Ahh, Saturday! A chronologically arranged discussion of the Block Party, Day Zwei (Day Eins here):

The Physics: It's weird to see them in daylight, but then again, their happy, casual version of hiphop meshes well with a sunny day and a stomach full of the Champagne of Beer from the nearby beer garden. Justo and Thig had Monk Wordsmith (Thig's brother) on stage with them, as they do sporadically, and it was nice to see Monk and his loose-limbed enthusiasm up there again; another guest on stage was a guy dressed up like beer for "I Heart Beer," the "beer-drinker's anthem," as Thig announced. Why can't the Vera stage ever seem to get its sound act fully together? Last year the stage had sound problems too, right in the middle of Dyme Def's show. We had to leave early (reasons to follow), so we missed any climactic guest performances.

Cave Singers: On the internet, Cave Singers and The Physics' set times didn't conflict. On the print schedule, however, they were in the same time slot, so we had to split our time between them. We like the Cave Singers' folksy, indie style, and Invitation Songs is on permanent rotation in our living room; our friend, there for the entire set, says they played a lot of new material, but we did recognize a good number of songs from the album we have. Live, the band struck us as unassuming, honest, and good-hearted; it's a good thing we have tickets to see them open for Calexico in September at the Moore, or we would have been more upset that we missed so much of the set.

More on Kimya Dawson, Builders and the Butchers, Sleepy Eyes of Death, Chromeo and more after the jump!

Kimya Dawson: Awful. Not cute. The screeching was unbearable. Dawson's music worked fine in an atmospheric, artsy role in the stylized Juno, but live it was flat-out annoying. We know we're not the only person in the world who doesn't like it, and don't get us wrong: we WANTED to like it. Fortunately, there were fried green tomatoes and housemade tarter sauce at the Fish Fry place a couple feet away, and we were able to take refuge with a split order of these inside when listening to further assault on our ears became untenable.

The Builders and the Butchers: After hearty recommendations from our friends over at Sound On The Sound, we decided to check out the Portland band described to us in the beer garden as "lo-fi, not screechy" and "really good." To our great contentment, The Builders and the Butchers provided a fun set full of foot-stompin', down-home, happy music. A set we could easily have chosen not to attend turned into one of the highlights of our weekend! That's the glory of the Block Party; since everything happens so close together, you can bounce around and see bits and pieces of sets from bands you never would have paid to see individually, and discover new favorites. We hope the Builders/Butchers crew will return to the Emerald City soon, and we told the red-haired lead singer so.

Sleepy Eyes of Death: Though Sleepy Eyes started more than forty minutes late (technical difficulties), their set was exactly the sonic orgasm we have experienced from them before--if way, way too short. This is the kind of music that you can crawl into like a sleeping bag, zip up the zippers and re-organize your soul in the dark and warmth, and yes, that's the best way we can describe it. It's simultaneously floaty and grounded, both highly structured and fluid enough to allow for the range of human emotions. By the end of the four tracks they had time to play, we were in need of another one of those $6 burgers from the Quinns tent, and that's where we headed next.

Chromeo: While we waited for this Main Stage set to begin and wiped the Quinns burger remnants off our shirt, a very friendly guy with braces told us to skip Chromeo's"techno bullshit" and head over to the Wild Rose. "They are really nice in there, nice talkative people," he urged us. Though we did end up Wild Rosing a little later in the evening, we decided to give Chromeo a chance--and joy! Chromeo's set was extremely fun and high energy, in a normal, non-rabid, non-American Apparel kind of way, and we'll be purchasing a cd. It was elating to see so many people dancing like mad, even so far back from the stage. We will also be forgiving him for saying "My name is Chromeo!" a dozen too many times, mostly because it was enjoyable to quote him later.

Steed Lord: A noisy let-down after Chromeo, though we got a couple solid minutes of dancing in before we bailed and went upstairs to sit down and recover from all the techno/electro-crunk.

The Saturday Knights: Some hard-core fans at the table next to us upstairs in Neumos were convinced the Secret Guest was The Misfits (?!). We really bummed one of the guys out by saying we were 99% certain The Misfits would not be playing tonight, and he turned away abruptly and stopped talking to us. On the floor, the guy behind us was hoping for Jay-Z. Or Rihanna, either would have been fine by him. When The Saturday Knights burst onto stage with "45," it took the crowd a minute, but from there everyone seemed to get really into the performance. "These guys are tight!" our neighbor said, surprised, after a few songs. TSK's set WAS tight, and rockin', and intense: everything a secret guest set should be. That "Patches" song is so habit-forming.

Zeke: Even in 2008, Seattle still moshes on occasion! The mosh "pit" for Zeke was more of a loosely packed zone where people acted like highly reactive halogen and alkali metal atoms, zooming around and colliding occasionally, giving up and gaining electrons like mad. (We played more of a noble gas role, back under the air conditioning vent, content to watch.) Since we don't really know anything substantive about punk or metal rock, we will just say that there was a lot of incoherent screaming, heavy guitar riffs, and sweat happening on stage. Definitely fun. ROCK ON!

And this is how Capitol Hill looked (and felt) after the all-day party: