Blow me: Colin Stetson and his monster horn.

I'm back from Hopscotch, a three-day music festival in Raleigh, NC. It was fun. Here's what I learned.

1. Raleigh is an Exceptionally Friendly Town

Seriously: thumbs up for North Carolina hospitality. If you're from NC, go ahead and pat yourself on the back, unless you're busy patting your neighbor on the back, which you probably are, because you're so nice. I can't tell you how many smiling faces I encountered, or how eagerly the staffs at all the Hopscotch venues bent over backwards to be friendly to everyone, even if they secretly hated the fact that their town was being overrun by smug, overeducated white kids (like me, except for the overeducated part. I'm educated to exactly the correct level). Speaking of Raleigh music venues: they're awesome. Each has its own personality; each is professional and purposeful and inviting. Get it, Raleigh!

2. The Hippie/Hipster Consolidation is Nearly Complete

This would've been unthinkable 10 years ago. But one need look no further than the raucous, reckless weirdo-rock of Brooklyn's Guardian Alien, which at its Hopscotch set boasted a Phish-tee'd guitarist, an ecstatic, wobbly-headed bassist and a shoeless shahi baaja player, for proof. Or how about just the fact that the band has a freaking shahi baaja player. Anyway, they're total hippies. But they're on hip indie label Thrill Jockey, and their crowd is largely composed of folks you might expect to find at a Balam Acab gig. I'm pretty sure we're headed into some bizarre crossover land. It's kinda cool, though. Better drugs for everyone.

3. Reports of the Death of the Guitar Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

The Three Lobed/WXDU day party at King's Barcade on Friday was a testament to the enduring power of the guitar, featuring a lineup of folks doing new and highly disparate things with the instrument. Oren Ambarchi droned it to hell and back. Lambchop's William Tyler made it an Appalachian symphony. Bill Orcutt beat it to a pulp—respectfully. Meanwhile, if it was good ol' rock and roll you were after, envelope-pushing metal bands like Pallbearer, not to mention indie-guitar titans Built to Spill and Yo La Tengo, put on some of the hottest and most anticipated shows of the fest. Live on, guit-fiddle. Live on.

4. Certain Aspects of Every Music Festival Remain Irreversibly Cheesy

No matter how irrefutably cool, impeccably conceived or Pitchfork-editor-curated (and Hopscotch was all those things), the music festival, inevitably, is host to some straight cheesy bullshit. Light-projected, sponsor-pimping "graffiti." Characterless, concrete-corporate-plaza'd main stages. Beer-tented daytime shows for Ray-Ban-sporting yo-pro moms and dads who just wanna get down on a couple microbrews and hear some rockin' jams but still get their kids to bed at a reasonable hour. Necessary stuff, I know. But it tends to feel so cookie-cutter-cringeworthy. Thankfully, Hopscotch did it right, managing to make even these potential bummers feel unobtrusive.

5. The Best Festival Moments are Unexpected and Occur Without Fanfare

AthFest attendees know that the day parties and after-hours happenings often provide the most enduring memories. With Hopscotch it was no different, but some of the primetime slots also offered revelatory experiences, like Six Organs of Admittance's last-minute gig on Friday, where psych-raga guitarist Ben Chasny and free jazz drummer-celeb Chris Corsano played for a small but lucky crowd. Oh yeah, and Corsano? He was everywhere, sitting in with groups as varied as Megafaun, Yo La Tengo and Bill Orcutt. Meanwhile, hundreds in attendance at Killer Mike's packed-out show, where he played several tracks from his latest, R.A.P. Music, led a beautifully vulgar incantation against the late Ronald Reagan and teared up while talking about the loss of his grandmother, bore witness to one of the most honest and emotion-filled performances of the weekend. These are the true pleasures of the modern music festival—when art and energy combine to create a powerful, lasting effect.

Check out our Hopscotch coverage over on our liveblog.