With rock struggling as a commercial radio format and the memory of Lollapalooza’s inglorious flameout last summer still fresh in everyone’s mind, this year’s summer rock tours are all about adaptation and survival.

The ever-scrappy Vans Warped Tour (August 13), whose Web site is so crowded with corporate sponsor logos it looks like a Nascar side panel, now refers to itself as “the tour that won’t die.” The lineup – spanning an incredible eight stages – features the usual pop-punk, emo, and metal acts. When it rolls through Randall’s Island, highlights will include My Chemical Romance, the Offspring, Fall Out Boy, the Transplants, and MXPX. The lesser-known bands, however, appear to have been chosen based solely on how well their names comment on the embattled state of the music: Over It, Something Corporate, Like Yesterday, Yesterday’s Rising, It Dies Today.

But while commercial rock may be floundering, underground rock is flourishing, and is well represented – by acts new and old – in Central Park’s Summer-Stage schedule. Representing the newish school are the Killers (June 4), Modest Mouse (June 20), Tegan and Sara (June 26), emo band Coheed and Cambria (August 6), London Internet sensation M.I.A. (August 7), and Death Cab for Cutie with the Decemberists and Stars (August 18).

They’re joined by old-schoolers David Byrne (June 29), Dinosaur Jr. (July 14), Elvis Costello (July 19),the MC5 (July 30),and Patti Smith (August 4). Byrne now paints his offbeat songs with the colors of world music, and few do tango as well as his backing band, the Tosca Strings.

On his new album, “The Delivery Man,” Costello returns from a long digression into piano ballads and classical music. Urgent rockers like “Button My Lip” hark back to his angry-young-man roots, and country-inflected numbers hark back to America’s. One of the highlights is “Heart Shaped Bruise,” a lovely duet with Emmylou Harris, who will appear with him onstage.

The reconstituted Dinosaur Jr., meanwhile, will party like it’s 1989, revisiting ear-bleeding, protogrunge hits like “Freak Scene,” “The Lung,” and “In a Jar.” Bring earplugs, wear flannel, and rejoice in J. Mascis’s sludgy guitar histrionics. Buy earplugs for Mascis’s histrionics, and hold on to them for the psychedelic garage of MC5. Patti Smith, meanwhile, will play a fiery mix of old favorites and new classics from her 2004 album “Still Trampin.'”

Other SummerStage highlights include Cassandra Wilson (June 24), the Blind Boys of Alabama (July 10), Femi Kuti (July 17), a reading by the writer Ha Jin (July 27), the Upright Citizens Brigade comedy troupe (July 21), and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (July 22).

While Lollapalooza has scaled back from a talent-glutted national tour to talent-glutted two-day event in Chicago, the brave folks of the Zooma Tour have done just the reverse, taking the jam-inclined lineup of Tennessee’s Bonnaroo Festival on the road. Headliners Trey Anastasio of Phish and Ben Harper will bring their meandering music to New York’s Jones Beach (July 7). But, apart from jam favorites Medeski Martin & Wood, the remainder of the lineup is eclectic (no doubt in order to cut down on set times), including still-underground hip-hop outfit Jurassic 5, nu-bluesmen the Black Keys, local world-beat favorites the Brazilian Girls, and the Van Morrison-sounding Ray LaMontagne.

As rock tours shrink or swell according to their survival instinct, hip-hop continues its steady growth. The annual Hot 97 Summer Jam (Giants Stadium, June 5) offers another dizzyingly good lineup, headlined by the West Coast revivalists Snoop Dogg and the Game. Other regions are also well represented: from Chicago, Kanye West; from the Dirty South, Ludacris, Lil Jon, and the first lady of Crunk & B, Ciara; from Miami, the Spanglish rapper Pitbull; and, from New York, mix-tape favorites the Diplomats.

As unlikely as it sounds, the third installment of the Anger Management Tour – coming to Madison Square Garden on August 8 – might be bigger still. It unites, for the first time, Eminem and his protege, 50 Cent, who now looms larger on the pop scene than his mentor. In addition to another appearance by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, the show includes Em-and-50 underlings D12 and G Unit.

Although the specifics haven’t been announced yet, Nuyorican rapper Fat Joe adds another event to the schedule sometime in early August: the Libertad Music Festival, a first-of-its-kind tour focusing exclusively on the emerging Latin Urban sound. That means both Spanish hip-hop and reggaeton – the bouncy, Puerto Rican genre you hear blasting out of ever other car window around New York City.

Eschewing all genre labels and fashionable trends, Celebrate Brooklyn offers another enticingly eclectic summer lineup. A new American Roots Series will bring Rickie Lee Jones (June 15), bluegrass veteran Del McCoury (June 30), and blues harmonica player Charlie Mussel white (July 15) to town. World sounds are represented by South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela (June 23), Latin-fusion band Ozomatli (July 14), and Dominican merengue queen Milly Quezada (July 28). This summer’s film screenings include kung-fu classic “Prodigal Son” with live turntable accompaniment by DJs IXL and Excess, and the silent horror classic “Phantom of the Opera” with a score performed by the Alloy Orchestra. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better way to spend a warm summer evening.