Elvis Costello, Blondie, Hozier and 11 other bands to see at XPoNential Fest

It’s XPoNential Music Festival weekend in Camden, with over 30 bands playing on two stage at roofless Wiggins Park and next door undercover at the BB&T Pavilion.

On Friday, Irish rock star Hozier, who topped the Billboard charts with his album Wasteland, Baby! earlier this year, headlines a three-band bill at the BB&T with Philly bands Japanese Breakfast and Killiam Shakespeare on the undercard.

And on Saturday, it’s a doubleheader with Elvis Costello & the Imposters sharing a bill with Blondie, the Debbie Harry-led New York sextet who are getting in on the Lil Nas X action by covering “Old Town Road” this tour. Can we get a remix?

Besides those headliners, XPoNential is teeming with other worthwhile acts. What follows is a chronological-order list of 10 (or 11) acts that aren’t the biggest acts on the bill.

A full schedule and ticket info for single day and weekend passes can be found at xpnfest.org.

The singer born Betty Jo Haskins scored her first R&B hits as a teen in the early 1960s but didn’t really find her audience until she revealed herself as a master song interpreter with albums such as I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise 40 years later. Her latest is last year’s Things Have Changed, an album of Bob Dylan covers. 5:55 p.m. Friday at the River Stage at Wiggins Park.

Baby-faced blues assassin Ingram was raised, if not born, to play the blues. The Clarksdale, Miss., native started out as a drummer and bass player, before moving on to guitar after his mother took him to the Delta Blues Museum when he was 11. He’s since been taken under the wing of players like Buddy Guy and Keb Mo, and he proved himself to be a showstopper at the NonComm convention earlier this year. 6:50 p.m. Friday at the Wiggins Marina Stage.

Michele Zauner’s path to world domination continues. The Korean American songwriter and storyteller released Soft Sounds From Another Planet, her dazzling second album as Japanese Breakfast in 2017. As that album — shaped in part by Zauner’s grief over her mother’s death — has brought her a wider audience, she’s directed videos for herself and others, and is working on a memoir, Crying In H Mart, due to be published by Knopf. 8:30 p.m. Friday at the BB&T.

» READ MORE: Making music in hopes of healing, as Japanese Breakfast

Who to start Saturday with in Camden? An excellent choice would be Abington-based Turkish-American songwriter Ali Awan, whose impressive songcraft and live show seems to get better and better from month to month. He’ll be showcasing alternately introspective and rocked-out tunes from Butterfly, his debut EP released this winter. 12:25 p.m. Saturday on the River Stage.

» READ MORE: Meet Ali Awan, the Philly rocker you should be listening to now

These two crowd pleasers, who were among XPN’s most played acts in 2018, play back-to-back afternoon sets. Rose is the former Americana artist who made herself over into a high-energy satiric songwriter on last year’s excellent Loner. Low Cut Connie is Cherry Hill native Adam Weiner’s unstoppable rock-and-soul force, who broke out with Dirty Pictures (part 2), which was even better (and dirtier) than (part 1). 2:15 p.m. Saturday at the Marina Stage and 2:55 p.m. at the River Stage.

The story goes that teenage J.S. Ondara, growing up in Nairobi, Kenya, so believed that “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” was written by his favorite band Guns N’ Roses that he bet a friend that it wasn’t penned by some guy named Bob Dylan. After paying up, he became obsessed with the true author, so much so that he moved to Minnesota upon emigrating to America. That journey informs Tales Of America, Ondara, charming, earnest immigrant’s take on the American dream. 3:45 p.m. Saturday on the Marina Stage.

A Philly band to watch, and one to get up early for on Sunday morning. The RFA’s self-titled 2018 debut album is a throwback to the early-’00s bands with attitude and songs to match, like the Strokes and especially the Libertines. The RFA tore it up in an XPN Free at Noon broadcast this month, and has a new album in the works. Noon on Sunday on the River Stage.

The wife-and-husband duo Tanya and Michael Trotter makes joyous, positive music that blends gospel and R&B. The couple are entertainment-industry vets: She has ‘90s roots in smooth R&B, and Michael is an Iraq war vet who wrote songs memorializing soldiers in his unit who had died before returning to civilian life. Their Healing Tide debut was produced by Americana guitarist Buddy Miller. 1:50 p.m. Sunday on the Marina Stage.

In 2018, Lucy Dacus released one of the year’s best albums in the finely wrought Historian. Since then, she’s teamed with Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker in boygenius, and is releasing songs timed to major holidays in 2019. Valentine’s Day meant a cover of Edith Piaf’s “La Vie en Rose,” July 4 a quasi-protest song called “Forever Half Mast.” A new one for Bruce Springsteen’s birthday is due in September. 2:40 p.m Sunday on the River Stage.

Canadian folk-rock songwriter Edwards last played XPoNential in 2012, the year that the singer gave up making music and instead opened an Ottawa coffee shop called Quitters. But Edwards didn’t permanently hang up her rock-and-roll shoes — or her “Hockey Skates,” to reference her 2003 signature song. She’s returned to performing, with a new album on the way. 4:15 p.m. Sunday on the River Stage.