The annual FYF Fest, now in its seventh year, experienced serious growing pains Saturday at the Los Angeles State Historic Park downtown, even if the music onstage offered gratifying highs. The daylong concert featured 35 buzzing bands, a combination of rising, boundary-pushing underground acts and seasoned rock stalwarts, and drew an enthusiastic crowd estimated to be 20,000.

But just as last year, those arriving early to catch the first roster of bands were left stranded in interminable lines. Although the musicians onstage played to eager enthusiasts, the behind-the-scenes organization was visibly lacking throughout the day and night, as evidenced by overflowing trashcans, lack of water dispensaries and endless queues.

Festival-goers are nothing if not a dedicated bunch, though, and despite the many problems, the patient and the persistent experienced a hefty offering of musical joy. Here are highlights and lowlights:

Best costumes: The Dead Man's Bones children's choir was called Warm Glass of Milk, and it arrived decked in period costumes. The kids, ranging in age from preschoolers to teenagers, came portraying (among others) Charlie Chaplin, Audrey Hepburn, Janis Joplin and Ludwig van Beethoven, stood behind Bones' founders Ryan Gosling (yes, the actor) and Zach Shields and belted out a wonderful array of couplets, the best of which was "I raise my flag up into your heart / You let the winds come tear it apart."

Best singalong: It's hard to imagine that one year ago Local Natives were hustling the Eastside residency circuit. Because if the crowd's instant, rapturous reaction to the boozy piano intro to "Airplanes" was any indication, they were born to play to fields of thousands. It takes a special skill to make a line like "Every question, you took the time to sit and look it up in the encyclopedia" into a lighters-up moment, but the Natives' crystalline harmonies could make a cookbook feel anthemic.

 

In the strange ecosystem of Animal Collective, Panda Bear is the difficult one. That’s saying something for a guy in a band with barely a phonetically discernible lyric in its long catalog of tongue-wagging acid jams. But while co-frontman Avey Tare supplies a lot of the melodic heft that kicked the band onto the Billboard charts last year with “Merriweather Post Pavilion,” Panda Bear (Noah Lennox to the government) brings the tangles of synthetic samples, errant noise blasts and the woozy harmonies that make the band’s albums immersive worlds all their own.

His solo breakthrough “Person Pitch,” a cracked take on Beach Boys bliss run through a beatmaker’s hall of mirrors, was Pitchfork’s favorite album of 2008, and expectations are simmering for its followup due later this year. The minimalist drum patter of the first single “Tomboy” gave a hint at its direction, but we talked to Lennox from his home in Lisbon, Portugal, (where he relocated after stints in Baltimore and New York) to hear more about his unusual knack for making drippy psychedelia sound like pop hits in anticipation of his headlining set at the FYF Fest this weekend.

How has living in Lisbon affected what you’re interested in pertaining to your solo career, considering you’re pretty isolated from your band?

It’s definitely forced me to be more responsible, as far as being organized and answering e-mail and things. But it hasn’t really changed how I approach it creatively, even in the band one of us always comes in with a pretty finished foundation and then we work on it from there. I’m a big believer in that your environment affects the music you make, so I’m sure things like walking the streets here affect it, but it’s hard to put my finger on it.

So many people have found a kind of childlike wonder and sense of exploration and repetition in your music. How has raising two actual young children informed that sensibility?

The kids have definitely changed me, not taste-wise necessarily, but I feel a lot more responsibility to do my best with music and cover all my bases.

In the sense they made you more open to commercial success, knowing that a family depends financially on your music?

Not that exactly. I always start by doing exactly what I want to be doing in a kind of creative vacuum, but having a family has really moved me to make that music be as successful as possible. It’s a tough balance to maximize your potential, but to do that you’ve got to tour all the time and I don’t want to leave my family in the dust.

The FYF Fest marks the unofficial close of the outdoor rock 'n' roll festival season in Southern California, bringing it to an end with dissonant guitars, vocal yelps, disaffected beach-bum punks and even a song or two inspired by the Civil War. Thirty bands and three stages, the all-day affair at the L.A. State Historic Park falls somewhere between a neighborhood block party and Chicago's Pitchfork Music Festival, taking a smaller, more targeted approach to the multi-act bill.

Plenty of it is adventurous, and some of it is even a bit tuneless. Yet the celebration of the underground, the niche and the weird is also a bargain. Tickets started at $20 for early-bird buyers, and in the days leading up to the fest, now in its second year in Chinatown, have risen only to $30. 

Rare, indeed, is an affordable all-day fest that is as pridefully left-of-center as FYF. With a bill built for discovery -- as well as one that contains plenty of local heroes -- Pop & Hiss breaks down the must-see-acts and those you may want to investigate, time permitting. The hour-by-hour guide is below.

 
Nestled between this weekend's Sunset Junction and the Sept. 3 FYF Fest is West Hollywood's three-day celebration of rock 'n' roll riffage and crossover hip-hop. The third annual Sunset Strip Music Festival closes with an all-day street fest and headlining sets from Billy Corgan's current incarnation of the Smashing Pumpkins, as well as former Guns N' Roses slinger Slash and rising psychedelic rapper Kid Cudi. 

Though events start happening at West Hollywood clubs on Aug. 26, only Aug. 28 will feature two outdoor stages and a host of nationally known acts. 

Set times for that day's fest, which will close down a stretch of Sunset Boulevard to house the two stages, were unveiled today, and will feature a closing hand-off of sorts from a pair of Chicago-bred artists. Veteran rap lyricist Common will finish out a stage near the corners of Sunset and San Vicente Boulevard, ending his set moments before the Smashing Pumpkins take to a stage closer to Doheny Drive at 8:20 p.m.

The Aug. 28 portion of the fest, in which music starts at 1 p.m., will involve a host of Sunset Strip venues, including the Cat Club, the Key Club, the Roxy Theatre and the Whisky A Go-Go, with bands playing throughout the afternoon and into evening. Tickets for Saturday are $49.50 in advance, and $60 at the gate. Other acts on the bill include Semi  Precious Weapons, Travie McCoy, Neon Trees and the Binges. Fergie is slated to guest with Slash.

Full set times after the jump: