As the opening bookend to the Bay Area’s summer music festival season, the avid weekend warrior would do well to think of BottleRock as a warm-up. The three-day celebration is packed with some of the biggest names in pop, as well as plenty of amazing, lesser-known acts—not to mention the culinary celebrities, beer, wine and food.

Fitting all of that food and music into three days is a daunting proposition. However, compared to the logistical nightmare of crisscrossing Golden Gate Park for three days in an attempt to catch all the best headliners and indie darlings at Outside Lands, the Napa festival is a breeze.

Nonetheless, just as it’s important for families to have emergency plans, it is advisable to head into BottleRock armed with a lay of the land, a list of must see performances and appearances, and sunblock.

Getting a list started is easy. No-brainers include Stevie Wonder, Florence + The Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Lumineers and Death Cab for Cutie. On the Culinary Stage there are some pretty obvious choices as well: Gordon Ramsay of Hell’s Kitchen and Masterchef; comedy duo and masters of the munchies, Cheech and Chong; and Masaharu Morimoto of Iron Chef.

But what about all these other names on the bill? The ones that don’t immediately call to mind platinum-selling records or uber-popular Food Network shows? Don’t sweat it. That’s where we come in. Here are our picks for five can’t-miss performances and foodie presentations at BottleRock 2016.

The Pharcyde
Some of rap’s greatest artists rose to prominence in the early ’90s. Even grandma is familiar with the biggest names from hip-hop’s golden age: Biggie, Pac, Nas. The Pharcyde isn’t as much of a household name, even though most will recognize the L.A. group’s biggest hits. With their loopy, loping boom-bap beats, gymnastic flows and penchant for absurdist observation, this SoCal quartet is responsible for the iconic “Passin’ Me By” and uproarious “Ya Mama” from Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde and Latin-jazz flavored “Runnin’” from Labcabincalifornia. They haven’t dropped a proper album since 2004’s Humboldt beginnings, but that’s fine. After all, anyone attending a music festival in wine country ought to know, some things only get better with age.

K.Flay
Since graduating from Stanford University, Kristine Flaherty—better known as K.Flay—has forged a career as a rapper and producer. Born in Chicago, she moved out to California to study at The Farm. After that she moved Brooklyn for a time and was briefly signed to RCA Records. These days her base of operations is Oakland and she’s no longer on the major label (she left after refusing to squeeze herself into a more easily marketable mold, as execs there suggested). Nevertheless, she self-released the full-length, Life as a Dog, in 2014, which has earned her favorable press. Flaherty just dropped a new single, “FML,” an ode to split personalities.

Deap Vally
This high energy garage rock duo sound a bit like The White Stripes—except both members are blonde women who hail from L.A. instead of Detroit. You can almost hear the Southern California sunshine glittering between the dusty, overdriven guitar stabs and tambourine shakes on their latest, blistering single, “Royal Jelly.”

Tre Cool & Mike Dirnt
The East Bay’s pop-punk success story, Green Day, won’t be playing this year’s BottleRock. However, the band’s drummer and bassist—Tré Cool and Mike Dirnt—will be taking to the culinary stage. The pair surely have learned some interesting food hacks over their years spent living in and out of tour buses. And Dirnt is himself a restaurateur. He is part owner of Rudy’s Can’t Fail Café in Oakland.

Dwight Clark
The young BottleRock festival is only a few years old, but it has already established certain traditions, such as inviting professional football stars to participate in its live food presentations. This year, 49er faithful will receive a special treat, as Dwight “The Catch” Clark will take to the Culinary Stage.

With almost two months of touring ahead of her on the Warped Tour, Bay Area rapper/vocalist K.Flay has a few favorite summer jams to keep her company during the long hours on the road. She shares her top picks below before the tour stops on her home turf this Saturday at Shoreline.

Look out for K.Flay’s new album Life as a Dog on June 24.

Alex Metric & Jacques Lu Cont feat. Malin – Safe With You
I am literally obsessed with this song. I feel like it’s that rare breed of track that’s uplifting but tinged with a sort of morose energy at the same time. You can dance but also cry. It’s better to dance, though.

Zhu – Faded (Odesza Remix)
If you don’t like this, then something is wrong. Things get pretty great around 1:40.

Lykke Li – No Rest For The Wicked
Lykke Li is one of my favorite artists, period. I love the honesty and emotionality of everything she does. This song is so beautiful and I really appreciate the aesthetic of the album as a whole.

Sales – Chinese New Year
The weird-ass tuning on the guitar made me like this song immediately. There’s something so charming about this band. Maybe that’s a weird word to use, but I just like that their music feels totally sincere. Like, what someone would say to you when you’re lying down in a parking lot.

Phantogram – Black Out Days
The vocal sampling and the melodies on this track are so good. The whole record is incredible — I feel like they’ve developed and progressed so much with the new album.

Kung Fu Vampire’s video output has been sporadic these past couple years. That’s something he plans to change in a major way by releasing a video for every song on his new album, Love Bites, which came out Halloween last year. He starts things off with his first video for the title track.

Fans were clearly eager for Kung Fu Vampire to start releasing videos again. In only a couple days, he racked up over 6,000 views. The video shows a young vampire boy who’s walking down the street carrying a mysterious box, which mesmerizes all the women he passes. They follow him, hypnotized, concluding with a surprise twist that reveals not only where he’s been walking to, but what is inside the box.

The video was directed by local prolific music video director Frank Door, who has shot videos for K.Flay, the Trims, Northern Son, not to mention the infamous sandwich video for Young Science, which Kung Fu Vampire has a very brief cameo in.

This year’s BFD had the best vibe the venerable summer festival has had in years. Was it the absence of white-t-shirted bro-bot Sublime fans? Maybe the recent proliferation of fun pop bands on alt-radio? Who knows, but this one was a blast from start to finish.

One of my favorites, and I’ve been going since the very first one. Here are five quick takes on my favorite moments from Shoreline Saturday:

5. Grouplove vs. Kanye West: If there was any band at BFD less likely than Grouplove to take the stage to Kanye’s “Monster,” I didn’t see them. The fact that they did it anyway was hilarious, and in line with their clearly demonstrated mission not to take themselves too seriously. Keyboardist and co-lead Hannah Hooper is a superball on stage, and in general this band looks to create chaos on stage whenever they can. That they write the bounciest pop songs ever is neither here nor there. Back to “Monster,” they really ought to go full bore and just cover it. Another funny nod came near the end of the set when they turned their big hit “Tongue Tied” into Whitney’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.”

4. Jane’s Addiction vs. Mythological Themes: Still, Grouplove had only the second best entrance of the night. Top honors have to go to Perry Ferrell and company for their bizarre, Divine Comedy-sized opening, which featured girls in white dresses raised to the rafters and chased by flying demons. All this while a snazzily dressed Ferrell smiled that Joker-esque smile and sang “Underground”: “I came back to pay respect/To another fallen angel.”

PHOTOS: View the MetroActive photo gallery.

3. Dirty Ghosts vs. Trends: This San Francisco band was my favorite act on the Local Band Stage (regrettably, I got there too late to see Young Science). Noisy and loud in a way that makes a statement, they remind me of early Sonic Youth, with how they manage to be catchy and dissonant at the same time. Sleater-Kinney fans still looking for a fix (and no matter how great Portlandia is, doesn’t it kind of suck that Carrie Brownstein is going to be busy for the foreseeable future?) need to check this band out. They’re raising a big middle finger to rock that’s gotten too slick and mechanical.

2. K. Flay vs. Milpitas: The best quote of the day came from this unstoppable SF rapper: “BFD, are you ready to take a trip with me? Let’s spiritually go to Milpitas, and go to the mall!” I’m still not totally sure what she meant, but I have to admit, I kind of gave it a shot. No astral projection was forthcoming, but K. Flay’s set was probably the best I’ve heard her do. With the Subsonic Tent’s emphasis on electronica, her backbeats were way pumped up in the mix. A couple of times this messed with the vocals, but overall it blew me away.

1. Wallpaper vs. Sanity: If you’re not yet on the Wallpaper bandwagon, where have you been? Ricky Reed’s live show is, as he described one song, “so stupid it went to the liquor store to get bananas.” He’s just doing mind-bending stuff right now, especially on stage. A lot of credit goes to his partner in crime, singer Novena Carmel. At this show, she rocked pink hair, a polka dot blouse and a keytar. At the end of “Stupidfacedd,” she jumped on Ricky’s back, rode him like a horse, and beat her chest. It was nuts, and yet the only way to cap a set like this one.

K.Flay, also known as former Stanford student Kristine Flaherty, returned to her Bay Area roots Saturday at Live105’s BFD 2012, pirate-themed extravaganza headlined by Jane’s Addiction, Silversun Pickups and Garbage the Shoreline Amphitheatre.

Flaherty found her hip-hop muse as an undergraduate student at Stanford University. Since then, she’s created a reputation as unique as her musical tastes. Flaherty’s show translates well with fans of both hip-hop and rock since her music, while rooted in hip-hop, often moves into other genres.

At the Subsonic Stage, one of three side stages at Shoreline, she switched between rapping, live mixing and sampling and pounding on a drum alongside her drummer.

In conversation, she carries a professional, scholarly demeanor as she riffs on everything from her new-found interest for Pantera and Metric to her studies on The Farm in Palo Alto.

“I try to give everything a chance to understand why it has been successful,” Flaherty says.

Growing up, Flaherty was surrounded by a variety of music. First from listening to her father’s classical records to repeating Liz Phair albums alongside other strong female leads in music during her teenage age. Though her strength is hip-hop, that until recently was almost exclusively male-dominated, many of Flaherty’s musical roots originate from strong female leads. Most recently, Metric’s “Youth Without Youth” caught her ear.

“The thing that I like about Metric is that they are pushing boundaries,” Flaherty says. “I like that they are trying to do some things electronically—there’s a new wave feel to the track. It’s a little bit of a throwback.”

Flaherty first arrived to the Bay Area from the suburbs of Chicago as a dual major in Sociology and Psychology at Stanford University.

“I’ve always been interested in domains that have both a very technical side and a little bit more of a philosophical side,” Flaherty says of the two studies, which include both technical statistics and human interaction theory. “I think I always liked that dichotomy, which is probably why I like music, too. I like the technical parts and also being a weirdo on stage.”

Flaherty dabbles in a variety of genres and can hold down a conversation but found that her true strength lay in hip-hop because it lent her the best structure and freedom to write songs that expressed her personality.

“The ability to really manipulate words and to write something as if it was a puzzle was really cool to me about rapping,” she says. “There’s a lot of opportunity for wordplay, rhythm and experimentation.”

While Flaherty continues to expand her career into new areas with a U.S. tour and festival stops, including Boonaroo in Tennesse thise weekend, she advises to all who are just starting out in music to just learn as much as possible.

“The more you know, the more you empower yourself to make things happen when other people don’t necessarily believe in it,” she says.

More information about k.flay, along with a free download of her most recent E.P., Eyes Shut, can be found below at her official website. http://www.kflay.com/

More photos from BFD.