Widespread Panic’s sunset performance — the first of two sets the group played Friday at Rothbury — had the feel of a spring break beach party. Dozens of yellow balls tagged with smiling faces bounced like popped corn on the throng of onlookers — an inordinate amount of whom were sporting the same fuzzy, Dr.Seuss-style hats worn by dating guru Mystery on VH1’s The Pickup Artist. But despite the carnival-esque atmosphere, the band members looked more like laid-back college professors (aside from Dave Schools, who, despite his name, resembled a grizzly bear wrestling a bass guitar) as they stretched out on instrumental marathons like “North.”

Shortly after the sun went down, Of Montreal set off an electro-pop dance party at Rothbury. With many in the crowd decked out like it was a mid-Nineties rave (glow sticks and neon necklaces abounded) Kevin Barnes and Co. worked through a shimmering “Faberge Falls For Shuggie” and a the loose disco-funk of “Suffer for Fashion.” The band seemed to take the latter song literally, dressing like castoffs from a 1980s discotheque. Barnes, for one, sported a bright orange scarf, blue boots, white jeans and a matching headband. And while some of the frontman’s lyrics bordered on bizarre (”Be careful how you touch me/My body is an earthquake,” he howled at one point), the performance dove head-on into Fellini-esque surrealism, with masked characters stalking the frontman as he worked the stage.

Midway through Modest Mouse’s Friday evening Rothbury set, frontman Isaac Brock recounted how he recently tried to tackle bandmate Tom Peloso because the bassist was “standing there all happy.” The failed attempt at channeling Bruce Smith left Brock with an injured arm and a possible concussion (”There was lots of blood,” he explained). But the singer’s aggression remained untamed as he ripped through songs like “Trucker’s Atlas” and the yelpy “Wild Packs of Family Dogs” with a boxer’s energy. Best of all might have been the band’s biggest hit, the chiming “Float On,” which the audience turned into a rowdy saloon sing-along.

“It’s 4:20. It’s time to smoke,” hollered Snoop Dogg just three songs into his afternoon set, pausing to take a puff from an overstuffed blunt. Never mind that it was actually 4:32. The lanky MC, who took the stage riding a tricked-out three-wheel bicycle, delivered a crowd-pleasing set, touching on songs both new (”Sensual Seduction”) and old (”Gin and Juice”). Dressed in an out-sized white T-shirt, the affable rapper tempered his Don “Magic” Juan audacity with just enough of Deputy Dog’s “awe shucks” demeanor. After all, there aren’t many people who can tell a crowd of women they want to “put it inside you,” and sound disarmingly charming doing so.

Even though she was dressed head to toe in gleaming white, soulstress Bettye LaVette wasn’t afraid to get down and dirty Friday morning at Michigan’s inaugural Rothbury Festival. The diminutive singer, whose voice remains as forceful as an encroaching typhoon, wrung blood from “Choices” and strutted her way through the roadhouse boogie of “Take Me Like I Am.” She also recalled her childhood days spent terrorizing the residents of nearby Muskegon and announced her return to the middling afternoon crowd with a simple statement: “You know I’m home, don’t you?”

Up next on the same stage were Southern rock gods Drive-By Truckers, who backed LaVette on her 2007 disc The Scene of the Crime. It’s safe to say that Truckers singer-guitarist Patterson Hood will be supporting a Democrat in the upcoming election. “Everybody register to vote,” he shouted while introducing a sneering take on “Putting People on the Moon.” “Let’s fire some motherfuckers and tell them to get a real job.” They ripped through the guitar pyrotechnics of “3 Dimes Down” and pulled back for a mournful “A World of Hurt,” but the real highlight came when LaVette joined the Truckers for a smoldering take on “Jealousy” that left the normally verbose Hood speechless. “Bettye left us all a little flabbergasted,” he announced, shaking his head and trying to compose himself.