Allston got lucky Saturday night ... really lucky. Girls played their fourth show of their first US tour to a tightly packed and utterly appreciative Great Scott. From the instant frontman Christopher Owens stepped on stage to plug in his Rickenbacker, the crowd never took their eyes off the San Francisco quartet.

This weekend, our bowling buddies HALLELUJAH THE HILLS kick off a month-long jaunt in support of their critically-acclaimed -- and Phoenix-beloved -- album Colonial Drones. They also dropped us single #2, "Flight of the Paper Pilots," to slide to you on the sly. Which we're totally stoked about, since it's our fave from the album: a live standout, it's an irresistably upbeat tune that invariably climaxes with the front row shouting along with the closing coda, "I'm gonna die!" HtH make their way back to town November 21 at Great Scott (full tour dates below).

VIDEO: Mayer Hawthorne live at Great Scott

CAVE-IN's don't-call-it-a-comeback continues next week with a pair of West Coast free gigs sponsored by Toyota -- but this morning the band announced it'll be playing non-auto-bailout gigs in New York, Boston, Providence, and Philadelphia, with support by Trap Them and Narrows.

We've also received word that the band will be releasing a DVD of its July reunion show at Great Scott in Boston

You will likely not be surprised to learn of our abiding love for local indie quartet HOORAY FOR EARTH, who we've been fans of since we first heard about them back around 2006. Actually, that's not true; we've been fans since they were still called Raymond. They're just a band whose music demands to be heard by more people.

Three years between releases is nothing if you're, I dunno, Nine Inch Nails, but in indie rock it's a couple of generations. It's been that long since WHEAT released their quietly ambitious disc Hope and Adams -- and more than a decade after Medeiros made them cryptic, out-of-nowhere local faves. But this week they're back with a new one, White Ink, Black Ink; they're celebrating the release of the disc August 1 at Great Scott

In case you missed our ecstatic raves about Micachu and the Shapes at South By Southwest, we'll refresh your memory with some video (above), and clickthrough to our music editor's piece from this week's fishwrap.

See them tonight at Great Scott with Anni Rossi. [Details]

READ: Boston Phoenix music Michael Brodeur editor explains why you need to see Micachu and the Shapes

PASSION PIT | May 15 at the Pill @ Great Scott, Allston 

The first we ever heard of PASSION PIT was from Brenda O'Keefe, then Great Scott's in-house publicist, who ran around telling anyone who would listen that she'd just heard the greatest new band in the universe. So perhaps no surprise that Great Scott eventually became, as much as anywhere, Passion Pit's home base -- or that GS was the place the band chose to grace with the obligatory semi-secret hometown show before heading out on the road to become big stars. The Pill host (and Herald columnist) Michael Marrotta made like they were the opening band on a Tuesday, but even an actual opening-band-on-Tuesday mistake (um . . . someone forgot to plug in the bass?) couldn't mask some geniune holy-shit anticipation -- how un-Allston-hipster-like is that?

AFTER THE JUMP: lots more video from Friday night's show. 

According to their Twitter account, PASSION PIT will be playing Great Scott tomorrow night, returning to their old stomping grounds, The Pill, before they start touring behind their ultra-hyped debut Manners (out Tuesday), which you can now hear in its entirety on MySpace. Line starts . . .now?

NOTE: We ended up taking this post down this morning because it turns out we weren't supposed to spill the beans about the EP. Oops. In any case, it's too late now so with HH's permission we're putting it back up. Also, Steve Brodksy emailed us to correct the producer credits -- so if you're one of the metal sites that linked to the old post, please note the clarification below.

1. HANDS AND KNEES, “YOU GOT POP, YOU GOT STYLE” (mp3)
2. THE EVERYDAY VISUALS, “HEAL ME”
3. GROWLERS, “ALL BUT THE BONES”
4. PASSION PIT, “LITTLE SECRETS”
5. SARAH BORGES AND THE BROKEN SINGLES, “NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE YOU”

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Hands and Knees play Great Scott on April 30.

Currently being seen by a lot more eyes as the opening band on the Killers' current tour, Wild Light is a band we can say we knew way back when. Catch them above at a show they played not long ago at Great Scott, just before they left to get famous. After the jump, another video.

Last summer, Grizzly Bear played a show on a night off from their stint opening for Radiohead at the Courtyard at the Museum of Fine Arts. Opening up for them? NYC's Violens, whom we shot some video of, which we'd been saving for a special occasion. With them set to play tonight at Great Scott along with Amazing Baby, now seemed as good a time as any.

If there was one thing I didn’t expect to see displayed on stage this windy Saturday, it was big smiles. Spastic dances? Yes. Twitchy guitar palpitations? Check. Darkly intoned exhortations over a punishing rhythm section? Sure. But when you think Six Finger Satellite, musicians grinning ear-to-ear in musical exultation is not an image that comes to mind.