Saturday, June 3 Sandstone Amphitheatre

Those of little faith might scoff at the Rockfest lineup, but some of the up-and-coming acts who play the sun-soaked early shifts of this festival go on to become headliners. Just three years ago, Coal Chamber played to early birds and empty seats at a September Rockfest with Pantera at the top of the bill. This year's evening-closing act, Stone Temple Pilots (see more below), doesn't hit quite as hard as the Cowboys from Hell, but there's plenty of metal action elsewhere on the bill, including Godsmack, which raised a stir at last year's Ozzfest, and Papa Roach, the latest rap'n'riff band to make a dent on the sales charts. The oldest, albeit not the wisest (unless he's left the chainsaw in the tool shed), headbanger of the day is Jesse James Dupree, who's touring in support of his new solo effort, Foot Fetish. Moist, the afterthought band at Molson Ice's Metallica/Hole concert a few years back, moves up a few notches on the bill with a set sure to focus on its latest release, Mercedes Five and Dime, while 3 Doors Down, stars of an eponymous late-night commercial that urges viewers of such programs as Blind Date to send $17.98 plus shipping and handling for its disc, will graduate to a full-infomercial length showcase. Frankie Machine charged much less for an audience, but it did bribe fans with candy at a free Jolly Rancher-sponsored show at The Granada earlier this year. Rounding out the bill are Canadian rockers Nickelback, radio-friendly fodder-dispensers The Nixons, the heavy yet melodic Full Devil Jacket, the numerically gifted 8Stops7, the fish-out-of-water art-rockers Blue October, and Mars Electric, which has visited the area so often that its members could probably order "the regular" from any number of local restaurants. -- Andrew Miller

Following the incarceration of lead singer Scott Weiland, Stone Temple Pilots seemed doomed to discount racks and cut-rate side projects. Now that Weiland is out of stir, the band has bounced back with an album that some people actually took seriously and a tour that's earning praise for its back-to-essentials vibe. Now all STP has to do is sell albums again. Last fall's Number Four failed to shoot the moon, and the group has had to pump the album without much help from former patrons MTV, so it's smart of STP to hitch its prison wagon to a caravan of rising rock doofuses. It's this kind of symbiotic strategizing that has made summer safe for acts that would otherwise be refugees -- and a hazard for anyone out to catch a rock show that lasts less than three hours. -- Scott Wilson