!!!’s set is one long rave-up and elicits the most passionate audience dancing I’ve seen so far this weekend. The bass is overwhelming, as it should be; the band’s momentum builds steadily until it explodes in “Heart of Hearts”, the final number. Mohawked frontwoman Shannon Funchess and frontman Nic Offer make irresistable ringleaders. The yellow-and-black 312 beachballs are out, and the weather has reached a muggy equilibrium.

But as it turns out, we ain’t seen nothing yet. At the main stage the Hold Steady is getting ready to rock out in front of several thousand devoted disciples. Beginning with “Constructive Summer” off their recent Stay Positive and segueing directly into “Hot Soft Light,” the band hits the high points off all four of their albums. Craig Finn is ecstatic as ever, mincing and two-stepping as if possessed when not at the mic spreading the gospel. Keyboardist Franz Nicolay has shaved his head bald but still wears the black vest and red tie; Tad Kulber is cool as ever as he lays down one scorching guitar solo after another, and breaks out his double-necked Gibson SG for “Lord, I’m Discouraged,” Stay Positive’s signature ballad. “This song is so sad, I need twelve strings,” he explains.

The sun is unburdened by clouds at this point, and setting, and the members of the crowd have their hands in the air almost constantly. There’s even some crowd-surfing. This is what a summer music festival should be like.

From where I’m standing, to the side of the stage, I can see the crowd better than I can the band’s members, of whom I catch occasional glimpses between speaker cabinets. This seems eminently appropriate: a Hold Steady show is almost more about the crowd than the band. They encore with “Killer Parties” and, per tradition, Finn spends the song’s opening vamp thanking the audience. “I know I say this every time, but that’s because it’s true. There is so much joy up here, in what we do!” Whatever magic formula this band has discovered that prevents their music and their fans from succumbing to post-millenial irony and cynicism is precisely the same aesthetic that sends chills down my spine when Finn gets to the word “joy,” despite the fact that I’ve seen and heard him deliver this same line about six times before.

Craig Finn and his mirror image

For my money, today’s program peaked with the Hold Steady, but Jarvis Cocker provides a nice complement: more drinking songs delivered by an awkward Regular Guy, from the other side of the pond this time. His sound is something akin to AM Gold, a friend remarks, presumably meaning that in a good way. Cocker lies down on the stage and prances about and dispenses trivia about the city of Chicago he freely admits to learning from Wikipedia.

Jarvis Cocker, larger than life

I’m in the press tent now, and I’m exhausted. It’s finally, truly nighttime, and Animal Collective is sending throbbing, otherwordly drones across the muddy field, loop-based walls of sublime noise. While I’m biased toward letting the Hold Steady play last (and play for, like, an additional two hours) I can see why the festival organizers chose Animal Collective’s spectral sound collages to end the day. The sold-out crowd is enraptured.

There are rumors that Jay Reatard is playing another set at the Bottom Lounge. There are rumors that Julia Stiles is on the premises. There are rumors that No Age is playing an after-hours show in someone’s basement. There are rumors that the Hold Steady will be drinking at a bar whose identity is yet to be determined. (This last one isn’t so much a rumor as a logical assumption.) I’m tempted to try and pursue one or all of these rumors, but I also know are another nineteen bands playing tomorrow, and I’ll be lucky if I manage to take in even half of them. I’m deep in the throes of festival fatigue, and I love it.