Vampire Weekend
"Modern Vampires of the City"
XL Recordings

Eschewing Paul Simon's "Graceland" comparisons to soar through pop, gospel and folk, Vampire Weekend contemplates the timelessness of getting older on "Modern Vampires of the City."

With a toast, a drag and a pair of suspenders, Jesse "The Devil" Hughes and his filthy cohorts, the Eagles of Death Metal, torched into the rarest of nights: paid for drinks, at a paid for show in the shadow of the Arch, framed by helicopter fly-bys.

The enigmatic Black Moth Super Rainbow -- Ryan Graveface, Pony Diver, Iffernaut, the Seven Fields of Aphelion, and, mercifully, Thomas "Tobacco" Fec -- come onstage accompanied by a revelation: They seem to be homo sapiens after all.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Mosquito"
Interscope

Bursting out of the New York scene as an avant-garde embodiment of "live fast, die young," the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have made it to 10 years -- and their fourth album -- a testimony to the band's maturation.

Unexpectedly prompt to the stage, with signature hate-it-or-love-it bedhead hair and eyes wide shut, Danny Brown transformed the Old Rock House into pure bedlam.

Dressed head-to-toe in stark white and blitzing the House of Blues in Chicago with the incendiary "Witness," Little Jimmy Urine perfectly encapsulated Mindless Self Indulgence in his first 15 seconds on stage: "I am the best...fuck everybody else."

In sneakers, cargo shorts and that didn't-shower-today sheen, Slightly Stoopid took to the Pageant stage with a look that contradicted its organic, smooth and personal sound.

Bad Religion, once upon a time the United States' more refined and intelligent answer to the Sex Pistols, took to Pop's stage to induce yet another generation to thrash the night away.

After building anticipation to great heights with an aborted '05 tour and a subsequent hiatus, Garbage finally made its way back to the Show Me State. Touting an excellent new album and a sold-out show, the band eclipsed expectations as the first song's chords rang out.

Fredrick "Toots" Hibbert, freshly into his 7th decade and still not taking his sunglasses off at night, led the Maytals and the crowd through an on-point run through the definitive "Pressure Drop" before ending it with some James Brown inspired moves; a microcosm of their much-appreciated stop at the Old Rock House.