• Best Surprise: I wasn't expecting the Breeders to be quite so fucking awesome. I'd heard mixed reviews of their Coachella performance, I'm not so excited about the new album, and I've only ever been a casual Breeders fan. So I was a bit blown away by the band's set on Saturday night. They managed to play some soft, dreamy slowcore while running their guitars through enough amplification and distortion to still sound sludgy and electric. Kim Deal's voice is perfectly preserved. Not to be all hung up on the hits, but "Cannonball" in particular was just nasty as hell, the chorus all delayed distortion, vocal fuzz, guitars careening almost out of whack. Most impressive was how easily the band shifted from composed quiet to massive aural assault—I know, I know, loud/quiet/loud, whatever. It still kills. (R.E.M. were also every bit as monumental and dramatic and moving as you'd hope for from a band that have been living onstage for so long; Michael Stipe's every look and gesture was both perfectly practiced but not overbearingly contrived, a neat trick.)
• Best Fulfillment of High Expectations: Honestly, a lot of bands hit high marks—Built to Spill are dependably amazing; M.I.A. made up for missing last year's fest with a pretty stunning set; Modest Mouse played some old jams—but the most giddy, satisfying set came from Battles on Monday evening. To borrow from a friend: The band really do speak their own language, both in terms of incomprehensible elf vocals and in terms of their tightly shifting fourth-dimensional instrumental rock; for much of their set, they seemed content just speaking to each other even if it went over everyone else's heads. But the epic, unfurling "Tonto" and the mad, marching stomp of "Atlas" were understandable and crowd-pleasing enough, inspiring chanting-along and swirling pockets of dancing. The only intelligible words: a loop of the word "Battles" on the opening song, and the minimal between-song banter of "Oh boy, Sasquatch."
• Coolest Festival Attendee: The kid who exited the stage doing "the worm" after M.I.A.'s crowd-participation party.
• Locals Done Good: Seattle transplants Say Hi surprised and impressed with their cute, breezy power pop. The Moondoggies sounded perfect in the pastoral festival setting. The Cops were loud and raucous and funny and probably drunk. But no Seattle band was as funny or drunk as Truckasauras. Between bass-booming Nintendo megajams, abetted by a bottle of Maker's, the group's Adam Swan shouted at the crowd, his little brother, the sun, and repeatedly expressed his disbelief that the Truck were even there at the Gorge. It was pretty unbelievable.
• Best/Worst Pavement Joke Made by Stephen Malkmus: "This is the best weather I've ever seen at Sasquatch! I wasn't here yesterday, though. I hear yesterday it was raining sideways. Crooked, crooked rain." 
