Jarod Opperman / The BulletinVictory Swig plays on the Ramblerland stage during the Bend Roots Revival Festival on Saturday, September 26 2015.

Another weekend in Central Oregon, another music festival packed to the gills.

The Bend Roots Revival festival, which celebrated its eighth event in nine years last weekend at the Deschutes Brewery warehouse, offered Central Oregon music lovers no less than 100 bands and musicians performing over three days. Unlike at the Sisters Folk Festival, there were no repeat acts. You missed a band on Friday? You just missed their Roots Festival performance this year.

Festival co-founder and organizer Mark Ransom estimated more than 5,000 people passed through the festival’s six stages over the course of last Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The event also raises money for the Central Oregon chapter of Rise Up International — this year, the festival raked in roughly $30,000 for the charity, making it the best year so far, according to Ransom.

“We learned a lot, and we had our most, probably smoothest event of all time,” Ransom said. “The weather cooperated … and everyone worked really well as a team together. … It was a very, very well-oiled machine in terms of the way it came off, and I think that was because everybody wanted to do it and was excited about the format and the space. I thought it was a total success.”

Attendees got a glimpse of where that money goes early in the day Saturday on the BIGS Stage, located on the Deschutes Brewery lawn. The WVMS (Westside Village Magnet School) Roots Rock Band, featuring kids in the school’s Roots Music Program led by festival co-founder Patrick Pearsall and area musician Aaron Miller, took the stage at 12:45 p.m., tearing through solid renditions of classics such as “Sweet Home Alabama” and the Jimi Hendrix-ified “All Along the Watchtower.” The songs were all chosen by the kids, according to Pearsall.

“It’s a self-advocacy music education program,” he said after the band’s performance.

But back to the music: As mentioned above, this is another festival no one person could ever hope to see all of, unless they can teleport (and wouldn’t that just make every music lover’s life a little easier? You’d never miss a show again!). So as I did with SFF a few weeks ago, I offer up my Roots Revival Top 5 for Saturday, in no particular order this time. (I wanted to check out bands Sunday as well, but sadly, I can’t teleport.)

5. Ubuntu 2.6

A local band that’s named after an open-source computer operating system, and fortunately sounds much better. The band closed out the day’s performances on the Ramblerland stage next to the Art Station with a blazing set of high-energy, percussion-driven jams. Drummer Lindsey Elias, a familiar face on the local music scene, carried the band through each song with her fevered pounding (she also elevated The Rum & The Sea’s performance on the Four Peaks Stage earlier in the day into the stratosphere).

4. Voodoo Highway

This rocking quartet kicked out the jams all over the Art Station Stage, firing up the riffs at 4:15 p.m. With bassist Sean Leary, guitarist David Miller and keyboardist/guitarist Stacie Johnson (also known for her work with Broken Down Guitars) all taking lead vocal duties, there was no shortage of variety here. But it all came back to Miller’s shredding guitar leads: part Hendrix blues rock, part metal shredder, all good.

3. Chiringa

The sun had nearly set and festival-goers were breaking out sweatshirts and jackets by the time singer-songwriter Shireen Amini’s Latin dance ensemble took the Black Butte Porter Stage at 7:30 p.m. But the percussion-driven four-piece got the tightly packed crowd under the tent moving with spiky renditions of Ricky Martin, “La Bamba” and a slinky, sexy “Stand By Me” complete with melodica solo.

2. Harley Bourbon

Like their local folk-punk forerunners Larry and His Flask, this rough-and-tumble quartet can rock a crowd, and did just that to close out the night on the Art Station Stage. Vocalist Johnny Bourbon was all rock ’n’ roll swagger, pounding out bar chords on his acoustic and sneering the words to his high-octane songs as the crowd danced away to Nolan Thompson’s upright bass grooves.

1. Downhill Ryder

This rootsy five-piece was the big find of the festival for me. Taking the Black Butte Porter Stage at 1:30 p.m., the band offered up intriguing originals and covers (their version of Johnny Cash’s version of Soundgarden’s “Rusty Cage” was a highlight of the whole day) anchored by Kim Kelley and Lynda Beauchamp’s honey-sweetened harmonies and lead guitarist Matthew Finfer’s solid riffs.

Rocking with the Shams

San Francisco Irish rockers the Shams plowed through Volcanic Theatre Pub on Sept. 23. The audience was woefully small, a fact made sadder still by the fact the band played exceptionally well. Their originals mix punk bravado, earnest Irish storytelling and thundering big rock rhythms into a fist-pumping mashup that inspired some rather interesting dancing in front of the stage.

Whether audience members kicking each other is dancing or not, the boys in the Shams took this energy and threw it back tenfold, climaxing with the insanely catchy “Go On Home Boys.” After the show, drummer James Scragg, chatting with the crowd gathered outside, shared one of his biggest problems on the road — breaking cymbals. Not at all surprising, considering the violent set we’d just witnessed.

— Reporter: 541-617-7814, bmcelhiney@bendbulletin.com