You really should stretch before going to the Gorge Amphitheatre, especially during the Sasquatch! Music Festival, an indie-rock extravaganza featuring big names, Northwest favorites and, this year, a comedy tent, plus a bizarre movie showing.

The stretching is for all the walking you have to do, going from one stage to another in hopes of cramming as much great music as you can into each day.

The seventh annual Sasquatch festival began on Saturday and wraps up today with headliner The Flaming Lips performing their exuberant U.F.O. Show.

Some of the most anticipated performers of the festival included British rapper M.I.A. (she couldn't make it last year due to visa problems), Beirut, Modest Mouse, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, Tegan and Sara, The Cure, R.E.M., Flight of the Conchords, and Death Cab for Cutie.

However, many of the lesser-known bands, such as Okkervil River, Destroyer, Throw Me The Statue, What Made Milwaukee Famous, the Cold War Kids and the Blue Scholars, gave equally exciting performances.

The comedy tent, which always seemed to have a line to get in, featured Horatio Sanz, Tim Meadows, Brian Posehn, Michael Ian Black, Eugene Mirman among others. Actor Rainn Wilson (Dwight from "The Office") also drew a lot of attention and laughs as he milled about and introduced bands.

Wilson's Sasquatch cameos were in promotion of his new movie "The Rocker," in which he plays a washed-up '80s drummer who gets a second chance in his nephew's garage band.

"'The Rocker' is the greatest movie ever made. It rivals 'Citizen Kane,'" Wilson said in his trademark deadpan during an interview on Sunday with the Yakima Herald-Republic. (Fun fact: Wilson's mom used to live in Wapato and his cousin lives in Yakima.)

Both Saturday and Sunday's shows sold out with today's expected to as well. And while you had to wait in line to get into the comedy tent, the lines for the port-a-potties and beer stations were manageable, thanks to there being more of both.

Often said to be the Northwest's Coachella or Bonnaroo -- although it'll never get that big in audience size -- Sasquatch, even with a sold-out crowd of 20,000, has an intimate, relaxed (Northwest, shall we say) feel that makes it a popular draw.

Plus, there's that spectacular view of the Columbia River.

During the day Saturday, temperatures were comfortable in the high 70s. And although it threatened rain later in the afternoon, there weren't any showers until R.E.M. took the stage to close out the night.

Saturday's appearance was just the second stop for R.E.M. on the band's world tour. Removing his shoes so he wouldn't slip on the wet stage, lead singer Michael Stipe still had a commanding presence, his arms flailing about as he sang "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?"

At one point, right before launching into "Auctioneer (Another Engine)," he quipped, "this next song is from like the year 1640 and we wrote it for our second album."

While the band may be up there in years, they still sounded great, and Stipe was as political as ever.

Despite Saturday night's heavy misting, on the whole, the weather was pleasant that day.

"This isn't aggressive wind," Melody Wirtz said Saturday afternoon.

She and her sister, Mollie Wirtz, remember some of the wacky weather of past Sasquatch Festivals, such as the lengthy hail storm that shut down the concert for a couple hours in 1996.

Last year's two-day Sasquatch had unbearable heat one day, then the next it was so windy, there was a point when it was unsafe for performers on the main stage.

The Wirtz sisters grew up in Spokane and have been coming to Sasquatch, they think, since the beginning. Now, 28-year-old Mollie lives in Seattle, and 24-year-old Melody lives in Corvallis, Ore. But they keep coming back.

Why?

"Sometimes, just the clouds -- I'm not even kidding," says Mollie. "And the line-up is consistently stellar," she adds.

The two were most excited to see Canadian twin sister duo Tegan and Sara, and also Beirut.

"Because he hates to tour," Mollie explained about Beirut, the New Mexico band headed by Zach Condon. "So seeing him was kind of rare."

For Liam Ducay, a 17-year-old intern at Seattle's uber-popular independent radio station KEXP, this was his first year at Sasquatch. He, too, wanted to see Beirut, but missed them because he was manning the KEXP booth. However, he planned on checking out Modest Mouse and the Xbox Rock Band stand later in the day.

Sunday, noontime showers dampened the ground as folks broke out their ponchos and waited for the rain to pass. It did, and the sun shone down bright and hot by the afternoon.