The 50th annual Grammy ceremony failed to provide many stellar moments, but the weekend was a wild ride. With a few exceptions — Kanye West’s touching dedication to his mother, the Foo Fighters, Tina Turner, Cirque Du Soleil’s Love-in — the best moments happened behind the scenes.

Click here for photos from the Grammy Awards and here for shots from the big afterparties.

When we heard that Rod Stewart was at Clive Davis’ annual pre-Grammy party, the Smoking Section had to say hey: for our money, he epitomizes what it means to be a rock star. “I want to make a blues record,” he told us. “You know, Muddy Waters, the old stuff, and I want it to be backed by the Black Keys.” What do you think about that idea, he asked us — and we responded that the collaboration had the potential to be amazing. “Do you think that they know who I am?” he asked.

Mark Ronson was everywhere we turned: We first saw the future Producer of the Year on Friday night, at the Roosevelt Hotel, where he threw a party, DJ’ing into the wee hours. Of course Ronson produced Winehouse’s masterpiece, Back to Black, and kept joking around that in her absence, he was prepared to sarcastically accept her trophies as if they were his own. “It’s been a long road to get here,” he began. He also joked to us that, by taking his mom, Anne Dexter-Jones, to the Grammys as his date, he will heretofore be acknowledged as a sensitive, sweet child, no matter his future indiscretions. (That’s a lesson he learned from Justin Timberlake, whose mom is always his Plus One for the big award shows.) It was fun to see his excitement when he and Amy took home Record of the Year.

Either Winehouse, the Foos or West would have deserved Album of the Year, but by canceling each other out the award somehow went to Herbie Hancock, with his take on Joni Mitchell tunes. When the announcement rang through the Staples Center, there was a moment of silence. Backstage, in the press room at least, there was a collective gasp. We definitely dig Herbie, but this was definitely a strange album for him to take home the big one.

The guys in Wilco were in Los Angeles all weekend — they were also partying at the Roosevelt on Friday night, on the comfy couches in the bar — and it was sad that they weren’t acknowledged by the Recording Academy for their amazing album, Sky Blue Sky. (Though it was nice to see the always humble Jeff Tweedy applaud the Lifetime Achievement award for the Band, who were sitting near him at the Staples Center.) At the pre-Grammy ceremony, where they hand out a hundred victrolas, it was cool that the White Stripes took home a couple of awards, but the announcer kept referring to their album Icky Thump as Icky Thumb, which is icky to even imagine.

Clive Davis’ party has become the unofficial celebration of the past year in music. The Foos kicked it off with performances of “The Pretender” and “Best of You”; Chris Daughtry performed with Chad Kroeger and Slash, who looked worse for wear. And random celebrities converged. In one sweep of our immediate surroundings near the bar we saw Lindsay Lohan, Larry King and Buzz Aldrin, the second person to set foot on the moon. Despite the crowd full of musical icons — Alicia Keys, Stewart, Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, Tony Bennett, Whitney Houston and Janet Jackson — the biggest applause of the night came after Davis gave a shout out to Michael Strahan of the New York Giants .

Sony-BMG threw their afterparty at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and it was out of control. Towards one end of the main room, Aretha Franklin — the greatest singer ever — sat on a comfy chair, examining digital photos of her Grammy performance. Chris Brown roamed around with his backpack on. “Drugs,” he said, when we asked what was in it. “Nah, it’s a change of clothes, in case I wanna dance.” There were sushi bars, dessert stands, delicious cupcakes, prime rib slabs, ice sculptures, open bars and beautiful people everywhere. When a ridiculously sexy Petra Nemcova crossed John Mayer’s path, he didn’t even flinch. “I didn’t see you,” he said to himself. “I will resume my normal life.” The outdoor cabanas, where Mayer was stationed, were definitely the center of attention. The Foos were in one, next to cabanas occupied by countryman Brad Paisley; Tony Bennett; Pink and her producer Butch Walker; and, to our extreme pleasure, Maynard James Keenan and drummer Danny Carey from Tool. Maynard promised a new Tool album, the thought of which makes our Patron hangover much more manageable.