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Sasquatch Sunday rolled late into the night with Ratatat’s closing set. Performances leading up to the New York electric duo’s set included Beach House, Cold War Kids, Flogging Molly, Flaming Lips, and Modest Mouse.

Touring on the group’s first Sup Pop release, “Team Dream,” from earlier this year, Beach House’s Alex Scally was conversational with the crowd. “Are you enjoying the day?” she asked. “Are you enjoying each other? Good job! Humans were made to cooperate. Good human beings.”

Scally seemed a bit awkward throughout, saying, “We’re enjoying ourselves, believe it or not.”

Cold War Kids, who played Sasquatch two years before, were also touring on a new release, “Mine Is Yours.” Live their sound was consistent, though it seemed as nothing much has changed for the Long Beach boys besides the addition of Creedence’s “Long As I Can See The Light” to their set.

Dave King kicked up the atmosphere with Flogging Molly and his witty stage humor. Their newest album, released in May, showcases the band’s rollicking Celtic-inspired punk ballads.

“There were lots of people when we were making this album who lost their jobs,” King said. “This is going out to all of you lovely people who are unemployed,” and played “Revolution.”

King followed up with “Selfish Man,” a song he dedicated to himself. “Are these screens on?” he asked. “It makes me look like a bigger dick than I am, at least that’s what my mother tells me.”

King’s clever, unlike Isaac Brock, who’s just a dick. During the group’s headlining set Brock belittled his fans, taking long pauses between songs to hold awkward conversations with the audience.

“Who has hiked the gorge?” Brock asked. “One guy? That is disafuckingpointing.”

Leading up to Modest Mouse’s set, on the smallest stage Das Racist asked, “What’s up white people?”

From flashing titties to throwing Soy Joys (given away for free at the festival) onstage, the crowd was feisty, encouraged by the Brooklyn-based group’s clever onstage humor. Accompanied by a horn section the boys of Das Racist propelled through a slightly slurry set.

When Wayne Coyne rolled onto the crowd in his clear human-sized hamster ball, he launched a classic Flips performance, complete with on-stage costumed dancers, confetti, streamers, balloons, and an on-mic camera.

“Thank you for being such freaks,” Coyne said. “So enthusiastic and so easily provoked to be happy.”

What was atypical was the performance of the group’s 1999 album, “The Soft Bulletin,” from front to back. Some songs were excluded due to time constraints, but their rendition of the dream-like album was wondrous.

When Coyne performed “The Spiderbite Song,” he described incidents that threatened the lives of drummer/keyboardist Steven Drozd and bassist Michael Ivings. “This next song is about a couple different episodes I was lucky enough to turn into this story. Even though everyone is still alive, at the time, it was absolutely fucking tragic.”

Coyne’s banter seemed profoundly heartfelt. “That’s why we have music,” he said, “when the worst of it happens.”

The set was paused for a birthday celebration. Festival founder Adam Zacks (introduced as Luke Skywalker by Coyne) brought out a giant birthday cake to celebrate the exact 10-year birthday of the Sasquatch Music Festival. “No one knows this but the Sasquatch mascot was initially based in part on Wayne Coyne,” Zacks said. “He was too sexy for a Sasquatch.”

“We wish that we could throw this cake out there and you guys can just go fucking crazy,” Coyne said. And indeed, he took fistfills of cake and chucked it into the audience.

In a return to seriousness, Coyne dedicated “Waitin’ For A Superman” to the departed Elliott Smith. “Normally we don’t play this song at a festival because it reminds us too much of sadness. But, sometimes by singing about it, we get to where we understand a different dimension of our unbearable sadness.”

Coyne described being on tour when they heard the news that Smith had died. “I don’t think we will ever really know if he took his own life,” Coyne said. “But there were plenty of times when we were around him that we felt that he was waiting for an answer; he was waiting for sometime to come along and maybe make everything bearable. We can’t wait. We have to try to make right now bearable enough. That’s all we can do.”

Read about Sasquatch Day 4 > > >

The nation’s live music industry remains an unpredictable environment, with fears lingering of last summer’s unusually challenging concert season where artists cancelled tours and struggled to fill seats. Yet 2011 summer music festivals are experiencing record sell-outs.

Tickets to Bonnaroo, Tennessee’s annual music fest in June, are nearly sold out. It was less than a week before tickets for Cochella—Indio, California’s annual music festival taking place next weekend—sold out.

And the northwest’s ever-growing music fest at Washington’s Gorge during memorial Day Weekend, Sasquatch sold all its 100,000 tickets (25,000 per day across four days) just a week after the lineup was announced.

Headliners for this 10th anniversary of Sasquatch include Foo Fighters, Modest Mouse, Wilco, Death Cab For Cutie, and the festival will host a reunion of Death From Above 1979 (not to mention Flaming Lips will be playing the entire Soft Bulletin album and Wolf Parade makes a much-anticipated break from hiatus).

Enticing musical lineups have always propelled Sasquatch’s ticket sales. As well the increasing popularity of Sasquatch is no doubt fueled by the amphitheatre in which its held, an internationally acclaimed concert venue carved in the basalt cliffs, high above the Columbia River Gorge and offering spectacular, sweeping views of the river and canyon.

Those not attending this year’s festivals or just not into three and four day music benders are fortunate this year. Missoula is capitalizing on its excellent routing location for bands attending the 2011 Sasquatch Music Festival. Foo Fighters, Modest Mouse, Iron and Wine, and Ratatat have all announced performances in Missoula in the last week of May and first part of June.

Foo Fighters will appear with Motorhead on Thursday, May 26 at the Adams Center at the University of Montana. Foo Fighters then head to Sasquatch to open the festival. This year, in celebration of its 10th year, show promoters extended the festival to four days, with the Foo as their first eve headlining act.

Festival creator Adam Zacks founded Sasquatch nearly 10 years ago with the aim of building an event that catered to the a wide variety of music enthusiasts’ tastes.

“We are excited to grow the festival to four days and thrilled that Foo Fighters, a great American rock band with roots in the Pacific Northwest, will be headlining the Friday show,” Zacks said in a press release.

Missoula will share in some of that Foo love, and will as well catch Modest Mouse on Friday, May 27 as part of the Knitting Factory’s 2011 Summer concert series taking place at Big Sky Brewery. The group has a few days to spend in frontman Isaac Brock’s old stomping grounds (Brock resided in Montana until age 11) before heading to Sasquatch for a headlining slot on Sunday, May 29.

Knitting Factory has also announced Ray LaMontagne and Brandi Carlile as acts at the same concert series, performing the brewery on June 20.

Following a Sasquatch performance, southern singer/songwriter Sam Beam’s group Iron and Wine has a sold-out performance Sun, May 29, at Missoula’s Wilma Theatre.

As well New York electric duo Ratatat performs Sasquatch on Sunday, May 29, heads to Canada and routes back through Missoula to perform Friday, June 3 at the Wilma—one of only six dates in the states outside of major festivals.

At times when Isaac Brock speaks, he’s unintelligible. But when he sings, it’s a different matter.

At Modest Mouse’s Sept. 3 appearance in Billings, Brock mumbled a few statements between songs, but it was his musicianship that impressed the most. Lead singer and guitarist for the indie rock band that hails from Issaquah, Wash., Brock fronts an accomplished lineup of performers (albeit Johnny Marr, former guitarist of the Smiths, was missing, perhaps out gigging with his Wakefield indie group The Cribs. Jim Fairchild played Marr’s guitar parts).

Modest Mouse played a range of songs from the band’s discography, including hits from their 2004 album Good News For People Who Love Bad News–arguably the one album that propelled them into mainstream success. They also dove into archives from This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About and The Lonesome Crowded West, the band’s first two albums, released in 1996 and 97.

Brock’s guitar produced a wild array of song, but his music was complemented by his eccentric lyrics. As the band’s main songwriter, Brock channels his poetic connection to language to create verses, which, in song, are quite infectious. From “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes” to “Custom Concern” to “The World At Large,” the set list spanned the group’s diverse repertoire.

The opening act, the Night Marchers, featuring John Reis, frontman of Rocket from the Crypt, performed a fine set of rock’n'roll. Reis’ strident voice was a familiar and welcomed sound.

The choice of venue seemed unusual at the time I bought tickets, but when the lights went down, I saw the fine arts venue in an entirely new light. Though the ladies that help me to my seat at the symphony still walked me down the isle, the theatrical qualities of the surroundings didn’t seem to matter. People stood and danced in front of their assigned chairs, and the venue felt all right for a rock show.

After the concert I joined a group of friends for drinks, and as “Float On”—the radio hit that launched Modest Mouse’s international popularity— randomly emitted from the jukebox, I reflected on my long history with the band. From missing their Lonesome Crowded West tour in the late 90s (the band was a no-show at a Denver date) to the anger/celebration when the band went major with The Moon and Antarctica in 2000, to their 2005 appearance in Billings during the Good News for People Who Love Bad News tour, my relationship with Modest Mouse has been as complicated as their path to success.

Modest Mouse’s current tour marks a milestone in the members’ careers. Though not as mainstream as they were during the “Float On” days, Modest Mouse’s staying power and widespread appeal is a testament to their indie rock charm and commitment to their craft.

Indie rock band Modest Mouse announced a tour that includes two Montana dates, Sept. 3 in Billings and Sept. 4 in Missoula.

The show, booked by Porterhouse Productions, is at the Alberta Bair Theater, a venue that holds a quarter of what the Shrine does, where Modest Mouse last performed in Billings.

Tickets for both Missoula and Billings are on sale now through the Modest Mouse Fan website for $39.50 plus applicable charges and go on sale to the general public tomorrow at noon.