The Carrie Brownstein Wipeout

This is my eighth Pitchfork Festival, and Sleater-Kinney's headlining Saturday night set was easily the greatest Pitchfork performance I've ever seen. As ever, they're a seething, emotional, spectacular force. Corin Tucker used to take a few songs to get her feral howl warmed up; here, she launched right in, 0-100 real quick. And by the time she hit a huge final note on a devastating version of "Sympathy," I was a sobbing wreck. Her and Janet Weiss throwing their arms over each other's shoulders and waving as they left the stage was a life-affirming sight. New touring multi-instrumentalist Katie Harkin was a fun addition, filling out the songs with whatever extra sounds they needed. Still, whenever she left the stage, I'd get excited because it would mean that they were about to get into some old shit. (The new No Cities To Love songs sounded great, but only "A New Wave" brought the instant endorphin-rush joy-tingle that the best S-K songs have always given me.) And Carrie Brownstein, always an absolute badass onstage, has become even more of a star in the years she spent away from the band. Tucker's incomparable voice has always been this band's greatest weapon, but Brownstein has the best moves: Collapsing to the floor to solo, holding her guitar aloft like a flag, doing Pete Townshend windmills arguably better than Townshend ever did them. But the stage must've still been a bit wet, since she went for a high kick on "Ironclad" and absolutely wiped out, falling hard on her ass. She shook it off like it was nothing, leaping back to her feet and barely missing a note. And she didn't stop kicking. It was an absolute boss moment, one of many.

The Crowdsurfing Trash Barrel

A$AP Ferg has apparently embraced his identity as Rock-Festival Onyx, providing the day's one moment when an entire crowd absolutely went the fuck off. This wasn't always a good thing; I saw so many white bros mouthing along with the N-word in the front row. But lack of self-awareness aside, an amped-up crowd is a beautiful thing, and the assembled kids were absolutely losing it for random Trap Lord album tracks. The highlight: Someone held aloft an enormous blue trash barrel, and the crowd passed it along like it was a human crowdsurfer, apparently entirely OK with the garbage that was falling out consistently. The barrel made it all the way to the stage barrier, were a security guard grabbed it, set it down off to the side, and then shook his head and laughed. I have to assume that was a first for the guy.

Shamir Lets His Hair Down

I can't remember which song he was singing, but near the end of his early-evening set, Shamir Bailey, in one graceful motion, pulled out his immaculately arranged hair-pile and let his dreads swing free. It was like Jerry Lawler pulling down the strap: That's how you knew it was on. Playing one of his first real festivals, Bailey was all breezy confidence, trusting the crowd to come along with him as he did some of his softest synthpop songs early in the set, a bold move. And that meant we got an energy level that cranked up throughout the set, finally reaching full disco-house catharsis when that hair came flying loose. He is a great live singer, assured and lithe and rhythmically inventive. And there was so much joy in his performance that I didn't even mind missing most of Future Islands' victory-lap set over on the main stage.

Alicia Bognanno's First Throat-Ripping Scream

Nashville upstarts Bully opened the festival's third stage right around lunchtime and still drew a crowd, an impressive feat. Really, though, they're an ideal festival band -- rough and rugged but still quick to launch into a big, giddy hook. And in frontwoman Bognanno, they've got one of the great rock singers to come along in recent memory, an expressive howler whose just-rolled-out-of-bed demeanor contrasts awesomely with the straight-up power she brings to her choruses. Bully is very close to being Bognanno's solo project; she sings and plays guitar and writes the songs and records and engineers the records. She's got the vision for all that, and she's also a total star. She won't be relegated to the early-afternoon festival slot for long.

Parquet Courts Find Their Crowd

One of the fun things about the Pitchfork Festival is figuring out which of these internet-popular bands are real-life popular. I'd been surprised that Parquet Courts had a plum main-stage spot; I saw them play a tea shop to 40 people a year or two ago, and their Coachella set was marked by bad sound and a sparse crowd. I had them pegged as one of those great bands who, for whatever reason, just don't project. But there's a difference between the Coachella crowd and the Pitchfork one, and the Pitchfork crowd treated them like stars. It probably helped that their main competition was "waiting for A$AP Ferg" and that everyone was euphoric after the whole festival-not-canceled thing, but Parquet Courts drew a huge audience, one who was absolutely down to go off for some twisty, sardonic punk rock. If a festival crowd can treat a band like Parquet Courts as conquering heroes, there's hope for all of us.

Ex Hex Hold Back The Rain, Briefly

Between the first downpour and the second, there was a brief and shining moment of optimism, and Ex Hex were the band who brought it to life. When the monsoon turned into a sprinkle, they took the stage and had time to pound out four quick songs of immaculate, revved-up power-pop. Then the stage director gave the cut-it-off-now sign, and everyone had to leave the park. It was fun while it lasted.