Yeah, yeah, we all know Weezer, Metric and Girl Talk are playing and, yeah, yeah, they're the reason most of us are heading to the festival anyway.
But there are a dozen other acts who are equally worth your time and attention. But we don't have space to tell you which dozen we mean, so here are six acts you should definitely make plans to check out:
Major Lazer
Major Lazer is a Jamaican commando who lost his arm in the secret Zombie War of 1984. It's also the collaboration between heavyweight producers Diplo and Switch. It's Jamaican dancehall and reggae fusion, weird enough to make you question your life choices but then danceable enough to make you forget.
Playing at: Closing down the festival at 10:45 p.m., Sunday, Garibaldi Stage
Songs to hear : "Pon de Floor," "Keep It Goin' Louder"
Black Mountain
Vancouver's psychedelic warriors showed their soft sides on their last album, Wilderness Heart , but their live show will still melt your face. By the end, you'll have to scoop it off the grass. It'll be a challenge figuring out which is yours and which is your girlfriend's.
Playing at: 7:10 p.m., Sunday, Stawamus Stage
Songs to hear: "The Hair Song," "Stormy Nights"
Brasstronaut:
Started by jazz musicians who felt restrained by the confines of jazz standards, they branched out into indie-prog territory, wrote a batch of songs inspired by their bleeding souls and made one of the finest albums, Mount Chimaera, to come out of Vancouver in the last five years.
Playing at : 3:05 p.m., Sunday, Stawamus Stage
Songs to hear: "Slow Knots," "Lo Hi Hopes."
Shad:
Lord knows hip hop's had a bad rap (haha!) lately, so it's nice to see some Canadian dude embracing the positive sides of things while actually sounding radical doing it. Toronto's Shad blends funk, soul and rock in a non-cheesy-nu-metal way with some of the wittiest rhymes this country has produced.
Playing at: 7:10 p.m., Saturday, Garibaldi Stage
Songs to hear: "Rose Garden," "Compromise"
Kim Churchill:
You haven't seen a man play the acoustic guitar until you've seen Churchill. He sounds like Led Zeppelin at their most mystical, conjuring visions of incredible cresting waves rolling to shore, but instead of devastating the land it washes everyone in a blanket of sea weed, picks them up and takes them for a ride that is welcome by all. How he's not bigger than he is now is baffling.
Playing at: 4:15 p.m., Saturday, Garibaldi Stage
Songs to hear: "With Sword and Shield," "Its This System"
Dubtribe Soundsystem:
The San Francisco duo has reunited after ending a 15-year career producing the warmest organic house music produced this side of Manchester, like a hundred hippies playing hand drums by the ocean while some geek plays a battery-operated synthesizer in the trees above them.
Playing at : 7:35 p.m., Sunday, Garibaldi Stage
Songs to hear : "Sunshine Theme," "We Used to Dance"
