There are a lot of things to see or do at Bumbershoot; Team Metroblogging helps you ward off confusion and indecision by pointing out some of the highlights. In this edition: Saturday, the first real day of the festival and the most music-(and roller derby!)-overloaded of them all.

Need a reason to get an early start on the day? Look no further than the Gossip who kick off the festivities on the Mainstage. The best description of their sound that I’ve heard: young people making gospel punk music. It’s awesome that they have a giant venue, do your part to make it not seem empty. They deserve a crowd. You deserve to hear them.
If you have yet to see Jamie Lidell performing live, your excuses end today. Bumbrella Stage. 3:45. His latest album is neat and all, but watching him make danceable soul from the ground up by resampling his own voice and found sounds using his own custom designed software is off-the-charts compelling, both for watching and listening purposes.

You know how in love with Laura Veirs we are. Please, tell her to call us. Josh needs a wife [Ed: ahem, he's on a marriage strike], and Dylan needs a new banjo teacher. (4.45pm, Mural)

Here’s the easy part of your choose-your-own-adventure Saturday: the evening stadium show artists are AFI and Yellowcard. You a moody, screaming, black-wearing quasi-emo teenage girl drawing up sketches of the first 10 tattoos you’re going to get once you turn 18? Enjoy the show! For the rest of us… there are some very tough choices.

Playing in almost completely overlapping timeslots are Rogue Wave and the Thermals. The former is sunny, drop dead gorgeously melodic, and are playing outside on the Broad Street Lawn. The latter? Remember the first time you heard More Parts Per Million and wondered whether you’d accidentally been sent their garage demo reel? Then you fell desperately in love with their raw, lo-fi energy. Their latest is a surreal protest album. If any band can make something of the gymnasiumlike Exhibition Hall / worst venue of all time, it’s the Thermals.

Depending on your choice for the previous hour, switch stages or stay put. It’s your call. On the lawn (7:15): of Montreal carries the mighty Elephant Six standard with electro- psych-indie-pop storytelling. Ex Hall has Deerhoof (7:30p), the math rockers who decided “hey! maybe this would be better if we added a girl singing nonsense lyrics over it?” and found that it mysteriously worked. If musical overload strikes, today’s best reason to preserve your eardrums is in the Lopez room (6:30p). You’ve been fawning over the knitted tags all over town, now’s your chance to meet their maker: Knitting with Knitta.

The complexity of decision-making reaches an awful climax for the evening’s closing hours. Luckily, they’re all sufficiently different that your exhaustion level can be your guide:

Shooter Jennings has finally decided to take up the outlaw country mantel of his parents (Jessi Coulter and Waylon Jennings). He’s not completely eschewing rock and roll, but neither did his father. Country around these parts is either the slick KMPS crap or Neko Case. Shooter doesn’t sound like either of them. Trust me, you’ll enjoy it. (8.30pm, Mural)

Lady Sovereign was huge in the UK a few years ago, representing (with The Streets) the emergence of a white British hip-hop that combines reverence to American rap and history with very British topics and attitudes. She’s also short. Now she’s starting her campaign to take over America. Don’t get in her way. (9.30pm, Bumbrella)

Badly Drawn Boy (aka Damon Gough) is another “huge in the UK a few years ago” slash “scored a Gap commercial” offering this year. [Dylan: Then where the hell are Eliza Carthy, Kathryn Williams, and the Stereophonics?] He’s a great little songwriter who’s a little bit Elliot Smith, a little bit Nick Drake, and nowhere near as depressed. Take your indie-emo daughter to see him instead of AFI, since his songs are wittier than their titles. However, be aware that his live shows have a reputation for going all rambly. (9.15pm, Broad Street Lawn)

What? the Blood Brothers are playing too (9:15, Ex Hall)? Just get out your four sided die and let chance seal your fate.