Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

When teenaged girls are screaming their lungs out and the whole crowd is chanting your name (and your DJ's) before you even hit the stage, you know you're doing something right. Seattle rapper Macklemore came out on Rifflandia's side stage with a shit-eating grin on his face, knowing full well that after years of toiling the underground (and pretty much ruling Seattle, but not many other locales), he might finally be on the cusp of something much larger. If he sticks with firecracker DJ/producer Ryan Lewis, who spent lots of time front of stage and dive-bombing the crowd, and knockout trumpet player Owuor Arunga, Macklemore will do just fine. Tracks like "Thrift Shop" and "Can't Hold Us" were pumping in a live setting, despite too-quiet sound and unwelcome daylight, but it was the slower, pensive tracks like "Otherside" that stood out during Macklemore's set. And that's not even addressing his whole heartthrob angle. Yep, dude's like the Ryan Gosling of hip-hop.