In one of the most eclectic evenings one could spend listening to live music, Happy Chichester, Busdriver and RJD2 rocked Sonar just a few Saturdays ago.

Opening up the show was Happy Chichester, performing his early-evening solo act before a modest audience of scenesters. It would be reasonable to expect an audience to wonder just what a man with a guitar performing an alt-country song called "Silent Movie", complete with harmonica, was doing opening for RJD2. Fortunately for Chichester, his obvious glee when he performs is infectious, and rubs off on the audience. And in case just having fun playing music isn't enough, in a nod to hip-hop heads in the crowd Happy broke out the beatbox on "Me And My Machine", and emulated a didgeridoo during the course of his set.

Setting down the guitar, Chichester went on to perform the single from his new album Lovers Come Back, "Artificial Fanfare (Music In My Head)", as well as "A Man Needs An Airplane", (kind of) dedicated to the girl in the audience with the airplane earrings. Just as demonstrated on Lovers Come Back, Happy Chichester is a multi-talented musician, and his live set this night is telling of why his live concert bootleg, Live At The Aladdin Theatre, became its own form of underground currency, selling on eBay for as high as $50.

After his set, I had the chance to speak with Happy about the tour and what it's been like traveling as a solo act for the first time, as well as opening for RJD2. Happy admitted that the tour's lineup was obviously somewhat eclectic (Happy's brand being markedly different from Busdriver's maniacally uptempo hip-hop and RJD2's similarly up tempo hip-hop/techno sound), but noted that Baltimore was a city where music fans appeared to be very open to broad ranges of sound.

Happy explains that different cities have their own persona, and that some "like Austin and [based on tonight] Baltimore" are cities that love music and where artists love to come and perform for such a fun and receptive crowd. Having spent the previous night in DC at the 9:30 Club (which Chichester describes as one of the "best places play" anywhere), I explained that Baltimore often was treated as DC's ugly cousin, which he admitted he had heard but reiterated how impressed he was with this night's crowd and how well received he felt by them.

Happy went on to share a small piece of his personal history, being born in Braddock Heights, Maryland, and how special this show was to him, returning to Maryland as a solo artist for the first time. With this brief conversation, and Happy's touching remarks about Any Given Tuesday's review of Lovers Come Back, I left Happy to relax a bit before coming back to the stage with RJD2 as a member of his full band.

Next to take the stage, Busdriver immediately changed the tone of the evening with his uber-speed rapping and ultra-weird stage persona, complete with party hats. After all, it's a party, right? From the piano hook and crowd call on "Avantcore" to the delectable strangeness of "Casting Agent And Cowgirls" and reggaeton beat of "Kill Your Employer", Busdriver by design is meant to mess with your head. Personally, I'm convinced it's all that reverb in the second microphone. Though if Busdriver had delivered on the guitar solo "with my tongue around the frets" that he mentioned, that would probably do the trick, too. Hopefully he'll continue making his mark on hip-hop so it can bounce back from abysmal sales and return to a glory of producing cutting-edge sounds. Busdriver has streaming audio on his MySpace, and MP3s on his site.

By the time RJD2 took the stage, the crowd had already broken loose with the electric boogaloo during the Busdriver set, and they were hungry for RJD2 plus his full band. Switching instruments during the set like pop stars switch wardrobes, RJD2, Happy Chichester and Derek DiCenzo moved around the keys, the strings, and the decks like dervishes, before moved behind the decks and beat machines and cut loose. Complete with makeshift video screen featuring cut scenes and a close-up on RJD2's fingerwork, the crowd got live with RJD2 following up on two very capable opening acts and the full band set.

RJD2 plays Starscape Festival in Baltimore on June 9.