“It’s gonna be an insane clusterfuck,” says recent RS cover boy Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine, who’s sitting with his girlfriend, Becky, one row in front of the Smoking Section on an America West flight from JFK to Las Vegas. Levine is referring to the madness that will soon descend on Sin City as the VMAs take center stage this weekend, but he’s definitely looking forward to it. In addition to headlining a party for the LifeBeat charity on Saturday night, Maroon 5 will perform at Sunday’s awards ceremony, with producer extraordinaire Mark Ronson joining them on a funkified remix of their current single, “Wake Up Call.” And, as of 10 AM Eastern time on Friday morning, Levine still has no idea what’s up Ronson’s sleeve. “I know it’s gonna be cool,” Levine says. “Because Amy Winehouse has the best record of the last year.” Levine tells the S.S. that he’s also looking forward to hitting the blackjack tables later at the Hard Rock Hotel, even though, over the years, he’s squandered a small fortune there.

Last night Snoop Dogg stepped up at one of many Rolling Stone 40th Anniversary parties at the Hard Rock Hotel. (Incubus and the Bravery kicked it off last night. Today there’s a RS-sponsored celebrity poker tourney, as well as an outdoor concert with Linkin Park, and a late-night blowout at the Joint with Kanye West.) The Hard Rock also houses a club called Body English. That’s where Snoop held his afterparty. On the balcony, Britney Spears drank, smoked butts and looked extremely hot. (The word at the Palms hotel, where the VMAs are going down on Sunday, is that Britney’s show-opening routine will feature a slew of aerialists.)
The S.S. headed over to the Palms for a performance by current RS cover star Kanye West that went down in one of the ridiculous suites in the Playboy wing. When we got there, we ran into the Linkin Park dudes — Joe Hahn, Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington — who were standing idly in the casino. Up on the 27th floor, Kanye, wearing a black tuxedo, black gloves and white shades, busted through a bunch of tunes from Graduation (in stores in three days) including “Champion”, “Flashing Lights”, “Stronger” and, with help from rapper T-Pain, “The Good Life.” MTV filmed it all — with amazing shots from a helicopter, which hovered outside the hotel suite — and these will be the cutaway performances by Kanye during the VMA telecast. In the house were Kim “We’ve seen you naked” Kardashian, Common, umbrella-boy Farnsworth Bentley, and lots of photogenic ladies.

One side-note: The Kanye performance was such a logistical nightmare — in terms or setting up camera angles and executing shots — that there were constant delays. And that doesn’t necessarily bode well for the live telecast on Sunday, which will be the first VMAs broadcast from a Vegas casino. One MTV source told us that the show might just be a trainwreck. With Britney on the bill, the odds of that happening go through the roof. So our fingers are crossed, but we’re not going to be putting down any VMAs money down in the casino.