At Malkin Bowl on Saturday, June 6

Though Levitation Vancouver's A Place to Bury Strangers show at the Rickshaw on Friday was packed to the rafters, the fest's first full day of outdoor activities at Stanley Park's Malkin Bowl on Saturday looked more than a little thin. Obviously, there’s a size disparity between the two venues, but it didn't seem like many locals wanted their minds melted by psych rock sounds at 12 in the afternoon. 

As such, Victoria's Backhomes were given the unenviable task of opening the day to a crowd of 20 or so people hanging out up front. Unfazed and armed with a pair of Fenders, programmed beats and tinted sunglasses, the duo of Kees Dekker and  Aimée Van Drimmelen sent spectacularly spaced-out tracks like "Solid Gold" into the void. Among those there to see it were Black Mountain's Joshua Wells, who was kicking up dust with a laid-back two-step, while the majestic eagle that took in the Spoon show at Malkin a couple of weeks earlier loomed over the Levitation grounds from the park's highest perch. The eagle might have seasons tickets.

After Squamish Nation chief Ian Campbell welcomed the crowd to the fest, Dada Plan took the stage.  The band's The Madness Hides LP is one of the year's finest headphone trips, but it played a bit too mellow for the audience, most of which chose to sit at this point. Still, bassist Colin Cowan grinned while roaming the stage like a drunk uncle to the island-sway number "Helpless." Not to be outdone, one lady near the back of the field did a peacock strut with her dance partner, a rolled-up bamboo mat. Elsewhere, a Levitation worker waggled a running garden hose over a patch of dirt. 

Tacocat dialled up the intensity of the afternoon with a brief set of surf-informed pop-punk. Commanding frontwoman Emily Nokes smacked a canary yellow tambourine on her forearm the whole set through, singing about a "tabby in the terminal ward" on "Psychic Death Cat”. 

Locals Three Wolf Moon didn’t shy away from the requisite drug talk. "This is a trip, and I haven't even taken anything yet," guitarist Adam Grant told the crowd, with bassist Evan Joel shouting "Who took acid today?" Three Wolf Moon delivered a middle-of-the-road mix of '70s arena-rock keyboards, adenoidal howls, and in-the-red riffery that didn't exactly alter anyone's perceptions of space and time. 

Montreal's Elephant Stone lifted spirits with an initial punch of psych rock sounds, but the set quickly deflated when Rishi Dhir's bass amp crapped out. Twice. "That last song was jinxing us," Dhir told the crowd with a disconcerted smirk before launching into the swirling groove of "Echo & the Machine". He'd later bring us to a higher plane after hopping onto a table and manning a sitar for an instrumental raga.  

Despite stagehands unsuccessfully trying to tack up a banner for the Shrine, twice, it was Mystic Braves that took the stage next. The Los Angeles quintet served up vintage '60s garage rock, and looked the part with their bowl cuts and mutton chops. The band capped the performance with the easygoing "Bright Blue Day Haze", a fitting move considering the gorgeous outdoor setting.

The Shrine's banner—an illustration of a naked woman riding a forked-tongued wolf—was finally hung high and with a purpose. The California trio dropped an atom bomb of stoner metal sounds on an unwitting crowd, which was a mixed blessing. It certainly woke the place up, with several hundred people finally standing to bear witness to the lunkheaded acid-casualty jam "Tripping Corpse". 

Among the most inspired sets of Levitation was that of long-time Portland unit Dead Moon. Guitarist Fred Cole, bassist Toody Cole, and drummer Andrew Loomis clasped their hands together in a show of unity before setting Stanley Park ablaze with "Fire in the Western World". Punk-and-blues-fried outings like "54/40 or Fight" and "Johnny's Got a Gun"  were rough and tumble, but Toody's fierce vocals and Fred's damaged guitar solos were performed with undeniable passion. That raw power transferred over to the faithful, who blessed the band with the night's first pogo pit.

It's odd to think of Black Mountain as a heritage act, but the Vancouver-bred quintet's Levitation appearance timed neatly with the 10th anniversary edition of its self-titled debut. Keyboardist Jeremy Schmidt set things in motion with a few otherworldly synth sounds before the crew crashed into "Don't Run Our Hearts Around". Black Mountain hasn’t played a hometown show in three years, and it was electrifying to hear vocalist Amber Webber's sky-soaring vibrato and Steve McBean's yowls entwining together.

Groove has always been big for the group, with recent line-up addition Jonny Ollsin delivering soul-shaking bass rhythms on cuts like "Wucan," the pink neon baseball hat threaded through his belt loop bopping off his butt to the beat. A new stoned-out stunner called "Mothers of the Sun" teased a forthcoming new album, but Black Mountain closed-out with the early face-melter "No Hits." Judging by the crowd's ecstatic reaction to the set, the song’s title seems, in hindsight, a bit disingenuous. 

One could've been forgiven for being worn out by nine hours of nonstop music, but the Black Lips' down and dirty rave-ups were worth sticking around for. The hard-partying Atlanta headliners barrelled through the first few songs as a steady stream of beer cans was launched their way from the crowd, with guitarist Cole Alexander bouncing a pitched pilsner off his head, soccer-style. The Black Lips was also the first act to make use of visuals, with a giant screen projecting lava lamp swirls behind the band. 

Jared Swilley swung his bass around as he sang about a bad batch of molly on "Modern Art", while Alexander copped to munching a few magic mushrooms earlier in the day. Also contributing to the madness were Jack Hines's high kicks, Alexander's mistimed cartwheels, and the scores of toilet paper rolls flung into the crowd by some roadies. 

Malkin Bowl was a ghost town early on, but self-professed "Bad Kids" the Black Lips lifted spirits high by the end of the night, leaving Stanley Park a spectacular mess in the process.