(means we recommend it.

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David Bazan

Don't let the bittersweet melodies or the soft-spoken nature of Bazan's music fool you: The modest and delicate tone of this Northwest songwriter serves as a sugarcoating for his unflinching examinations of human interactions, cultural norms, and personal identity. His economic compositions leave the uncomfortable truths all the more naked and exposed. Yeti Stage 5:25 pm

Beirut

In a couple of years, Zach Condon has gone from prodigal New Mexico bedroom composer to leader of full-fledged globetrotting orchestral pop band Beirut. The band are now Brooklyn based, but their panoramic ballads long for far-flung places and people, recalling travels both real and imagined. Their live show is bound to be magically transportive. Main Stage 2:10 pm

The Breeders

Last year, Kim and Kelley Deal revived alt-rocking Pixies side project the Breeders, gradually recording songs with Steve Albini and others. The resulting album, Mountain Battles, doesn't exactly re-create the band at its peak moment, but rather finds the Deal sisters and company a little older and calmer but still casually adventurous and capable of moments of real indie-rock grandeur. Wookie Stage 8:45 pm

Crudo

Mike Patton spent 10 years of his life as the singer for Faith No More. He also sang in Mr. Bungle, Fantômas, the Dillinger Escape Plan, and Peeping Tom. Dan the Automator is an innovative hiphop producer who was part of the Dr. Octagon project with Kool Keith and also part of Gorillaz. Together, they're Crudo, and it's anyone's guess what their new project will present this weekend, but it's bound to be fascinating. Wookie Stage 6 pm

Dead Confederate

For good reason, some critics have tagged Georgia's Dead Confederate as Southern rock, but there's really more to them. Their guitar-driven, dramatic songs are deeper and darker than psych-influenced Southern rock, and their lyrics are just as eerie, too, which only adds to the spooky, cinematic quality of the music. In the song "Goner," singer Hardy Morris growls, "I could be gone, you would never know" again and again with the tinge of an angry Cobain. Wookie Stage 1:30 pm

Dengue Fever

L.A. sextet Dengue Fever formed in 2001 with the intent of covering some old Cambodian rock songs and maybe doing a few shows. Seven years later, they're still going strong, with three albums to their name and a growing following of listeners who've taken to their surf-laced, reverb-soaked, Khmer-tongued songs. Main Stage 12:55 pm

Destroyer

Dan Bejar's psych-tinged love affair with both Dylan and Bowie has resulted in two genius Destroyer records in two years, and this show will bask in his grand songwriting catalog. But the better show might be tailing Bejar between this and his New Pornos set. Will he buy merch? Hide backstage? Sob about Destroyer's inevitably smaller crowd? Follow carefully and find out! Wookie Stage 4:45 pm

Kathleen Edwards

Kathleen Edwards's set is the place to be if you miss Lilith Fair and if you're partial to pretty-voiced pretty ladies singing country-flavored songs about love and longing. While her older material is a little too Sheryl Crow at times, the new album, Asking for Flowers, summons a little more feminine delicacy. Wookie Stage 3:40 pm

Newton Faulkner

Newton Faulkner is an acoustic-guitar virtuoso and the man with the most impressive dreads you'll see all weekend. The dynamically voiced singer/songwriter also recently released his debut album, Hand Built by Robots, which hit number one on the UK charts. So if you trust the Brits, this one-part adult-contemporary rising star, one-part hippie is a don't miss this weekend. Wookie Stage 12:30 pm

Fleet Foxes

Strange thing about Fleet Foxes: The five guys in it are young and yet the music sounds so, so old—many-part vocal harmonies, rolling rhythms, and lyrics steeped in the landscape and milieu of the Old West. Their songs don't sound written and recorded so much as unearthed and restored. In the natural setting of the Gorge, they're going to sound simply beautiful. Main Stage noon

Grand Archives

What with all the talent in the band, you'd expect some trickiness, some showing off, but there's none of that here. Grand Archives' songs are big and confidently simple. "Sleepdriving" is a gorgeous pile of drums and satisfying chords. "Miniature Birds" starts out with whistling and a harmonica. Yeti Stage 6:30 pm

Grand Hallway

Only about half of Grand Hallway's set is appropriate for the outdoor, sunny nature of Sasquatch!—confident, piano-parlor pop with bright beats will summon the blue sky, if it isn't already overhead. The other half of their material, though, is a delicate web of subtle strings, soft vocals, and pretty piano that could easily get lost in an environment full of distractions. Unless you're standing right up front, of course, and able to absorb it before it gets away. Yeti Stage noon

M.I.A.

Global agit-prop pop auteur Maya Arulpragasam couldn't make her scheduled appearance at Sasquatch! last year due to some homeland-security static. Since then, though, she's been busy as hell across all kinds of borders, dropping stunning sophomore album Kala and touring internationally. Expect "Paper Planes" (along with the rest of her set) to sound fantastic floating through the air at the Gorge. Main Stage 6:50 pm

Vince Mira with the roy kay trio

Vince Mira is the unbelievably cute and talented 16-year-old Seattleite who can somehow sing just like Johnny Cash. Shy and earnest between songs, he blows audiences away with his gorgeous, booming voice and rockin' sets of originals and Cash covers. As the opener at a recent rockabilly show, he elicited screams and raucous applause from the over-21 audience, who demanded an encore—they just didn't want this kid to stop. It was jaw dropping. Yeti Stage 4:20 pm

Modest Mouse

Ever since Modest Mouse won mainstream success with the release of 2004's Good News for People Who Love Bad News and 2007's We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, old-school fans have had to adapt to the band's only playing big shows. Which is fine, as Modest Mouse no longer lean on sloppy but entertaining antics like playing guitar solos with their teeth. Instead, their new material is more orchestral and lush (rather than just drunk), well worthy of booming from a massive sound system to a crowd of thousands. Main Stage 8:15 pm

Joshua Morrison

In 2004, Joshua Morrison joined the army and served in Iraq. He recorded his first EP of songs upon returning home to Fort Lewis. Morrison plays whisper-soft, emotionally heavy, folk-influenced acoustic rock. His debut album, Home, is a quiet, peaceful affair, sublimating whatever stress or pain Morrison has suffered into calm, reflective ballads of love and homecoming. Yeti Stage 3:15 pm

The National

Brooklyn quintet the National's dark, emotionally defeated songs sound like they were written on bar coasters and cocktail napkins while hiding, hungover, from the sun. Singer Matt Berninger sings with a rich, unshowy baritone and the band dress his lyrics in subtly seductive arrangements of piano, drums, and guitars, alternately spare and swelling. Main Stage 4:20 pm

The New Pornographers

Wikipedia defines "arpeggio" as a "broken chord," or a chord played one note at a time. And it describes a "diminished triad" as an unstable, dissonant chord. The first song on Electric Version, the 2003 record by the New Pornographers, uses an arpeggiated diminished triad for its principal melody. This helps explain why the Pornographers are a power-pop band that's actually interesting to listen to. Main Stage 5:25 pm

Okkervil River

Will Sheff certainly knows how to weave a tale within the confines of a song's meter. His elaborate narratives are the centerpieces of Okkervil River's indie-folk compositions, with his ramshackle cast of musicians punctuating the drama with sweeping crescendos. Live, these Texans betray their twee personas through feverish and frenzied performances. Wookie Stage 7:15 pm

Ozomatli

A multiculti band based in L.A., Ozomatli combine hiphop with just about anything—'70s big funk, salsa, dub, etc. For those who like their hiphop on a positive and global tip, this band was made just for you. Main Stage 3:15 pm

R.E.M.

R.E.M.'s Sasquatch! appearance looks to be the closest they'll get to Seattle on this tour, which makes the trek to see them at the Gorge essential. Flying high off the release of their rock-heavy new album, Accelerate, the veteran band were positively electrifying at this year's SXSW and their performance should prove to be one of the weekend's biggest highlights. Main Stage 10 pm

The Shaky Hands

Portland's Shaky Hands are supposedly one of the Next Big Things out of Stumptown. The band's tattered indie rock is about as new as a frayed cardigan but just as comforting, particularly if you're afraid of expanding your musical horizons too broadly this weekend. Yeti Stage 1:05 pm

Throw Me the Statue

The other night, someone was sitting in his apartment wondering why Throw Me the Statue's first album, Moonbeams, isn't a huge hit. Five minutes later, the second track on the album, "Lolita," was playing on the TV—on a Rhapsody.com commercial. So maybe the world is taking notice. But really, Rhapsody, the better song on Moonbeams is "Conquering Kids," a not-very-distant cousin of the Shins' "New Slang." Yeti Stage 2:10 pm

The Whigs

The Whigs take on overly familiar garage-rock territory but play their songs with such enthusiasm and unmitigated verve that they not only avoid coming off as a rehash but instead arrive as musical heroes, here to save you from boring rock, with an ungodly number of miles logged on their tour van. Wookie Stage 2:35 pm

65daysofstatic

Handpicked as tour openers by none other than the Cure's Robert Smith, 65daysofstatic's songs are exercises in dynamism, fucking up your expectations of instrumental postrock with industrial crunch and math-rock signature changes. The Sheffield, UK, band create music for architects, but instead of just being nerdy, it's epic, loud, and, most importantly, awesome. Main Stage 1 pm

"Awesome"

Back in 2004, seven guys who knew each other from doing theater and sketch comedy decided to form a band. They play almost two dozen instruments and write songs (sometimes playful, sometimes dreamy, sometimes jubilant) about drowning men, dying bees, and a woman who turns into a fish. If you're lying on the grass in the summer, looking up at the blue sky, and waiting for the drugs to kick in, this is exactly the band you want to hear. Main Stage noon

The Blakes

The Blakes know a couple things about rock 'n' roll. They know how to record it—their self-titled Light in the Attic LP is full of simple songs with distinct vibes: dangerous ("Streets"), sexy ("Don't Bother Me"), and tender ("Lint Walk") are favorites. They also know how to sell it: The Blakes kill shows and play better drunk. Yeti Stage 5:25 pm

Blue Scholars

The leaders of Seattle's current moment in hiphop are Blue Scholars. The duo's rise has been steady and strong since 2004, when Charles Mudede first wrote about them in this paper. Mr. Mudede repeatedly makes this fact known at all of the dinner parties he attends on Queen Anne and other luminous parts of town. Main Stage 2:05 pm

Sera Cahoone

Like Neko Case, Sera Cahoone has a voice that is perfectly suited to the lonesome high-desert plains of Eastern Washington. Her lovely, languid songs have a perpetually dusty glow and she's got an ace backing band that knows how to bring her material to life without overwhelming it. Yeti Stage 6:30 pm

Cancer Rising

Seattle stalwarts Cancer Rising (DJ TilesOne and MCs Judas and Gatsby) know their position is easy to take for granted—they even have a song called "Underestimated." Truth is, though, that if CR stopped making their 206-centric hiphop tomorrow, Seattle would lose its premier smart, credible, regular-guy rap group. Yeti Stage 3:15 pm

Cold War Kids

Cold War Kids' 2006 full-length, Robbers & Cowards, is a tear-sodden, MTV-friendly, nostalgic, blue-eyed soul record with a little too much social conscience. The Long Beach boys sound a bit patronizing when singing from, for example, the viewpoint of a repentant death-row inmate, but the strong bass lines hold the wild emotion in check. Main Stage 3:10 pm

The Cops

This is proletariat rock at its finest. The Cops channel the plight of the everyman through bombastic guitar assaults and poetic manifestos. The songs are smart enough to engage the mind, but raw and rowdy enough to effectively frame the razor-sharp lyrical content. Bring your petitions and your dancing shoes for this one. Yeti Stage 4:20 pm

The Cure

The South Park kids may think that Disintegration is the best album ever, but most of the Cure's catalog is worthy of the Top Ten category. Few other bands can fill a three-hour set with more hits than you can believe, and still leave you ticking off all the ones they left out. Thirty years in, the Cure are still mind-blowing. Main Stage 10 pm

Death Cab for Cutie

With the recent release of their sixth studio album, Narrow Stairs, Death Cab for Cutie have become mad scientists, experimenting with new song structures, new writing processes, and darker themes. The last couple of albums have been full of romantic, mellow rock gems, and they've sold millions of copies, which has afforded them the luxury of branching out in new, jammier, creepier directions. Like releasing eight-and-a-half-minute songs about obsession, for example. Main Stage 8:15 pm

Michael Franti and Spearhead

Michael Franti has had a long career—from the Beatnigs (the mid-'80s) to the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy (early '90s) to Spearhead (mid-'90s to today). Though many argue that the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy is Franti's highest hiphop moment, only his current band, Spearhead, have produced a legit hiphop classic: "People in tha Middle." Main Stage 6:50 pm

The Heavenly States

At some point in concert, the Heavenly States will pull out a violin, and much of the crowd will groan with visions of Dave Matthews. But don't expect tapers to rush the stage or a tour manager to dump a busload of shit into the Gorge. Rather, expect these Oakland treats to deliver piano-informed rock of the literate, hooky, and Stones-worshipping variety. Wookie Stage 2:35 pm

The Kooks

Young Brighton band the Kooks reference David Bowie in band name and cast a sidelong glance at the Kinks with latest album title Konk. Their music is just as enamored of and indebted to their Brit-pop forebears. Their short, sweet love and breakup songs are reliably poppy, polished, and cute, if perhaps a touch too familiar. Wookie Stage 7:15 pm

The Maldives

Seattle's Maldives seem ready-made for a Sasquatch! stage, assuming the weather's nice. Light a J, lie on a blanket, and let the band's healthy spread of Big Pink and Crazy Horse wash over as the sky above your head turns from blue to orange. And if it rains? You're still in luck: Run to the front, get soaked, and shout along with Jason Dodson when he plays a few MMJ-worthy country-rock epics. Yeti Stage noon

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks

This year's Real Emotional Trash finds Mr. Malkmus relying on his Big Fuzz instead of mushroom-tinged lyrical genius to blow songs out of pop and into psych. No matter—everything else is still there, and the addition of Sleater-Kinney's Janet Weiss to the Jicks has upped the live performance to maximum "holy shit!" level. Wookie Stage 8:45 pm

Mates of State

If new album Re-Arrange Us is any indication, the paradise of husband-wife band Mates of State has been shaken. The keys-and-drums duo have replaced their usual giddiness and electric organ bombast with quieter, minor-key arrangements and cries that things "won't get better." So far, sounds like their pain is our gain: touching, mature, revitalized. Keep the sad up! Wookie Stage 6 pm

The Morning Benders

They're more vaudevillian than the Shins, but not as literary and dramatic as the Decemberists. Their songs are more raucous and "summer of love" inspired than they are ho-hum lovelorn ballads, but their vintage nods aren't as genuine as, say, a band like Fleet Foxes. Still, if The O.C. were around, the Morning Benders would be on it. Wookie Stage 12:30 pm

The Presidents of the United States of America

They're the epitome of fun; the everlasting Presidents of the United States of America sing songs about fruit and animals and ghosts and things that don't exist in reality, like girls named Lump, and they deliver these undeniable gems with catchy pop-rock energy that, even after 10 years, still manages to stir a crowd into a frenzy of gleaming faces. Main Stage 5:25 pm

Rogue Wave

People expect The Stranger to piss on an indie-friendly Sub Pop act once it goes big, so here goes: Rogue Wave, some of your new songs blow. There. Cruel mistresses, we know. But it's hard to completely bag on Zach Rogue's concern—even on Jack freakin' Johnson's label, Rogue Wave are still cooking up Flaming-Waits-SST inspirations with enough sweetness to rope in the interlopers. Wookie Stage 4:45 pm

Tegan and Sara

Tegan and Sara's recent Bellingham performance showed a tight band at the top of their game. The duo are known and loved for their lyrically wrenching, hummable pop songs, and the twin sisters are also truly charming people who connect with their audience, making every show feel special. You will wish they were pocket-sized. Main Stage 4:15 pm

J. Tillman

The newest addition to adult-contemporary folk harmonizers Fleet Foxes, J. Tillman brings six and a quarter feet of bearded, sincere, soft rock to Sasquatch! His solo material is the perfect music to enjoy while eating something delicious, since its low intensity won't distract you from your food. Yeti Stage 2:10 pm

Truckasauras

Seattle techno thrashers Truckasauras bring some much-needed lowbrow humor, live showmanship, and lo-fi nostalgia to the sometimes staid realm of electronic music. Their beats and bleeps are strictly old school (analog drum machines, 8-bit video game synths) and their visuals are vintage cheese ('80s B movies, homoerotic pro wrestling). What's more, their melodies and grooves are as genuinely compelling as their aesthetic is firmly tongue in cheek. Yeti Stage 1:05 pm.

What Made Milwaukee Famous

Enough with band names that raise too many questions. WMMF's first question is answered because it's a Jerry Lee Lewis song title, but the second question's tougher—these guys sound nothing like Jerry Lee. If anything, they tend toward fellow Austin homers Spoon, if that band gave up on minimalism, bought some Korg synthesizers, and owned up to a Keane fetish. So, you know, not much like Spoon at all, actually. Wookie Stage 1:30 pm

White Rabbits

This band out of NYC combines hooky, U2-style rock with a fondness for the Velvets and a whole lot of piano. Sure we're not talking about the Walkmen here? It's hard to say—White Rabbits sound an awful lot like the Walkmen, even when their sound teeters into the island-inspired rhythms of British new wave. Wookie Stage 3:40 pm

Battles

Every festival has its jam bands, but while Battles' virtuosic musicianship and prolonged rhythmic jags may seem footbag friendly, they are in fact aliens here to bum your stone with deceptively taut compositions and bounded improvisations—their multidimensional math rock and spiraling psycho-smurf prog will either bum your stone or blow your dome, but either way you'll be stunned. Wookie Stage 5:55 pm

Built to Spill

Because you can't have an outdoor music festival without a jam band, but Sasquatch! doesn't aim to please the Trey Anastasio–loving demographic either, we have Built to Spill. Live, BtS are one-part self-deprecating indie-rock band with more discordant guitar work than early Modest Mouse, and one-part dazed-out jammers who could spend a whole evening stomping on pedals, trying to invent new noises.

Main Stage 3:30 pm

The Cave Singers

The Cave Singers are better suited to play at the bottom of the Gorge, down by the river, next to a popping fire, where their organic back-porch jam sessions—laced with washboard percussion and steel guitar—could echo off Mother Nature's carefully carved-out walls. But that's not very realistic. So while you stand and watch them, with the porta-potties to the left and the beer garden to the right, you'll just have to close your eyes and imagine you're somewhere else. Like Alabama. Wookie Stage 4:40 pm

The Choir Practice

No, really—watching the Choir Practice is really like watching a choir practice. Except, you know, good. Nearly a dozen young men and women line up and sing bursting pop songs that surprisingly don't come off as drug-induced as the Polyphonic Spree (maybe because they're not wearing matching robes?). And you thought Fleet Foxes' four- and five-part harmonies were impressive. Yeti Stage noon

Matt Costa

Sasquatch! may be the only U.S. festival that Jack Johnson isn't appearing at, but fans of Johnson's laid-back surf pop can take solace in the fact that his protégé Matt Costa is on the bill. Costa's likable SoCal pop rock has made him the latest favorite of the hacky-sack nation and heir apparent to the campfire-rock throne. Main Stage 1:05 pm

Delta Spirit

Delta Spirit's 2007 full-length is called Ode to Sunshine. That's sure to please the weather gods this weekend, right? Also capable of bringing out the bright side is the band's sunny, piano-laced pop that's delivered with the hint of a free-flowing, groovy vibe and huge, harmonious choruses that sound like Ben Folds gone garage rock in the '60s. Wookie Stage 12:20 pm

Dyme Def

That Fearce Villain, S.E.V., and Brainstorm are truly "3 Bad Brothaaas" is requisite: They couldn't pull off attention-grabbing "I'm the shit" hiphop if they weren't. To see them onstage bouncing around and completing each other's rhymes is to know they are not delusional. Dyme Def are the shit. Main Stage 11:30 am

The Flaming Lips

You've heard about the Flaming Lips' live shows, right? Last time they were in Seattle, Wayne Coyne got into a huge transparent bubble and rolled out on top of the crowd. Later, he got out a trumpet and played "Taps" and announced that they were going to continue playing "Taps" at every show until American troops came home from Iraq. After that they played "The Yeah, Yeah, Yeah Song" as a shouted sing-along. A Flaming Lips show hits you on so many levels. Main Stage 9 pm

Flight of the Conchords

New Zealand expats and Sub Pop signees Flight of the Conchords are that rarest of musical comedy act—a duo as genuinely hilarious as they are musically talented. Their genre spoofs—of Bowie glam, Pet Shop Boys new wave, French yé-yé—are lovingly accurate and their lyrical goofs are sly and satisfying. Main Stage 6:05 pm

Ghostland Observatory

Is KEXP responsible for the popularity of this band? If so, may I have the honor of casting a voodoo curse on their heads until the end of time? Ghostland must be capitalizing off those braids, bellbottoms, and that cape, because it certainly isn't that electro-light bullshit that's packing in the crowds. Paging Ayn Rand—we need a market correction. Wookie Stage 8:30 pm

The Hives

They may no longer be the flavor of the moment, but the Hives still bristle with an exuberant energy that's downright contagious and utterly undeniable. They may have doubters, but what's more punk than blowing the minds (and moving the bodies) of anyone silly enough to think your band's time has passed?Main Stage 2:10 pm

Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground

It's hard to write about this technicolored, spacey rock orchestra playing an outdoor festival in the middle of a giant gorge without condoning some kind of drug use. Thankfully, Kay Kay are entertaining enough without any mind-altering enhancement—gleaming horns, a plethora of strings and percussion, a choir of voices... Just close your eyes and let the music get you high. (But if you need to do something, ditch the pot and go for the mushrooms.)Yeti Stage 5:25 pm

Kinski

Kinski were doing the huge, avant-garde, wall of noise instrumental stuff before doing huge, wall of noise instrumental stuff was cool in Seattle. Some songs are built up with dynamic, ultimately explosive layers; some songs are more direct, coming off as psychedelic stoner rock with incoherent vocals. Either way their set goes, you're gonna get knocked on your ass. Yeti Stage 6:30 pm

Jamie Lidell

One-time IDM maestro Jamie Lidell transformed himself from laptop geek to R&B freak with his breakthrough Multiply, and his new album, Jim, delivers more of the same classically inspired but modernly twisted soul. Live, Lidell is a consummate entertainer, whether performing as a one-man band or as the debonair host of a live ensemble. Last time he played an area festival, the speakers literally burst into flame from the heat. Wookie Stage 7 pm

The Little Ones

Aw! The Little Ones! Even the name conjures thoughts of cheek-pinchingly cute things. Kittens, puppies, chubby little babies—all small and sweet just like the Little Ones' catchy pop songs with plinking piano and bright melodies. They have such sing-alongable harmonies and there isn't an ounce of brashness in their catalog. Basically, listening to the Little Ones is equivalent to spending three minutes at icanhascheezburger.com. Wookie Stage 3:35 pm

The Mars Volta

The Mars Volta already sounded insane enough before they got a hard-on for the occult. This year's Bedlam in Goliath saw the ensemble lose their shit thanks to a cursed Ouija board. I guess it spelled out "space rock" before damning their souls, because that twist to the band's prog-jazz-thrash formula makes their eight-minute epics even more compelling. Just hope the band don't ask virgins to take the stage. Main Stage 7:15 pm

The Moondoggies

Hardly Art signees the Moondoggies might be the perfect festival band. There is no better setting for their Fogerty and bong-tinged Rhodes anthems than soft grass, a big hole in the ground with a sparkly river at the bottom, and a joint from some dude who will rhapsodize at length about seeing the Wilde Flowers in '67. Dreamy. Yeti Stage 2:10 pm

Pela

Without engaging in multiple listens, Brooklyn's Pela are remarkably inoffensive and somewhat unmemorable. Their "American rock and roll" has been compared to big names like the Pixies and Springsteen, and while a little of both acts are definitely present in their strong songwriting, sadly, Pela's songs lack the electric passion that made both bands so timeless. But word on the street says the live show is where they prove themselves. Wookie Stage 2:30 pm

Rodrigo y Gabriela

And now for something completely different: an acoustic metal duo from Mexico. Rodrigo y Gabriela may seem like a bizarre choice at first, but their mind-blowing musicianship and innovation is likely to make them one of the most buzzed about acts of the weekend.Main Stage 4:40 pm

Say Hi

Say Hi used to be called Say Hi to Your Mom, they used to live in Brooklyn, and they used to craft charming electronically inclined pop songs about vampires. Now with a shortened moniker, a new home in the Northwest, and songs no longer revolving around fictional creatures of the night, the band still hold close their most important trait: the ability to deliver memorable and light pop songs. Yeti Stage 3:15 pm

Siberian

Siberian's blessing is also their curse—the band have so perfectly honed their sweeping indie-rock skills that if you close your eyes while watching them play live, you might mistake the romantic crooning and sparkling guitars for their debut full-length, With Me. However, the boys are as funny as they are handsome—so the goofy banter makes it worth standing around for. Yeti Stage 4:20 pm

Thao with the Get Down Stay Down

Thao Nguyen's fainting singing voice and wounded lyrics may bring to mind early Cat Power, but her arrangements with the Get Down Stay Down—ranging from bright, tropical guitar lope to marching horns and walking bass to rusty folk—are more varied and adventurous, though still uniformly gorgeous. Wookie Stage 1:25 pm

Whalebones

Old punks don't die; they just inherit their parents' record collections. This Seattle quintet sloughed off their teenage angst years ago, dissolving their various basement-dwelling bands and unearthing a newfound appreciation of classic rock. But don't mistake the revivalism as some sort of ironic gesture: Every note and every howl rings with passionate honesty. Yeti Stage 1:05 pm

Yeasayer

Brooklyn buzz band Yeasayer layer old- fashioned millennial dread and gospel vocal harmonies over jacked tribal polyrhythms, lurching bass, dusty church organs, and damaged new-age synths. The result is a kind of psycho-spiritual ritual rock full of bad vibes, bleak spaces, enveloping drones, and desperately hopeful choral crescendos. Main Stage 12:10 pm