Pitchfork Festival 2010

From July 16 to 18 in Chicago’s Grant Park, Pitchfork held its fifth annual music festival, featuring some of its biggest names yet, including Pavement, Modest Mouse, LCD Soundsystem, and Big Boi, and the turnout was incredible. Several extra batches of tickets were released the day before the festival began, and weather forecasts including both sweltering heat for Friday and Saturday and a downpour predicted for Sunday suggested that the festival might be pushed to its limits. However, the festival organizers frequently gave out water to the most dehydrated concert-goers and chopped prices of bottled water in the park, and the local food offered ran the gamut from vegan to meaty, sweet to salty, so everyone stayed nourished and fully able to enjoy the massive array of diverse performances put on that weekend.

Friday’s set featured more music than ever before at the Festival. I only caught the second half of The Tallest Man on Earth, stage name of Sweden’s Kristian Matsson, but his sparse instrumentation and idiosyncratic but versatile voice hypnotized the crowd. Although his music featured only vocals and guitar, his complex picking and sneaky grace notes fleshed out his triumphant, usually love-themed songs. He has incredible range and can manipulate his voice to sound plaintive or gritty, but his infectious melodies are always pitch-perfect.

Liars took the same stage about forty-five minutes later, ripping through a set that drew from most of their studio albums. They kicked off with “I Still Can See an Outside World,” an unsettling ditty that shifts from skeletal plucked strings to grinding white noise with almost no warning. Frontman Angus Andrew discoed and wiggled through the whole set and, after the post-punk crunch of “Garden was Crowded and Outside,” joked that “there’s a water station in [his] pants; come up on stage and have a go.” The band switched up their instrumentation a bit, replacing strings with guitars for the stalking “No Barrier Fun” and adding piano and reverb

guitar to the tribal sound of “A Visit from Drum.” One of their greatest assets is the ability to make terrifying-sounding music fun, such as with the sinister bounce of “The Overachievers,” or by adding dissonance to the thumping “Plaster Casts of Everything.” Liars have reinvented themselves so many times over the course of their career that their live set is varied and enthralling by nature of their songs alone. The relatively less dissonant Bauhaus cover certainly didn’t hurt though.

Broken Social Scene have fine-tuned a set that makes them out to be as anthemic as possible (though, unfortunately, without including the gorgeous “Anthems for a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl”), starting with lead single “Worldsick” from their latest album, which had a subtly funky feel and prominent bass and the breaking, cascading melodies that BSS churn out so readily.

Most of the songs from their back catalog fared best: the chugging, intense “Stars and Sons,” the hooky “Cause=Time,” and the breezy “7/4 (Shoreline),” in which the horns get the most triumphant melody and one of the most epic moments of the whole set. However, juxtaposing the new songs with the old revealed the weaknesses of the former: they sometimes come off as watered-down versions of older songs, or are barely fleshed out further than a single idea. “Forced to Love” was overly dramatic, sort of a minor key “Fire Eye’d Boy,” which in turn was one of the highlights, featuring Andrew Whiteman’s confident lead vocals. The band closed with “Meet Me in the Basement,” which Kevin Drew, who had been losing his cool with the sound men during the whole set, introduced with, “this song has become our anthem.” The song centers around a couple riffs of a few notes each with a little bit of harmonization and goes absolutely nowhere. Needless to say, it doesn’t speak well of the future of your band if your new anthem is such a dull cut. Maybe the band should steer away from anthems and more toward the glazed-over electronic sound of “All to All,” which found BSS at their dreamiest and showcased Lisa Lobsinger’s fluttering, lush vocals. It definitely would have been a more satisfying closer. I kind of wish I had seen Robyn’s set closer-up, which had me dancing even from yards away, as it wouldn’t have left me with the bad taste that Drew’s rotten attitude did.

Modest Mouse closed Friday night’s festivities with a set full of crowd-pleasers and new cuts. The contrast was pretty stark, as the band usually stuck to the sound and format of the studio recordings with the new songs but reinvented several of the others. They started with the dark and groovy “Tiny Cities Made of Ashes,” the bassline of which is so recognizable as to pull music fans from all over the park in hopes that the band would play more material from The Moon &’ Antarctica. Another older one, “Here It Comes,” was expanded massively with echo and lengthened before the band started to play from their last few records. Singer Isaac Brock

yelped through the banjo-led “This Devil’s Workday” and the stomp of “Education” and recent singles “Satellite Skin” and “Autumn Beds,” the latter of which dragged the pace with its repetition before the band got back into gear with single “Dashboard,” which got Brock back to his satisfyingly caustic howl. The highlight of the show, however, had to be “Dramamine,” from Modest Mouse’s debut, as the band cranked up the reverb for the spaced-out verses, the choruses hit hard, and the song was extended to full jam potential. Other highlights included the heavy-hitting “Whale Song” and the absolutely heavenly “Gravity Rides Everything,” best known for being in a minivan commercial, but any notions of “selling out” have long been forgotten.

Despite splitting their set pretty evenly between new and old, Modest Mouse even seem more fascinated with their old material, as all the songs from before their album Good News were the most enthralling. I hope they find the same fascination with their newer material and inject some heart into clunkers like “Autumn Beds.”

Saturday raised the stakes with headliners LCD Soundsystem and Panda Bear, but from the very beginning the lineup was packed with killer performances. The first band I caught was Delorean, a dreamy dance act from Spain, who opened with the killer slow build of “Seasun” off their Ayrton Senna EP. They immediately introduced a huge drum sound that evoked audible gasps from the crowd the moment it kicked in. The band then bounced through a number of cuts from this year’s fantastic Subiza, including highlight “Real Love” which boosted the energy even more with swirling synths and the plaintive central lyric, “Will we ever meet again?” and “Endless Sunset,” during which the drums seemed to get even bigger, while bearded “twins” fiddled with keyboards and synths, layering hazy melodies on top of each other for every cut. Delorean blazed out with “It’s All Ours,” and none of us at the completely shade-less stage noticed how exhausted we were from dancing so hard until the music stopped.

Because I’m not familiar with Raekwon and Titus Andronicus sounded too cloying, I staked out for WHY? and Bear in Heaven and caught D’m-Funk and The Smith Westerns beforehand. D’m’s first strike was being twenty minutes late, and then despite the variety of synths on stage and how much attention he paid to them, they were way too low in the mix. We were left with talented, soulful vocals and some simple drums. The occasional funky bass line would slip through the cracks, but as the volume of the synth was increased, the melodies seemed more uninspired. The music was at its best when the drums were syncopated and the synths used to

create an eerie atmosphere, and then the crowd was teased with a breakbeat that was over as soon as it started. Chicagoan youngsters (most of them 19 or 20) The Smith Westerns don’t have the best vocalist, but they tore through their satisfying set of diverse pop songs, ballads in 3/4 and 6/8, and a “mosh pit slam dance.” They may have stressed the watery, surf-y sounding guitar effect too much, but they’ve got a repertoire of well-written songs with complex arrangements and breakdowns.

This was my fourth time seeing WHY?, but my expectations were still surpassed. The band’s hip-hop-inflected indie rock is more fleshed out each time I see them, and this time was no different, right from muscular opener “Song of the Sad Assassin,” featuring frontman Yoni Wolf’s signature stage antics, as he hopped across the stage during the breaks. Other songs had completely different vibes owing only to added heavy bass or guitar parts, such as the newly grooved-up “Brook &’ Waxing” and the unusually thumping “The Vowels Pt. 2.” And who knew “Good Friday,” which is otherwise a pretty straightforward hip-hop track, would benefit so

much from a furious guitar solo? Remarkably skilled drummer Josiah Wolf is always a spectacle, especially during cuts like “Rubber Traits,” which, in my opinion, is their best song, when he played drums and vibraphone at the same time, alternating snare hits with flecks of melody. He used this same style but to even greater effect with closer “A Sky for Shoeing Horses Under,” as the rapid drums and vibes cut through the din of the guitars. “Fatalist Palmistry,” one of their poppiest songs to date, was a deserving crowd favorite with intricate, transcendent melody and harmonies. “Against Me” seemed subdued at first but of course exploded by the third chorus, proving the band to be masters of tension and release. With this set, perfectly balanced between their excellent last three albums, WHY? satisfied their longtime fans by giving them something more than just a carbon copy of the studio versions and surely gained many more fans on the way.

Bear in Heaven may have recently lost a member, but their unique mix of hazy synths, economical guitars, pounding drums, and acrobatic vocals still mesmerized the

crowd. “Wholehearted Mess,” despite losing some studio tricks in the transition to the live setting, is complex enough to stand without them, as it starts out as a cheery chugging rhythm and then descends into a minor-key, pulsating “mess.” The same goes for “Dust Cloud,” which on record feels woozy because of a bending guitar chord but here was just as spooky before spinning into a rhythm in three with thundering drums and ominous vocals barely escaping from the din. Single “Lovesick Teenagers” showcased one of their strongest melodies, and the band closed the set with the creepy, twinkling “You Do You.” It’s telling that I previously thought this

band had multiple vocalists and was surprised to learn that Jon Philpot’s powerful voice does all the work. Even with all the crunchy guitars and oscillating synths, the vocals are the most direct and often most chilling aspect of Bear in Heaven’s sound.

As soon as Bear in Heaven finished, I scurried over to catch what I could of Panda Bear’s set, one of the more anticipated of the weekend, since he rarely plays solo shows outside of New York and is also putting out a new record soon. If nothing else, his sound is certainly hypnotic, as he loops rapid music box samples and matches them loosely with sauntering beats and his own indulgent melodies. I did get to hear one familiar song, a particularly droning and washed out take on “Ponytail,” over which Panda hit some particularly high notes before winding right into a new song. He also yelped quite often, and this habit seemed more like fascination with the echo of his own voice than anything. His set drew primarily from as-yet-unreleased songs, which seem to be even more shape-shifting than his older ones, from marimba samples to surprisingly catchy white noise loops, from clattering percussion to songs with almost no discernable time signature, all with Panda’s voice falling delicately over them… until the yelps, anyway. From the sound of the set, the new record will be very diverse, as this set was definitely hard to pin down.

I wish I had something to say about LCD Soundsystem, but I really don’t “get” them. I can say that everyone I know who saw them got drenched in sweat and the time of their lives.

The storm predicted for Sunday was the first Chicago storm I’ve ever seen, and it was certainly a doozy of high winds and driving rain, but miraculously it cleared up completely in time for the music. I started my day with Best Coast, a sunny stoner pop group from California led by the adorable Bethany Cosentino, who was grateful for those who had waited out the rain &- “I don’t know if you guys had to get wet to see us… Thanks for getting wet? That’s what she said? I don’t know. Thanks.” Best Coast’s music is about as simple as pop gets, chordally and structurally, but they’re cute, sweet songs, and she has the perfect voice for them. Her singing seems almost effortless but she’s always on pitch. If anything, the subject matter got a little repetitive; she even used the same “crazy/lazy” rhyme multiple times in her short set. But I could get past that issue when the words put to melodies like the one in “Boyfriend,” which I had already had stuck in my head all weekend, or “Sun Was High,” which she introduced as a “song about WEEEEEEED!”

So yes, her songs are pretty much all about getting high and liking boys, but with that voice and those melodies, how could you resist?

Washed Out, aka South Carolina’s Ernest Greene, had perhaps the best-fitting name of any band that played &- each song was drenched in delay and reverb, but the vocals were thankfully pretty front-and-center. His set incorporated sampled harp and off-kilter keyboard loops, all undercut by rumbling bass. “New Theory,” from his excellent EP Life of Leisure, was made groovier and busier with the addition of percussion and added greatly to the energy of the set, and after playing another EP cut, “Get Up,” he introduced some darker new songs, while always keeping the bass just as heavy.

Although I would have liked to see his whole set, I made a point to get a good spot for drum-and-bass noise rock duo Lightning Bolt, and I conveniently was able to see Beach House’s entire set. Their sound lost a little to the park setting, as their intimate and dreamy pop songs work much better in clubs, but the gallop of “Norway” still filled the park, and singer Victoria Legrand was always a smoky, sultry siren. The shoegazey vibe of “10 Mile Stereo” was also chill-inducing, but I have to note that I was a little creeped out when guitarist Alex Scally introduced “Silver Soul” with, “If anyone has dry underwear by the end of this song, they have to leave.” The band has said in interviews that they want people to have sex to new album Teen Dream, but that was just too much. Lightning Bolt are a difficult band to write about, much less to appreciate. I heard several other music fans talking just after the show about how it was “just noise” and they couldn’t stand it, but I’d been waiting to see this band for six years, and they melted my face off. Despite several sound issues, a problem not new to the Pitchfork festival or its patrons, the duo of bassist Brian

Gibson and drummer Brian Chippendale would, without fail, launch back into each interrupted song even louder than before, such as in the urgent, surprisingly catchy “Megaghost.” I have never before seen a band get a crowd to yell along with what is just an echo of feedback, but they did it, in between the memorable bass beat that that song featured. Another highlight was the build of “Colossus,” from new album Earthly Delights, which found the band experimenting with the rhythm. They played a few new songs, which were more melodic and a little slower but just as enveloping, then closed with fan favorite “Dracula Mountain” from Wonderful

Rainbow, which was marred by the those same sound problems, but the band worked around them, easing into the song quietly and then pounding eardrums with their noise. Chippendale even took off his mask-with-a-telephone-microphone for the second half so that the crowd could see him thrashing, face exposed, with his incredibly complex and fast rhythms. This was by far the loudest set I’ve ever seen, but I think it still could have been louder; Lightning Bolt have melodies and riffs worthy of being amped up until they are deafening.

St. Vincent took the adjacent stage immediately after Lightning Bolt finished, and while her art-pop might seem reserved in comparison upon first glance, mastermind Annie Clark’s powerful voice and guitar virtuosity made this set just as notable and face-melting as Lightning Bolt’s. She’s constantly reinventing her songs, even just from last summer’s tour. The set drew primarily from last year’s excellent Actor, such as the string-and-flute-decorated “The Strangers” and the twinkling synths and smooth, syncopated horns of “Save Me from What I Want.” A person favorite was “Laughing with a Mouth of Blood,” which featured mellotron strings swelling in the chorus as Clark’s voice floated easily above them. Her reinventions, however, were by far the most memorable. “Just the Same but Brand New” built from a big

tom sound and an increasingly urgent melody to a solo section, in which Clark was really able to show off, from a spindly section, to a fuzzed-out whammy-fest, to a bit of old-fashioned shredding. My jaw dropped. “The Party” sounded like a relic 80s with its echoing drum pads and distorted piano and strings drifting in, and all the while Clark’s angelic voice held hints of vibrato, almost unsettling against the bizarre soundscape her band created. And as if the crowd wasn’t already in love, she then took off her sunglasses and said, “I can see all your faces! I did not mean to be standoffish earlier.” “Black Rainbow” built to a blaring climax of sharp drums,

horns, and Clark’s furious playing, and “Marrow” seemed almost alarmed in its tension but still was danceable. Closer “Your Lips Are Red,” however, blew the crowd’s expectations to bit. Its familiar fuzzy stomp dissolved into a noise break, complete with Clark twiddling knobs on her effects pedals. The band did this twice and then slipped violins in under the blanket of noise the second time, before leading to the bridge of “Your lips so fair it’s not fair,” and the drastic contrast made both parts that much more intense. Even having seen her set before, I couldn’t have expected that. While Annie Clark continues to make groundbreaking music in the studio,

her live show is completely unlike listening to the record; her energy and skill are unmatched.

I only heard the tail end of Here We Go Magic’s set, and at that point they seemed to be content to do the psych-out thing with layers of guitars and vocals, almost Steve Reich-like in their repetition and cycling of rhythm. I’ve never been much of a Neon Indian fan, but his dancey electronica and reverberated vocals had me bouncing along enough, especially when the live drums came through. Of course there were constant reminders of why I can’t listen to them &- the synth sounds they choose must be the cheesiest available, and sometimes they make for a sonic mess, especially when meshed with a distinctly classic-rock-sounding guitar solo. However, frontman Alan Palomo is a great theremin player.

Sleigh Bells were probably the biggest recent buzz band to play the festival, and while their songs may be simple, their live show is as fun as any I’ve ever seen. Both singer Alexis Krauss and guitarist Derek Miller have incredible stage presence, and the band sped through plenty of killer cuts from their new album Treats, such as “Tell “Em,” “Kids,” and “Riot Rhythm,” as well as one b-side, “Holly.” While Allison’s singing voice suffers a bit by being overpowered by the guitar and wall of Marshall amps, she can get the crowd going with just her commanding shout, especially in the popular “Infinity Guitars” (“tell “em “bout the new trends!”) and the breezy,

Parliament-sampling “Rill Rill.” She even invited the crowd to scream along with her at the end of closer “Treats,” and throughout the show she was very thankful to Pitchfork and the crowd. Even monstrously-hyped buzz bands have heart.

Since I chose Sleigh Bells over getting close for Pavement, it was hard to get involved in their show, despite their selection of indie rock classics like the fuzzy “In the Mouth a Desert” and the catchy “Silence Kit.” I felt somewhat bad for not seeing such legends close-up, but they seemed to be a unifying force for the festival anyway &- as I walked away from the B stage where Sleigh Bells played and Pavement opened with “Cut Your Hair,” it seemed like the whole park was singing along. The Pitchfork Music Festival consistently offers music fans a lineup of some of the best acts around every year, and this one was no different, especially with Sunday’s lineup. One running problem from this year and last year seemed to be sound issues, but as a relatively new festival, and much smaller than others like Bonnaroo and Sasquatch, they should be allowed to take a little more time to figure that out. I can only imagine the festival will improve from here.