Fresh air, a cool breeze, and decent turnout made Friday’s inaugural outdoor JAMfest, held at Fairview High School, a smashing success. Featuring performances from a plethora of high school musicians, the event, which helped raise money for disaster relief program ShelterBox, proved that high school students can be effective organizers, fundraisers, and humanitarians.

Billed as modern interpretation of a classic shamanic journey, The Portal: A Cosmic Rock Odyssey combines film, music, and lighting to try and create a surreal, out-of-body, perhaps even religious experience.

Between Meloy’s razor-sharp wit and The Decemberists’ phenomenal feats of musical endurance (playing for nearly 30 minutes straight is a daunting task for any band, let alone a six-piece multi-instrumental ensemble), it was love at first sight. Of course, it was probably love before first sight, considering how many diehard Decemberites were in the audience.

How could one man possibly expect to carry the tightly knit songwriting and overwhelming orchestration of Wilco on his shoulders with just one guitar? The band’s work is so vast, complex and impenetrable that it seems almost impossible for such a feat to be accomplished. It spans more moments, emotions and periods than most bands ever get a chance at. Fortunately for Jeff Tweedy and his fans, the frontman of Wilco is talented and well versed, making him the perfect man to face such a challenge.

Born in Denver but birthed on the sea, Tennis’ lackadaisical approach to ’60s lo-fi surf pop has already garnered a large audience. The husband-wife duo’s recent eight-month-long sai

It’s amazing how well The National’s songs translate on stage. Berninger’s baritone anguish and the band’s melancholy outlook somehow manage to attract an energetic audience with plenty of good humor. In addition, the mope rockers have great banter. Their topics in between songs ranged from the misunderstood Denver Cannibal society to Red Rocks and how it can go fuck itself.

We were all just 20-year-old kids from Portland, not really thinking we were going to make a career or anything. So it was kind of a magical thing when something as big as Pitchfork responded to a nobody with no label and no hype and no fans, Seim says.

Since their formation in late 2000, the Portland, Ore., band has used a homemade computer program called Digital Looping Recorder, or “Deeler,” to record individual improvised loops on all instruments the band uses. The band then uses these loops to construct entire songs.

It’s rare to witness true music nerds performing. It’s even more rare to find music nerds who prefer hysterical swing and kazoos to intense sampling and laptops. That’s why people who are lucky enough to see the Two Man Gentlemen Band should know that the stars have aligned in their favor.

What the hell is Matt Costa doing on Jack Johnson’s Brushfire Records? Everything about his music should be the anti-Jack Johnson, the personification of California’s oxymoronic laid-back image. Costa’s work on his latest album, Mobile Chateau, is laced with ’60s psych and folk, practically sprawling with sporadic interpretations of tripped out kaleidoscopic sounds in the key of the 13th Floor Elevators. But the potential berserk awesomeness of this is whitewashed by Johnson’s mundane influences, along with a handful of issues that stem from Costa’s own faults.