While the blazing 100-degree-plus cooled down past sunset, performances really heated up as the 2007 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival ended Friday’s first of three weekend dates with a knock-out return from Jesus and Mary Chain, an almost-jovial Jarvis Cocker, a focused Sonic Youth, and, oh yeah, the pretentiously bloated, though loved-by-the-crowd, headlining Bjork.

Jesus and Mary Chain’s reunion set was easily one of Friday’s strongest showings–hit and favorite-filled, including the gliding “Head On” as well as tuneful layered runs such as “Teenage Lust” and “Frequency”. The band’s Phil Spector production homage, “Just Like Honey”, featured vocal contributions from actress Scarlett Johansson, who apparently wants to jump into the film-star-to-pop-star sweepstakes. Brothers William and Jim Reid were on top of their game, showing why they influenced and inspired so many bands in the past 10 to 15 years…

…Like Interpol, who had higher billing on the same Main Stage but didn’t have the same power. The group’s mixing of jagged and swirling guitars with melancholy vocals over solid beats works best on the radio in small doses, but material from the the band’s forthcoming album (due in the summer) just sounded like retreads, though “Mammoth” was a stand-out, along with the group’s older, anthemish “Slow Hands”, which is still, perhaps, its best song.

Filling the indie rocket legends bill, Sonic Youth played later in the night on the Outdoor Theatre. The group held back on the noise excursions for mostly compact songs with just the right amount of squeal and electric lashing that included a well-titled “Incinerate” and dips into the defining alt-rock album, “Daydream Nation”. Guitarist/singer Thurston Moore and bassist/vocalist Kim Gordon and company were just in from a Chinese experience with Shanghai punks who “send love,” Moore said.

Former Pulp singer Jarvis Cocker was just the right combo of, yes, cocky and self-effacing. He took the Outdoor Theatre a bit late due to tech troubles, apologized during his set, and still delivered some stylishly crafted Brit-rock that included the cheeky opener, “Fat Children”, the ominous and metaphorically political mid-temp “Heavy Weather”, and cheerily-titled “I Will Kill Again”.

Also entertaining in the Gobi and Mojave Tents respectively were the bump-your-hips rhythms of New York’s Brazilian Girls, singer Sabina Sciubba wearing a bizarre, huge, round mirror of sorts on the back of her head and skin-tight bodysuit, and theatrical gypsy-folk-punks Gogol Bordello.

And then there was that Icelandic empress of symphonic doodle, Bjork. Appearing barefoot in yet another of her I-wear-crap-on-purpose repulsive outfits (if this be fashinista greatness, give me that basic black, thank you), her grandiose gratings did have some dreamy weaving spell moments instrumentally, thanks to horns, woodwinds and choral parts, though her perhaps acquired taste (?) warbling and pining was hardly captivating.

So many music critics bow, genuflect and huzzah Bjork’s orchestral mood pieces like medicine wagon crowds sucking down a bottle of snake oil, but the material from her soon-to-be-released album, “Volta”, sounded like more of the same, though older material such as “Army of Me” were crowd-pleasers. Not top-bill excitement in my universe, but overall it probably helped relax the audience in eventually making their way to hotel rooms or heading back home on highways.

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