The festival that can't seem to slow down has come and gone again. In a city that is already congested with great gigs, NXNE still stands out as an astonishing assemblage of talent from around the world. Big acts, small acts, locals and globetrotters, there are few experiences as exhilarating as it is exhausting like a massive music festival and just when you think the roster couldn't get tighter, organizers toss a few Mudhoneys at you. This year our writers and friends took to the city to make memories out of notes, harmony, beers and sweat. So much sweat. So much more beers.

Devon Wong: "I need a crowd of people," sings a street-corner busker, "but I can't face them day to day." I'm feeling poetic, a mood that never yields good poetry. Soleil, cou coupé. The young people squeeze into their skins and drag themselves out to face the approaching night. I'm among them. The streetlights begin their burn cycle and we dance to their hum like...

Oh, enough of that.

We're here to talk about NXNE, and as there is always far too much going on during any given day of NXNE, I think I'll strip it down to my favourite. Friday.

Got off work, downed a quick bite, and headed off to my first show of the night at The Great Hall, 9 p.m. Great Hall acoustics: not so great. Avi Buffalo was playing a stripped-down set. The audience was small, and there were more people with press passes and cameras than without. Avi, whose real name is Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg, which is an epic name by the way, has been generating quite the buzz, so I was hoping to be impressed, and while not blown away impressed I was. First off, Avi and crew signed to Sub Pop straight out of high school, and looked like they were signed to Sub Pop straight out of high school. As they opened their set, Avi announced with boyish wonder that this was his first time in Canada, and that it was a big thing for him. I couldn't help but smile at his sincerity.

This sincere and obligatorily awkward charm is inflected throughout Avi's music and was certainly what kept the set afloat. Avi Buffalo play a flavour of smooth, slightly worn, and brooding dreaminess that resists the temptations of weight and full-on-teenage-angst. On the contrary, what Avi Buffalo lack in life and performance experience, they make up for in sheer stuttering, stumbling charm. To say their music is mature beyond their years would be too easy and not quite correct. Avi Buffalo present us with fragile tableaus of youth straining toward maturity, and it is the tension of this sincere effort that lends beauty to their work. I can't wait to hear what Avi and Co. will have to show us after they've had some tours and a few more years under their belts. Sadly I had to miss the full band's performance on Saturday. Avi Buffalo will be playing Toronto again August 5th when they open for Blitzen Trapper at the Opera House.

King Frankenstein: Whenever you see an established act live, there's always that can of worries. They're stiff, they're old, they're over rehearsed, they don't care anymore, it's just about the money and t-shirts now. Because this is the unfortunate reality that is more often encountered, it overshadows the counter-scenario. They're experienced, they know their shit, they're confident, they keep doing it because it's fun and it's all about making you eat out of the palm of their hands. You're set if the latter follows the former, no one eats the mint first.

I saw the first bitty of Iggy Pop's free set. It was awful, not so much because Pop was awful, but because the audience that came out may just live on forever in local infamy. A hybrid beast of ambitious new punks with shit to prove hobbling with older couples who don't know whatthefuck, all leading to a perfect storm of panicked parents, lost sandles and one dude in front of me with a fanny pack who seemed to just snap and gleefully licked the first Skynyrd tee that fell on his face. Meanwhile on stage Iggy went on about how we're all 'crucified for the sake of a dollar' a sentiment that was hard to swallow as banners for Virgin Mobile flapped around all sides

It took only one night for that grotesque attitude to wash away as another free show in the exact same spot would end the festival properly. 'And it was so real,' repeated my brother, over and over, chomping down the molten waffle we pit-stopped for after seeing De La Soul mere inches in front of our gawking faces. The three men, now over two decades into their amazing career, literally made themselves at home in the public space. They rapped only as they wanted to, strolling around the stage like you'd lazy around your bedroom. Satisfying a packed Dundas Square with hits young and old, laying down beats with casual prestige and even giving a shoutout to Choclair. Come now, you remember Choclair. The crowd welcomed them. No pushing and shoving, no tears and anguish, a communion in complete sync. The only shit disturber left a smile on our face as, twice, she attempted to jump the humble barrier to bear hug Trugoy the Dove. Synergy out of the business room, and memories that cannot be easily replicated. When they said "Leave your name and your number" we said "And I'll get back to you."

Will Perkins: The Brooklyn dork-rockers Anamanaguchi played to an eager,  easily excitable, and unsurprisingly mostly-dude crowd at The Whippersnapper. As 8-bit punk rock poured out from guitars and synths jacked on Nintendo Entertainment Systems, pizza was served and smell of nerd sweat filled the air. Anamanaguchi are a strictly instrumental quartet. Vocals might add something to their music, but the boys rock out hard and make the most of it. Their music is all tone and feeling, without lyrics getting in the way. A pure musical experience with a nostalgic kick for the cartridge generation.

Devon Wong: After Avi, I grabbed a coffee and killed time until 11 p.m., when CALLmeKAT took the stage at the Czehoski, a Czech/Polish restaurant and pub on Queen West. Maybe two dozen of us packed ourselves into seats at the narrow back-end of the restaurant. Think candle light and the atmosphere of a hearty soup. And onto the stage steps a vision. Seriously, Copenhagen-based pop singer-songwriter Katrine Ottosen is what many of my male friends might call "a righteous babe". And I will admit, yes, that is why I really wanted to see her set. Was that a bad pun? Nonsense, and I scorn your false accusations.

I was pleasantly thrilled that Kat was not just a pretty face. She had some righteous tunes as well, rocking a drum machine, keyboard, and a mean set of pipes. There was even, wait for it, a fucking kazoo solo. That's right. A kazoo solo. How could I not fall in love with such a woman? Somewhere in her set, Kat also informed us that it was her first time in Canada. I do hope it's not her last.

King Frankenstein: My Thursday night was sort of in flux. There we places I needed to be, places I should be, places I wanted to be and places I couldn't be. But I was looking forward to Gold Panda. The little I heard before I liked a lot, but it was tame in comparison to the damage he can do live. A skinny Brit, face sparkled with unshaven thorns, hoodied with a minimal set-up was understatedly unassuming. His trip injected Bollywood electro was his own game. What he was a master of, which I guess should have compared to many previous electric acts in the past, was dramatic timing. Not just timing, but the way he could tug you by a synthetic hook, letting you reel in and out as the pulse steadied and you aggressively awaited the next level he'd take you to. While HEALTH, who also played that show, are about an astonishing blast of energy, Panda was ingenious management.

Devon Wong: Sadly, I had no time to stay and ogle after Kat wrapped up. I had to speed walk my way over to the Whipper Snapper Gallery, a fantastic not-for-profit art gallery run by the same folks who bring us Late Night in the Bedroom. While most of the SB crew were off watching Japandroids, I was soaking in the ethereal musical styling of one DM Stith, whose debut album Heavy Ghost released on the Asthmatic Kitty label was one of my favourites of 2009. What does Stith sound like? Well, I don't think I've ever come across an album title that more aptly captures the sound of its musical contents. Think label founder Sufjan Stevens if Stevens made music for claustrophobic gothic horror films.

I wasn't sure if Stith would be able to capture the depth and atmosphere of his recorded material in a live set, especially considering it was just him, an acoustic guitar, and a looping pedal. However, my doubts were promptly slain as layers of body percussion, arpeggios, minor chords, and a choir of Stiths wrapped me in their sylphlike embrace. Stith played several songs off of Heavy Ghost as well as a brilliant Sparklehorse cover (R.I.P.), and a new concoction for a "pop" album in the works. Giving off strong vibes of geek-couture, which I mean as a high compliment, Stith kept us entertained with his perpetually bemused tongue-(sometimes)-in-cheek sense of humour through what was at first thought to be technical difficulties but turned out to be the concrete room's acoustics... That is, one note in particular, A-flat if I remember correctly, whenever played or sung, would result in some vicious buzzing feedback. Some adjustments to the volume in the monitor lessened the annoyance of this structural acoustic flaw and did nothing to diminish the power of the set. The small space and atmosphere of the Whipper Snapper were perfect. I was only disappointed that more people didn't show up to share in the experience. The audience was rather sparse. But such is the peril of NXNE.

After wrapping up, Stith manned his own merch table and chatted with fans. One fan told him to check out Canadian band Timber Timbre. I seconded this sentiment.

Ted Killin: I compare heading into Dundas Square on June 19^th to salmon swimming upstream -- Iggy Pop has drawn such a massive crowd that there actually seems to be no escape from the underground subway onto the Square, and Yonge St. is blocked en masse with front-stage hopefuls, teeming, bodily looking for an avenue to arrive closer to stage. I have two other salmon in tow and we flap our fins, joining the first flow heading toward the center of the Square.

The currents are in constant motion: fish near the front who make the decision to leave must engage the teeming mass to find an outlet, a smaller tributary that will bring the party to the outer edge. These are the lanes that I need to find, those small subshoots that separate the crowd enough for us to wriggle through the parting seas and dash another five feet closer to the glam icon, shirtless and skinny Iggy.

Another obstacle: some nefarious bear has set up promotional tents, designed to divert questing fish into their booths of new product. These tents block several key sight lines to the stage, which drew moans from several fish in my tributary, but I have come to the understanding that there will always be bears in the stream, and rather than waste my energy I wriggle onward, reserving hope that I will catch a glimpse of this gaunt, glorious energy onstage.

Unfortunately, I was robbed of even a glimpse. Fish have notoriously bad vision, but my tributary dried up halfway through the Square; not even a trickle of traffic could pass a line of boulders, tall and unmoving. Standing on tiptail for about fifteen minutes, we finally made way for other hopefuls, catching a side route, resigning ourselves never to make the final run toward Iggy. He sounded fantastic through the speakers, the crowd was thrumming, yet my live music experience could not be satiated without a view of the man himself. A tiny speck in the distance would have sufficed.

This fervour spurred by a huge act in a public space goes to show that one of Toronto’s biggest central open areas cannot reign in a wriggling mass that want to share in the experience of the master Iguana himself. Next time, I’ll swim hours in advance.