Jolly good headliners, these kids are.

- SILVERSUN PICKUPS -

“Pikul” and “Carnavas” represent the best debut EP-to-LP jump in the last decade. But as good as those records are, they don’t touch the ferocity of the Silversun Pickups’ live show.

And when the Los Angeles quartet unleashed its might into an extended 90-minute set on Monday at the packed Ogden Theatre, the crowd was left hungry for more - even though the band boldly spent its encore on B-sides and lesser-known tracks alongside a bizarrely down-tempo cover of Bjork’s “Big Time Sensuality.” The show solidified the youthful Pickups as a legit headliner…

The band has more hit-worthy songs than most bands its age, and sure enough, “Kissing Families,” “Future Foe Scenario,” “Little Lovers” and “Melatonin” hit as big as the singles “Lazy Eye” and “Well Thought Out Twinkles” on Monday. The Pickups, with all of the fuzzy distortion and awkward screams, are the latest indie band to hit the mainstream - and we can’t think of one that deserves the success and attention more.

-Ricardo Baca

Forget the dumb name, remember the sweet “Graceland” goodness.

- VAMPIRE WEEKEND -

Forgive this band’s trendy, meaningless name - which hints at its New York hipster roots - and focus instead on its refreshing sound. The quartet slaps bits of “Graceland”-era Paul Simon, the Police and the Clash into shapes that resemble indie-pop, only you want to dance to it instead of text your friends.

Vampire Weekend’s early headlining set at the Hi-Dive a week ago Wednesday attracted a good chunk of this city’s writers and bloggers, and judging by the response, they were glad they came. “Oxford Comma” rubbed them with cotton-tipped keyboards and nimble falsetto vocals. “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” introduced perhaps the first melodic Afrobeat vibe the Hi-Dive had ever enjoyed. “A-Punk” featured drummer Chris Tomson’s appealingly flat tones, attained by keeping the bottom of his toms wide open.

The broken string on singer Ezra Koenig’s guitar seemed to indicate the night as a whole: Shiny, gleefully tangled and swinging happily in the lights.

-John Wenzel

They were formerly called Numbers from the Back. Sorry… bad joke.

- LETTERS FROM THE FRONT -

By midnight, the Larimer Lounge looked like any 13-hour-old bar-be-cue: a still-sweltering wasteland of strewn cans, cups … and a few hardy stragglers.

But there was still one more band (of 13!) to play, and the first driving metal-punk riff by Letters from the Front guitarist Dan Aid sent blood pumping, temps rising and the cool kids scurrying back in from the patio. Aid is an astonishing player, and not only because his pick hand is a stump, with a sweatband that holds a 6-inch paint stick he uses to strike his strings with fury. Aid (electrocuted at age 12) also has the look: A mohawk, tattoos and a Snobs dress shirt. Pure kitten-in-a- dryer rock, as they call it.

“Hi, we’re Love Me Destroyer,” joked Tommy Monette, who moves to Seattle after an Aug. 8 show at the Marquis. “No you’re not … and we’re better looking” came the voice from the crowd.

But destroy they did. At not even 3, a promising band very much in league with Planes Mistaken for Stars is going down in front.

- John Moore