Live In Concert from NPR's All Songs Considered Folgen

The love for Justin Vernon and Bon Iver at Washington, D.C.'s 9:30 Club was so overwhelming for this performance, it seemed fans might storm the stage and eat the humble frontman alive. The stage was set with just the essentials, bathed in thin columns of warmly colored lights. It was just enough to reveal the faces of a thousand or so glassy-eyed fans who mouthed the words to every song and swayed in a state of pure bliss. 8/4/11 Perth Minnesota, WI Towers Holocene Creature Fear Flume Hinnom, TX Wash. Brackett, WI Blood Bank Re: Stacks Calgary Wolves (Act I and II) ENCORE: Skinny Love Beth/Rest For Emma

Portland, Ore., has bred or attracted so many tremendous indie-folk musicians that they're getting stuffed into bigger and bigger bands to make room for everyone. A collective that swells from seven to as many as 17 members, Typhoon is built for soul-stirring beauty on a grand scale. Conceived by singer Kyle Morton as a vehicle for grandiose uplift, Typhoon hammers his points home with ambitious swells of brass and strings. At the 2011 Newport Folk Festival in Newport, R.I., the group finally commanded a stage big enough for what it throws down on its marvelous new EP, A New Kind of House.

In the span of just a few years, The Decemberists' Colin Meloy has taken an unlikely path from brainy folk-pop obscurity to commanding frontman — the sort of confident singer who can fill open-air venues with his lone voice when he's not crafting ludicrously ambitious "folk operas" like 2009's The Hazards of Love. The Decemberists scaled back those ambitions on this year's lustrous-but-straightforward The King Is Dead. But make no mistake: Songs this infectious aren't crafted without a healthy dollop of ambition — and an even greater application of craft and skill. Hear The Decemberists' members reach back into their rich catalog live at the 2011 Newport Folk Festival in Newport, R.I.