MINNEAPOLIS — This year’s Minnesota Yacht Club will probably be best-remembered for three things: The Strokes, sweat and tears.

The third annual rock festival on Harriet Island in St. Paul wrapped at 10:30 p.m. Sunday with a third day of sun-baked heat, emotionally wracked performances and an abbreviated Strokes set. Sunday’s New York-repping headliners have always been hit-or-miss as a live act. In this case, the problem was they cut and run.

Yacht Club itself clearly remains a hit.

After just three years, the festival already has a built-in audience. Like the long-lived but now-defunct Basilica Block Party and Rock the Garden fests, MYC has become a new Twin Cities summer tradition, a must-attend event regardless of which artists are performing.

This weekend, near-capacity crowds of 35,000 people once again filled the riverside park across from St. Paul’s downtown skyline despite the 90-degree heat and wildfire-generated air quality concerns again coating Minnesota skies for part of the event’s final day.

That massive turnout also happened in spite of a rather lukewarm lineup in terms of star power. That’s the first of our quibbles as Yacht Club continued to fine-tune its act in year three. There were a lot of things we loved about the 2026 installment, too.

Lesser names for the same money. While previous MYC headliners Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Hozier were big enough to sell out 50,000-capacity stadiums on their own, this year’s top acts can fill only a 14,000-seat arena in this town, including Friday’s top-billed Lumineers. The “Ho Hey” strummers just played Grand Casino Arena last summer, so forgive us if we were ho-hum over their MYC appearance this summer.

Too many regulars. The Lumineers weren’t the only top-billed names we’ve seen a lot of in recent years. Saturday’s closers, Matchbox Twenty, had already played in our area three times since the COVID pandemic. We even got to see the tour-shy Strokes here in 2023 (opening for the Chili Peppers). Other names on the 30-artist lineup have played here recently, including Lord Huron, Geese, Lucy Dacus, Cage the Elephant and All-American Rejects.

Maybe promoters C3 Presents got outbid for some artists by Live Nation’s 40 shows at the new Mystic Lake Amphitheater in Shakopee, and MYC got left with too many regulars.

Too much weepy wallowing. We’re not expecting Beach Boys-level fun, fun, fun in every set, and we certainly aren’t looking for the group now calling itself the Beach Boys to play (after their depressingly feeble set a weekend earlier at MYC’s new offshoot fest, Minnesota Country Club). But there sure was a whole lot of sad-guy music over the weekend — acts with heartache-y front men, including Dashboard Confessional, the Fray, Mt. Joy, the Lumineers and All-American Rejects, the latter of whom were at least fun between songs.

Even Matchbox Twenty’s upbeat-sounding tunes featured a lot of sour-note lyrics, a point hit home by Rejects front man Tyson Ritter when his band played the big stage before Rob Thomas’ crew: “They’re the sound of my tortured youth,” Ritter said, actually blaming MB20’s records for his parents’ divorce. (Thomas responded later onstage by noting that many people have fallen in love over their music, too.)

Not enough Strokes. After the festival ran nonstop like clockwork all weekend, the Strokes pulled a Strokes and went on fashionably late (10 minutes) and then ended uncoolly early (by 15 minutes). Frontman Julian Casablancas also talked/mumbled too much — and often too incoherently — a point he seemed to admit at one point when he urged, “Cut me off, band,” before “Take It or Leave It.”

It was a take-it performance when they actually did perform in the abbreviated set, peaking halfway through with “Last Nite” and “Bad Decisions” and ending strong (if too soon) with “You Only Live Once.”

Not enough women. The festival that opened with Joan Jett, Gwen Stefani and Alanis Morissette on the first day of its first year and counted Sheryl Crow and the women-fronted Alabama Shakes, Garbage and Beaches as standouts last year lost its balance in 2026. Women were outnumbered about 4-to-1 at the microphones through the weekend, and most were presented earlier in the day. How 1995 of the organizers. And how boring, especially on Friday.

On Saturday, Dacus and Jensen McRae each put many of the male “emo” rockers’ emotional lyrics to shame with much more poetic and elegant songwriting. On Sunday, Texas’ thrashy quartet Die Spitz blazed through technical difficulties to deliver the weekend’s heaviest and rowdiest set, while local rock unit Porch Light’s Jackie Uhas and jazz-funky Boston quintet Couch’s Tema Siegel each came off like rock-stars-in-waiting.

Long-established for a reason. Between the newcomers and nostalgia acts like Matchbox Twenty or the barely-knew-they-still-existed Marcy Playground were several mid-career acts that have put in a lot of miles over the past two decades and maintained strong fan bases in lieu of radio play, and their live sets this weekend showed why. We’re talking: the Black Keys, Lord Huron, Cage the Elephant and Passion Pit. The latter two acts played back-to-back on Sunday and each prompted some of the weekend’s heaviest dancing in the crowd; plus, they both just seemed thrilled to still be playing at all.

Nice hometown representation Sunday. Local bands were relegated to early afternoon slots the first two days, but closing day saw two veteran — and very different — Minnesota acts play to the masses late in the day, Atmosphere and Semisonic.

Unlike the Strokes, both groups made a strong case for new material, especially Semisonic. The “Closing Time” hitmakers’ month-old “Don’t Give Up Yet” earned loud applause after front man Dan Wilson alluded to it being inspired by recent chaos in his hometown. Amid old favorites like “GodLovesUgly” and the closer “Trying to Find a Balance,” Atmosphere rapper Slug played a fun name game in their new one, “Sean.”

Consumer-friendly vs. commerce. Let’s take a cue from the master promoters Live Nation at the new Mystic Lake Amphitheater and adjust a carry-in policy that’s consumer-friendly instead of commerce-driven. At the Shakopee venue, concertgoers are allowed to bring in a sealed bottle of water as well as food in clear plastic bags (something that would be nice if you’re a captive audience for 10 1/2 hours at MYC). One other suggestion: MYC, please up your technology, specifically cellphone service and Wi-Fi, which are virtually nonexistent at Harriet Island when it’s packed with people.

Calling an audible. Big shout out to the folks at C3 Presents, the Texas-founded company behind MYC, for quickly coming up with a plan to combat the challenging weather. Tents, misters and two air-conditioned Metro Transit buses (with real drivers to open and close the door) helped to provide some much-needed respite from the sweltering weather. Texans know about heat, y’all.

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