festival from the small town on Long Island to the stadium and to cut the program from two days to one.

Newsday reported that many of the performances were sterling, but also that fans were still grumbling about the truncated bill, lost deposits and the abrupt move. The paid turnout was about 22,000 fans, far off the 50,000 expected when it was still a two-day affair.