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.

We walk around with the entire internet in our pockets, calling up ride-sharing services from our mobile devices and perusing menus online whilst en route to our favorite restaurants. The world is at our fingertips and waiting… well, that is so 20th century.

The organizers of the annual SoFa Street Fair certainly have gotten the memo—or email… or, uh… status update? Fans of local art and music won’t have to wait until fall for the return of the SoFA Street Fair, as an abridged installment of the annual festival is slated for this weekend.

The one-day SoFA Street Fair SPRING 16 will feature speakers, bands, DJs, opera, art exhibitions and even a few pile-drivers. And all of it is taking place on South First Street, Sunday, April 24.

With performances at Aura, BackBar SoFa, Café Stritch, The Continental, Haberdasher, Miami Beach Club, The Ritz, SoFA Market and more, there is a whole lot going on in a short amount of time. It’s all free, so the only thing you have to sweat is deciding who to check out. This cheat sheet ought to help with that.

Periscope: progressive, experimental; Heroes Stage, 2pm

Dave Miller & Friends: punk rock; SoFA Market, 2:30pm

No Water After Midnight: R&B, soul covers; San Carlos Stage, 3pm

Andre Hart: local visual artist; Aura Stage, 3:30pm

Julius Papp: house DJ; San Salvador DJ Stage, 4pm

Infinite Sleep: melodic metal, post-hardcore; BackBar Stage, 4:30pm

Jean Jackets: garage rock, indie; Café Stritch, 5pm

Rabbit Quinn: piano-driven, atmospheric indie; SoFA Market Stage, 5:30pm

DJ Dan: breakbeat, funky house; San Salvador DJ Stage, 6pm

Talkie: indie-pop, rock & roll; Aura Stage, 6:30pm

Citabria: progressive, alternative; The Ritz Stage, 7pm

Socorra: mellow indie rock; SoFA Market Stage, 7:30pm

ONOFF: rock & roll; Balanced Breakfast Stage, 8pm

Kwesi Young: alternative hip-hop, trap; Aura Stage, 8:30pm

SoFA Street Fair SPRING 16
Apr 24, 2pm-9pm, Free
SoFA District, San Jose

It’s doubtful that any of us ’80s babies realized it at the time, but we soaked up a lot more than words like “shoryuken” and meme-worthy phrases, like “all your base are belong to us,” while we sat cross-legged on the floor, frantically tapping our plastic Nintendo and Sega controllers.

It would seem that our tiny, developing brains—hyped up on sugar-laden cereal—were absorbing the soundtracks to our favorite video game titles. And now, fully grown men and women all over the country are picking up guitars, keyboards, drum kits, and, in some cases, Game Boys, to pay homage to these iconic melodies from the Reagan and Bush I years.

The Rockage 5.0 festival, slated to take place March 11-13 at venues all over San Jose, corrals a cohort of musical groups that specialize in either reproducing the music of Zelda, Mega Man, Super Mario Bros. and the like—or else take cues from those crunchy, 8-bit synth sounds.

There are 17 bands performing over the course of three days at The Ritz, Café Stritch, SoFA Market, AFK Gamer Lounge and the lobby of Metro’s downtown headquarters. That’s a lot of music in a very short period of time—it’s enough to vex even the most seasoned music festivalgoer. But instead of throwing your Wiimote at the nearest screen, or punching your neighbor in the arm, like you used to do when your younger brother beat you at NBA Jam, take a deep breath. We’re here to help you prioritize.

Here are six bands you’ll definitely want to check out at this year’s Rockage.

Bit Brigade
This quartet is so serious about replicating the experience of their favorite video game titles that they’re actually a quintet. Which is to say, that in addition to drums, bass and two guitarists, Bit Brigade also have a full time game-player in their lineup. Noah McCarthy blasts through levels of Metroid and Mega-Man while the band “meticulously replicates every musical cue, cutscene and boss battle in perfect synchronization.”

COLA
In addition to all the chiptune groups at this year’s Rockage, there are also a few straightforward rock & roll groups. And few San Jose bands do straightforward rock & roll like Cola.

Fartbarf
With a name like Fartbarf, it’s pretty apparent what you’re gonna get. Except not. Rather than being a group of greasy-faced adolescents who ran out of good ideas for what to name their band, Fartbarf is a trio of Cro-Magnon mask-wearing analog modular synth enthusiasts who sound a lot like a drunker (a much, much drunker) Tobacco—with live drumming and an obsession for chiptune flourishes.

Vector Hold
The genre known as chiptune, is also commonly called 8-bit music and sometimes “Nintendocore.” But for Vector Hold—a.k.a. Pete Rice, bassist for local stoner metal trio, Forgotten Gods, it’s all about the 16-bit sounds of the Sega Genesis … and the buzzy, lo-fi synths of John Carpenter films.

Hawk Jones
Given their traditional rock instrumentation—guitar, bass and drums—and their tendency to lapse into spacy, feedback-and-delay squalls, it would at first seem that Hawk Jones, like Cola, are outliers in a festival stacked to the brim with bands who take so much inspiration from the world of early console game soundtracks. But when you consider the Tera Melos-esque angularity of their rhythms and guitar lines, it makes sense. The limitations of 8- and 16-bit chips is precisely what gave the music that crystalline feel. These local boys simply replicate that ping-ponging sharpness with strings, membranophones and the chips inside their effects pedals.

Nick Reinhart
This guitarist and bandleader also produces music that recalls the wild and spastic sounds of Tera Melos—probably because he co-founded the group. The Sacramento band’s frontman gets far noisier and stranger than he ever did with Tera Melos. His cracked-out attempts at free jazz run parallel to the tunes of fellow Sacto psychos, Hella. And, like Hawk Jones, the music he creates may not have a direct connection to video games, though he certainly makes a valiant effort at sonically representing the explosive, synaptic bursts so many of us experienced as children—zonked on Lucky Charms, staring at the cathode ray tube and rubbing our thumbs raw on those tiny, red A and B buttons and black D-pad.

Rockage 5.0 plays on Mar 11-13, Various Times, $30 at Multiple Venues, San Jose.