Fourteen years ago, I saw an ascending (and polarizing) Cage the Elephant at a one-and-done music festival in Kansas City, Kan., that was called — and this still makes everyone who hears it wince — Kanrocksas. When I saw Cage again Friday on Day 1 of ACL Weekend 1, I couldn’t help thinking about how much the band — in particular, vocalist Matt Shultz — has been through since those early days of its conquering of the alternative space, and how far they’ve come.

That day in 2011, Shultz — long known for a certain amount of onstage unpredictability and wildness — laconically referred to the shindig as “Kan-rock-my-ass,” making the kind of juvenile pun reach that a 14-year-old boy would find hilarious. Performance-wise, they were OK, even if it was a little true that they hadn’t fully found their own path yet. (Still, the relentless accusations of ripping off the Pixies that dominated many discussions about the band back then were a little unfair.)

Friday’s 6:30 ACL show, though, was a stark lesson in how much things have changed for Cage and for Shultz since “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” and “Shake Me Down” were the biggest bullets the band had in its chamber. Shultz has been open about battling depression and psychosis over the years — the latter of which he attributed to an ill-acting prescription medication, culminating in an arrest on gun charges in early 2023 that he now calls a “miracle.”

Now, as demonstrated Friday, Shultz still takes the stage as an active and sweaty rocker — but he leans more transparently toward an organized chaos (instead of the regular kind of chaos). There was no childish reference to “Asstin City Limits.” There was a lot of gratitude and joi de vivre, and a lot of reminders that Cage the Elephant has done a lot in nearly 20 years of existence. “Cigarette Daydreams,” my own pick for the best song of CTE’s career, was a killer live, as were other post-2011 hits that it doesn’t seem like Cage could have even had in them back then: “Ready to Let Go,” “Neon Pill” and “Come a Little Closer.” Shultz indulges in plenty of the same wild acrobatics; in the press lounge after Cage’s set, a photog was joking about how all of his fellow shooters likely had the same signature shot of Shultz in mid-leap while grasping the mic stand, both legs splayed sideways at about 90 degrees. But the joy and sincerity he showed in front of the deservedly large ACL crowd may have been the biggest takeaway. Matt Shultz is in a good place, and so is his band.

King Princess (above)

Sprinting out with goofy abandon after the rest of her band took the stage, Mikaela Straus proceeded to lay reasonable claim to her pair of royal titles. King Princess’s decadent and versatile guitar pop, heavy on queer love and heartbreak themes, leaned away from programming and into live instruments, including her own fine guitar work displayed in places like her shredding solo on “I Feel Pretty.” It’s her voice, though, that gives Straus’ music its strongest colors. She dabbles in everything from pure pop to funkier, dance-forward stuff to dramatic, power chord-propelled pop-rock; through all of it, her voice can recall the aching clarity of many of pop and rock’s top-flight female stars, or scratch with palpable weariness like Kim Carnes. But sincerity is always King Princess’s hallmark, and on Friday, she showed she’s sincere about having a good time.