Thursday's lighter load—and spectacular weather—made for a nice little ease-in to the frenzy. Cass McCombs' late-afternoon set was fine and mellow; as on last fall's Big Wheel and Others, he's never sounded looser, and while his whole vibe is just a tad too subdued to compete with the Tennessee sun, the constant flutters of pedal steel and his hand-drawn "Prisoner's Right to Vote" shirt mostly got across what his subtler songcraft couldn't. Like Cass, Real Estate kept things leisurely; they've got a bonafide #Roovian in bassist Alex Bleeker, who teased "Turn On Your Lovelight" and asked the crowd if "ya'll still bring glowsticks to this thing?" (Of course they do.)

Straight-up indie rock is always hit-or-miss proposition at a place like Bonnaroo—with all those options on offer, immediacy is king. But Cloud Nothings were as good as I've ever seen them, unspooling their eight-minute post-grunge nerd-dirge epics to a wildly receptive crowd that never stopped growing. But Vampire Weekend, so dazzling on record, still seem a bit bookish for the big stage, although Ezra Koening was dressed for the occasion in camp cargo shorts and a one-size-too-big white T-shirt. For the people who love them—and there seem to be more of us all the time—Neutral Milk Hotel's scrappy set was a triumph, messy and weird and cathartic. Dreamboat weirdo Ty Segall handily smashed the weekend's stagedive records; the kid's got a real gift for melody, one he occasionally tramples with a little too much punk-informed scuzz. When he gets the balance right, though, you wonder why he's not a bigger deal.

At my last Bonnaroo in 2012, straight-up rockers like Ty seemed to have taken a backseat to EDM. This year, Skrillex played twice—on his own, and as maestro of Saturday night's Superjam—and Kaskade and Zedd both had big late-night to-dos, but the overall balance seems to have shifted back in the other direction. Jack White's headlining set Saturday was chockablock with "return to rock" signifiers: the video screens flanking the stage showed vinyl being poured and old-timey TV tubes, reminders of the durability of the rock'n'roll era to which White so frequently harkens back. His set was strong, if a little scattered; he's not the most natural banterer, his solo material doesn't have the same bite as the White Stripes songs he peppers his set with, and he's very into living in Nashville, which translates to a lot of hit-or-miss country-boy affectations. Still, that man-out-of-time routine is very much his lane, and he thoroughly owns every inch of it.