Kevin Bronson on April 11th, 2013

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Dear Coachella: This post could be about 38 bands long, but I’m just afraid of getting RSI. I know it’s become fashionable to take potshots at your lineup – I have no idea what warped sense of entitlement that comes from. You have a nice product, and the excellence in the 2013 lineup runs deep. I just hope that in the wee hours of Sunday I’m not dead for Dead Can Dance.

Below, betraying my Anglophile tendencies, the 10 sets I do not want to miss (a list also informed, it should be pointed out, that I have visited and revisited a lot of bands I would normally recommend – right, Local Natives?):

Palma Violets (6:25 p.m. Friday, Mojave Tent) – I start here only because the video for “We Found Love” is brand new. The U.K. upstarts and their guitar-bass-drums assault blew our hair back at SXSW, and in an era there seems to be a new British Invasion every year, they are the Rolling Stones to everybody’s else’s Gerry & the Pacemakers. Their debut album “180” is just out on Rough Trade; they have a festival worthy single called “Best of Friends;” and if you’re tied to L.A. and not hitting Coachella, they open for Franz Ferdinand on Tuesday at the Fonda and headline the Echo on Wednesday.

The Stone Roses (11:40 p.m. Friday, Main Stage) – Friday’s co-headliners and Britpop champions Blur are more of a sure thing, but the Stone Roses are the bigger curiosity: that one magnificent album (1989’s “Stone Roses”) ”¦ the squabbling and drama ”¦ the disappointing “Second Coming” (1994) ”¦ perpetuating their myth ”¦ the strange reunion. Whether it’s epic or an epic flop, bear witness.

Foals (10:50 Friday in the Gobi Tent) – My, what a big band the Oxford quintet has become. Already indie and club favorites, the Oxford quintet is busting out with the February release of its third album “Holy Fire.” Foals’ newly massive single “Inhaler” promises to be one of those desert moments to remember.

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds / Grinderman (8:40 p.m. Sunday on the Main Stage / 10:10 p.m. Friday in the Mojave Tent) – Coachella gets a double dose of the 55-year-old Australian, who’s more feral than ever on the Bad Seeds’ new album “Push the Sky Away” and is also playing in his garage-rock incarnation Grinderman. Can the Polo Field be a haunted place? Serenaded by Cave’s incantations to love, lust and death, maybe it can.

Robert DeLong (12:40 p.m. Sunday in the Mojave Tent) – One of 19 Coachella artists repping southern California this year, DeLong is a one-man tornado of synthesizers, sequencers, percussion, vocals and even a Wii controller. His debut “Just Movement” stirs pop, dubstep, house and even a little folk into a deliriously exuberant stew; just look for his signature orange “X” logo. (Not a bad idea to get to the Mojave at noon for Deap Vally, either.)

How to Destroy Angels (midnight Friday in the Mohjave Tent)– If they were listed as “NIN,” you’d see them on the top line of the poster, but make no mistake, this is Trent Reznor’s music. In HTDA with his wife Mariqueen Maandig, Atticus Ross (his co-writer for the Academy Award-winning score “The Social Network”) and Rob Sheridan, Reznor can and will still bring the heavy. This promises to be visually spectacular; oh, if it only weren’t up against the Stone Roses. I feel a Friday night sprint coming on.

The Three O’Clock (2:15 p.m. Sunday in the Gobi Tent) – The most obscure and (to true music nerds) delightful of the Coachella reunions, the Three O’Clock were the torchbearers of the 1980s movement known as the Paisley Underground. The sound? Combine the jangling guitars and harmonies of the Byrds with the rough edges of garage-rock icons like the Seeds, and you get the idea. Whether by design or assimilation, the sound of the Paisley Underground lives on today in dozens of indie bands. C’mon, indie kids, “Jet Fighter” rules.

Sigur Ros (11:50 p.m. Saturday, Outdoor Theatre) – Seldom has there been an act more suited to the chill-inducing cinematic experience that Coachella offers. The Icelandic rockers’ latest album “Valtari” and its accompanying “Mystery Film Experiment” series make for sensory overload; it’s art you can feel through your pores. Shame that you have to flip a coin between them and another great festival band, Phoenix.

Rodriguez (6:35 p.m. Sunday, Gobi Tent) – Did you see the Oscar-winning documentary “Searching for Sugar Man?” Do you know the story? I’m gonna assume you haven’t been living under a rock and at least know of the 70-year-old singer-guitarist whose career was lost and then found. His songs date largely from 1970 and ’71, but their themes are timeless. And if you’ve caught any of his smaller gigs around L.A., you know the Detroit native has a presence.

Hanni El Khatib (1:20 p.m. Sunday, Gobi Tent) – One more tout for a fine-print artist: L.A.-based Hanni El Khatib looks like the kind of dude you don’t want to meet on a darkened street, and his rough-edged garage rock feels dangerous compared to most of today’s retro stylists. His sophomore album “Head in the Dirt” was produced by the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach and expands on the gnarly guitar-and-drums sound of his debut. In a year a strong case could be made for any of eight or 10 emerging L.A. artists, El Khatib’s set is the surest way to work up a sweat.

P.S. – Of course I won’t miss the Postal Service, silly.

P.P.S. – Action Bronson, hope you have some cool merch.