Pitchfork Recap, Part Deux
I, too, attended Pitchfork’s festival last weekend in Chicago, but I wasn’t on the ball, so here are my tardy thoughts on all the good music we saw.
The Very Best (Sunday night)
In my mind, the most memorable performance of the weekend came from The Very Best, the wonderful collaboration between Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit. They were pitted opposite the Flaming Lips, and D, Laura, Liz and I rushed over to the B stage after Grizzly Bear to avoid the massive crowds forming for the Flaming Lips. Upon arrival, we realized we were part of a crowd of (maybe) 150. I can’t lie; I was a little worried. Normally, the crowd is a source of energy for acts like The Very Best. That is, there is a give and take relationship between the performers and those boogeying to their beats. Initially, with Esau and Radioclit, it was all take from the crowd: the audience was tired from a long weekend of, uh, nodding their heads, making snarky remarks about Wavves and wearing flannel (present company included, by the way).
The Very Best had little trouble winning all of us over. Playing jams primarily from The Very Best Mixtape, the boys impressed with their ability to focus both on getting the crowd involved and ignoring the fact that 95% of the festival goers were at the A stage. Esau’s stage presence is truly infectious. I have never been so excited to watch a performer whose lyrics I mostly don’t understand. Dylan described it as best one could:
“Esau has got to be one of the most infectious and enthusiastic performers out there today. He was so genuinely happy to be performing and grateful for everyone that showed up, it was hard not share in his excitement…”
The Very Best was a brilliant way to end the weekend, particularly with the encore of “Will You Be There,” and they joined Daft Punk and Girl Talk on the short list of performers who can bowl over all my greater instincts to not dance. (Oh, and Theophilus London was dope…a few days prior he had been on tour on the west coast with A-Trak, so I wonder if he flew in just to help The Very Best out.)
M83 (Sunday at sunset)
I was and still am under the impression that Saturdays = Youth was the laptop child of Anthony Gonzalez, save for some help on vocals. I was excited for M83, but my expectations were low; I thought it’d be Gonzalez on stage alone with a few synths, a laptop and a drum machine doing his thing. You can imagine my surprise (and excitement) when Gonzalez took the stage with his guitar accompanied by a live drummer (who played behind a strange plexi-glass wall) and keyboardist, in addition to his own synth/laptop set up.
Gonzalez and crew did not disappoint. While The Very Best’s set was the most memorable of the weekend, M83’s might have been my favorite. They stuck primarily with fare from Saturdays = Youth and the live renditions of “Coleurs,” “Skin of the Night,” and “Kim & Jessie” were fantastic. My favorite moment of the weekend came during the opening chords of “We Own the Sky” as the sun began to cast long shadows over Union Park. I love that song and it was a truly fitting moment for it.
Matt and Kim (Saturday evening)It’s always refreshing to see performers focused on enjoying what they’re doing. Too many of the ever-popular acts in the era of Pitchfork and music blogs don’t seem to take pleasure in playing music. Matt and Kim truly relish the opportunity to play in front of a crowd as large as the one they drew at Pitchfork and they came through with a great set. The played the hits from Grand and a few choice hip hop interludes, a couple tracks from the self-titled LP (“Grand” and “Yea Yeah” among others) and an awesome cover of Europe’s “The Final Countdown,” before closing out with “Daylight.” Matt and Kim just seem like kind of fun-loving, quirky people who’d be a blast to hang out with. I remain very stoked we skipped Beirut for them.
Stray Observations
I tweeted a bunch while at the festival, so check that out and follow me up.
-The National are much better live than expected. Matt Berninger’s voice was less distinctive live and I think it worked with their music.
-Like D, I wish we had checked out some of the more danceable stuff (Lindstrøm and DJ/rupture) earlier in their sets. After living in the Sahara tent at Coachella, you’d think I’d have learned this, but there you go.
-Along the same lines, certain acts, due to the softness of their sound, just aren’t for the festival scene, with Grizzly Bear and The Antlers as the most prominent examples from this weekend. I love Grizzly Bear, and they played well live in spite of several technical difficulties, but they’re much more interesting in a smaller, more intimate venue.
-I’m sure all my hipster friends will kill me for this, but my brain can’t really discern the differences between Cymbals Eat Guitars and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart.
-It seems like every band was from Brooklyn or Portland. I know these towns have big-time scenes, but still, the lack of locational (made up word alert) diversity odd.
-Speaking of diversity, my guess would be that 85% of the people at the festival were white and between the ages of 16 and 32.
-I hope Frightened Rabbit makes Glasgow the new hotspot.
-Final Fantasy was awesome and extremely humble, though I’m not sure Pitchfork was his scene. He should be playing college gigs at performing arts centers.
-Pharoahe Monch turned in a solid effort, but playing hip-hop outside to crowds that were waiting for The Walkmen also wasn’t the right scene.
-Yeasayer was great. Chris Keating’s onesie was not great. They were my “holy crap, I need to go back and listen to this again” band of the weekend.
-Four Flaming Lips thoughts:
- They blatantly ignored the Write the Night concept that was pimped pretty hard
- Wayne Coyne is a showman, maybe a PT Barnum type in a different era. That said, I think doing an extended sound check and trying to distract the crowd with confetti and beach balls during Grizzly Bear’s set was bush league.
- Coyne’s voice is gone, which may or may not be why they trotted out all the lights, confetti and floating things. And if your voice is gone, why are you singing certain songs nearly a cappella?
- ”the flaming lips have beach balls and lights. the very best has fun.” I stand by that.
