Music festivals are funny places. You think you're just one of the crowd, minding your own business, acting silly among your friends, and all of a sudden, bam! You've been snapped by a photographer. Or you're a performer onstage, making funny faces at the crowd, when one particularly weird moment gets captured for posterity.

Naturally, we love those moments -- and our photographers captured a bunch of them this Saturday at the All Shook Down Music Fest at the Regency Ballroom. Here are seven of the strangest, funniest, and most WTF images we got at our annual music party.

7. The closest we have ever been to Mistah F.A.B.

Gil Riego Jr.

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Or, how we realized that shaving up your eyebrows can't be good for keeping sweat out of your eyes.

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Joseph Schell

Crystal Castles at the All Shook Down Music Fest

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SF Weekly's All Shook Down Fest
featuring Crystal Castles, Mistah F.A.B., Maus Haus, and more
August 6, 2011
Regency Ballroom
[See Part I of our ASD Fest roundup, featuring Battlehooch, Richie Cunning, and Con Brio]

Better than: Your usual epilepsy triggers.

A soupy, vaguely unsettling fog occupied the main ballroom of the Regency Ballroom around midnight Saturday. The orange house lights clicked off and left the former movie house in humid blackness. Then, somewhere in the dim mist, Crystal Castles summoned up the sonic assault of "Doe Deer," and the dark was suddenly stabbed through by piercing white strobes. Frontwoman Alice Glass appeared writhing at the front of the stage like some freakish apparition silhouetted against a blinding curtain of light, then darkness, then light. As the band moved into "Baptism," Glass' limb-flailing reached a new intensity, and the audience took off moving madly along to the beat with her.

It was easily the most anticipated single moment of this year's All Shook Down music festival -- and also the one most likely to induce epilepsy. But if Crystal Castles' blinding explosion made for the night's climax, many other local artists spent a long time getting the energy ready to combust.

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Joseph Schell

Battlehooch's Pat Smith unleashes the fury at All Shook Down.

​SF Weekly's All Shook Down Fest: Battlehooch, Richie Cunning, and Con Brio
August 6, 2011
Regency Ballroom
[See Part II of our ASD Fest roundup, featuring Crystal Castles, Mistah F.A.B., and more]

Better than: A company picnic.

Saturday night was technically our party, and we did reserve the right to cry if we so desired. Luckily, SF Weekly's All Shook Down Music Fest at the Regency Ballroom didn't have much in common with our ill-fated birthday party at the zoo 12 years ago, so no tears were shed.

The evening started with Con Brio on the main stage, with Xandra Corpora's soulful voice making a small but enthusiastic and growing crowd feel wise for having shown up on the early side.

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​Since you've been living under a rock (or maybe you just bought a Pet Rock and think it's really distractingly cool), we wish to remind you that tomorrow night is SF Weekly's All Shook Down Music Fest at the Regency Ballroom. It's not too late to snag a ticket and catch some great entertainment of the musical persuasion.

In case you need convincing, check out this mixtape featuring tracks from many of the artists on the bill. And make sure you have a towel close by cuz it's about to get H-O-T.

ANYWAYS.

The show features Crystal Castles, Mistah F.A.B., Maus Haus, and many more excellent local artists. The full schedule is available here.

And if you want to learn more about some of the local acts on the bill, check out the interviews we've had with the artists over the past few weeks:

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Our All Shook Down Music Fest is coming up quickly -- it's this Saturday at the Regency Ballroom, in case you haven't gotten tickets yet. We're sure you're as excited as we are to see Crystal Castles, Mistah F.A.B., Maus Haus, and more. But just to send your anticipation to even greater heights, we've put together a nine-song minimix featuring hot tracks from many of the local performers at this year's fest. Check it out after the jump.

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​Ashel Eldridge has made the rounds. Otherwise known as Seasunz, Eldridge has emerged as a social and environmental activist, working with groups like Amazon Watch and Project Pink and partnering with Will.i.am to open a youth center in Oakland. And, lest we forget, he also makes music.

In just a couple weeks, he will perform at SF Weekly's All Shook Down Music Fest at Regency Ballroom, bringing his unique brand of hip-hop meets soul meets reggae meets everything else. Before that, we caught up with him for a few minutes to ask him about his music and his message.

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Trevor Traynor

​The easiest way to recognize local rapper Richie Cunning in a crowded room is by the Giants hat he's probably wearing. Born and raised in San Francisco, Cunning often raps about the city he calls home, the city he loves.

In a few weeks, he'll be spitting rhymes at SF Weekly's All Shook Down Music Fest at Regency Ballroom, but he took some time to call a cab (apparently a tricky affair) and travel across the city to sit down with us and talk about his collection of Giants hats and, oh yeah, his music.

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Lydia White

​Don't be fooled by its goofy demeanor and goofier name -- Battlehooch means business. Since signing a pact to form officially in 2007, the group has released an EP and two full-length LPs, toured the country, and even created a video series around its adventures. Band members have performed in cornfields, on the streets of Oregon, and in an abandoned amusement park.

Before Battlehooch's slot next month at SF Weekly's All Shook Down Music Fest at Regency Ballroom, we caught up with AJ McKinley (guitar) and Grant Goodrich (bass) to talk about how the band got started (hint -- it's a much weirder story than you'd expect) and where it's headed next (hint -- it may involve lots of goo).

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Bianca Mondragon

​Otherwise known as the Blank Tapes, Matt Adams is a bit of a music machine -- since 2003's Country Western Honky Tonk Saloon Blues, he has released more than 100 songs and played almost all of the instruments on each one.

Adams has toured the country, written music in a van -- well, sort of -- and even been slobbered over by Rolling Stone. Next month, he's playing at SF Weekly's All Shook Down Music Fest, so we caught up with him to pester him with all the questions we were wondering about.

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​After just two years on the San Francisco scene, Con Brio has released a full-length album, performed at Great American Music Hall, and played shows all over the city -- but none of that probably would have happened without a Craigslist ad and some serendipity. Somehow, the members of Con Brio even did it without a car.

They've made the rounds here and in Santa Cruz, winning over crowds with vocalist Xandra Corpora's powerhouse voice and a blend of soul, blues, and funk. Next month, they're set to open up the main stage at SF Weekly's All Shook Down Music Fest at Regency Ballroom. Ahead of the show, we sat down at the Mission's Cafe Petra with band members Xandra Corpora (vocals, guitar; sesame seed bagel), Jonathan Kirchner (bass; tuna melt), and Micah Dubreuil (organ, piano; iced coffee) to talk about their journey thus far.

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