If day two of the Verge Music Festival proved anything, it’s that even the Fringe Stage has its limitations and even the mightiest bands have half-lives.

One of the simplest rules the festival seemed to develop for itself during day one was that the Fringe Stage, situated under the roof of the Potawatomi Binge Casino Pavilion, was best served with middle-of-the-road indie acts with pleasant, invigorating, innovative sounds. Every single band that graced the Fringe Stage on the first day of the fest was an up-and-comer, a not-quite-there-yet demonstration of the genre-straddling diversity of the modern indie scene, culminating in the quiet dream-pop twang of She & Him.

And while the stage got off to a great start on Saturday with the manic electro-hip-hop of Figureheads and the reserved classical songwriting touch of Geri X, for some reason it eschewed that winning formula halfway through the day and went with Invade Rome, a local southern hard rock outfit that only succeeded in being both creatively empty and very, very boring.

Invade Rome’s time slot was one taken up the previous day by The Championship, a group that effectively and beautifully combined the stadium rhythm-and-blues of The Rolling Stones and the destitute Americana of Springsteen’s Nebraska, yet all Invade Rome managed to do was remind everyone that yes, Lynyrd Skynyrd was once a band, and yes, they were miles better than this. Not exactly the best choice for a festival struggling to make a name for itself outside its bigger, blue-collar counterpart.

Following Invade Rome was big-time local risers, Jaill, who provided both a musical and energetic lift for the beleaguered stage. Their driving, chipper, surf-rock infused indie rock drew on everyone from The Beach Boys to The Hold Steady (whom they will be touring the West Coast with later this year).

The real star of day two, oddly, was the Verge Stage (better known as the Miller Lite Oasis), where band after band brought both originality and big-name starpower to a stage that had been continuously tepid the day before.

From the opening act Locksley (a renowned unsigned band) to closing festival headliners Weezer, it was as if everything suddenly clicked for the Verge organizers; what Day One was for the Fringe Stage, Day Two was for the Verge Stage. Consider that the 5 p.m. timeslot was occupied by local group Red Knife Lottery on Friday, but on Saturday was being played by The Raveonettes, a renowned Jesus And Mary Chain-influenced noise-rock outfit out of Denmark.

Following The Raveonettes was Cold War Kids, who have a certified smash hit to their name – 2006’s “Hang Me Up To Dry,” a song about a pair of pants. To their credit, Cold War Kids didn’t disappoint a crowd that was already swelling despite the rain in anticipation of Weezer, who wouldn’t play for another three-and-a-half hours.

Cold War Kids’ biggest asset was their knack for junkyard experimentation, a flair more apparent on 2008’s Loyalty to Loyalty than their better-received debut Robbers & Cowards. Guitarist Jonnie Russell smashed a stray symbol with a rattle, while Willett discordantly pounded on the piano keyboard to create a sense of industrialized, unsettling friction, which eventually swelled into a wholly terrifying, cacophonous finale for the closer, “We Used to Vacation.”

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the entire festival was AFI (A Fire Inside), the one-time straight-edge heroes that Verge slotted for an hour-long, frenzied 8 p.m. set in the pouring rain and howling wind as Weezer’s official opener.

AFI have always represented the more inspired end of the goth-rock set; unlike contemporaries My Chemical Romance and Hawthorne Heights, they successfully draw on influences that vary from Gary Numan, The Cure, David Bowie, and The Misfits, to create a genre of music unto themselves – call it “horror glam” – that is entirely approachable, dark, and often personally and emotionally destitute instead of simply whiny and irritating.

Of all the bands that played Verge in 2010, AFI (whom the audience had obviously been eagerly anticipating) easily brought the most vitality to the proceedings, running and dashing and leaping (and posing – my goodness did they strike poses) with the manic energy of caffeine-fueled high-schoolers at a track meet.

It’s rather surprising how many alt-radio hits AFI has scored in its existence, and they pounded them out song after song – varying from truly hardcore punk to emo – with about as much frequency as raindrops hammered the appreciative mass of young people below them.

Now, let’s pause for a second.

Imagine for a moment that it’s 1997, and you are George Lucas, writer/director/producer of some of the most influential, innovative films of all time. On the heels of a successful rerelease of your most famous movies, you decide the story is not enough, and embark on writing three new films, which you will direct, to attempt to fill in some of the narrative and thematic holes – as well as simply provide a fun continuation to an awesome story that two generations of people will now have grown up on.

The resulting films are all critical duds, widely missing those narrative and thematic marks that you were attempting to replicate. The general public, along with all of your rabid fans, continues to see them, however, hopeful somehow that you will retain your former glory and they will relive the glory of experiencing the awe-inspiring spectacle of your once-great franchise once again, each time to resounding failure. There are some bright spots, yes – occasionally a moment of brilliance will shine through in a battle scene or an interpersonal exchange – but for the most part all the audience is left with is a profound sense of nostalgia for those original properties and those original experiences.

That’s what Rivers Cuomo has become. Rivers Cuomo is like George Lucas, fruitlessly attempting time and again to recreate the Weezer of the early 1990s, to continue on with a brand that has long since been devoid of any musical ingenuity. Occasionally there is a bright spot – like 2005’s “Perfect Situation,” a desperately lovelorn song that is honestly as good as anything on Pinkerton – but for the most part we’re left with drivel like “Beverly Hills” or the utterly worthless “Can’t Stop Partyin’,” which even Lil’ Wayne couldn’t improve.

And for more than half of Weezer’s set, supposedly the pinnacle of the entire Verge festival, that’s what the audience was left with: Cuomo’s vapid, silly, postmodern deconstruction of rockstardom that features none of the wit or even a vague sense of the artistry of Weezer’s first few records. Their self-titled debut, the “blue album,” is an undisputed classic rock and roll record, and the 1996 emo follow-up, Pinkerton, has become one of the most critically lauded rock records of the 1990s over time. Even 2001’s “green album” isn’t really all that bad, with songs like “Hash Pipe” and “Island in the Sun” to hang its hat on.

But Weezer’s dorky self-awareness has somehow morphed into music industry self-awareness, and attempts to parody their own social ineptitude and geekiness have erupted into the kinds of pseudo-comedy they’ve released on recent records. An intelligent band would have loaded its set with classics wall-to-wall, but Weezer instead decided to pull very nearly half of their set from their critically-despised post-green album material, including one hell of a baffling Lady Gaga/MGMT mashup/cover at the end of their first encore, an apparent riff on self-righteous popstar pseudo-profundity that featured Cuomo in a platinum wig, was intolerable from start to finish, and featured a joke that very few kids in the audience seemed to be in on.

And when Weezer performed modern “hits,” Cuomo’s weird, energetic maniacism made him seem like somebody’s uncle a few years past his prime, determined to hold on to the last strands of his coolness.

But when Weezer played their classics – five songs from the blue album, two from the green album, and sadly only one from Pinkerton – it was still a hell of an experience. Watching Cuomo shred the guitar like a kid off his meds on “Undone (The Sweater Song)” is an inspiring thing even now, and he’s still more than capable of channeling the brilliant, tragic pathos of “Why Bother?”

For those few, far-between moments of clarity during Weezer’s hour-and-a-half-long set (like the lightsaber duel in The Phantom Menace), it was easy to be struck by uncontrolled glee: here we see rock stars, living legends, four (plus-one) of the most influential musicians who have ever lived, who provided the up-and-coming indie and emo scenes with a pop-music stepping stone with which they could become culturally prominent and themselves influential.

Rivers Cuomo’s insane antics (like rolling in puddles and pretending to drunkenly swill “vodka”) now seemed hilarious, and the band’s subtle rapport became evidence of old friends who know each other intuitively instead of four guys being bored.

I suppose it was a stroke of genius for Verge to book Weezer to close out the whole thing. No matter their modern output and loathsome critical response, they’re still Weezer, and they still killed it Saturday night, even if half their songs were vile, lifeless messes of long-dead irony.

If anything, the home run of a closing set provided a strong selling point for next year’s festival – if indeed there is one – amidst a whole host of lessons learned.

Verge has potential.