Alex and I arrived shortly after Jeff on Sunday and hurried to meet him just as Times New Viking were getting ready to start. To be honest, I've never been 100% in love with their recorded music, but their live show was a blast. The trio stopped between each song to discuss their next move and they cranked out a surprising amount of voltage for a three-piece. Also, Beth Murphy is rrrrrrrrreally hot.
We skipped Dirty Projectors and the opening of Boris to merch around a bit and get set up to see HEALTH, which ranks as the biggest mistake I made all weekend. First of all, the B stage was running behind due to adjusted showtimes after the El Guincho pullout, which meant that we had to sit through most of the High Places set. While they made interesting music, I was about as engaged as I would have been by two people reading from Bartlett's onstage. Another hot girl in the band, though.
Next up, HEALTH, a noisetet from L.A., came out with their specific brand of screaming, shrieking ear violence. I liked the group's aesthetic philosophy and I would have been interested in hearing more of the set, but Chicago's biggest cocksword took a spot next to us and insisted on clobbering the living dogshit out of me during each of HEALTH's "songs." I got fed up with battling Mr. Cuntlips after about ten minutes and we slipped away to get better spots for Les Savy Fav.
As it turns out, I owe that pretentious dicksuck a thank you because we were superclose for LSF, which turned out to be the highlight of Sunday afternoon. Lead singer Tim Harrington wore a headband with a small camera attached and started the set clothed in a neon fringe getup that he shed before the conclusion of the first number to reveal shiny, skintight leggings that left one of his legs bare. (Note: if you've never seen Harrington, he's a flabby, balding nutcase who looks like a disgruntled bear). During the second number, Tim leapt from the stage and ran through the audience, stopping to lie down in front of Jeff, Alex and I for a bit while we all mugged wildly at his camera. Further antics included: donning a Sherlock Holmes outfit and encouraging the crowd to contact their alderman to buy the park so that we could have a concert there every day; climbing into a garbage can which the crowd hoisted, followed by a hilarious Oscar the Grouch impression; rolling in mud before delivering another hilarious monologue about Native American rituals and an explorer named Charles Chicago; anointing each of his band members with mud; starting every song with something along the lines of "oh, this song, sweet!"; a skintight body stocking which was anatomically labelled and said "every body has a body." While Harrington's escapades were the highlight of the concert, the band's set was unspeakably tight and featured "Yawn, Yawn, Yawn" and "The Sweat Descends," amongst other superhits. A total blast.
We then skipped most of Dodos to eat and get good spots for Ghostface Killah and Raekwon, which meant catching the tail end of the Occidental Brothers Dance Band International, a tight act that just didn't appeal to my taste. On the heels of that, Ghost and Rae should have been awesome, but they ended up being my biggest disappointment of the whole festival. They were fine and did a fun version of "Nothin' to Fuck Wit'," but overall they seemed tired and never played more than two minutes of any song. Not bad, but not as mind-blowing as the Clipse show from '07.
Alex and I skipped out then to catch Spiritualized and Dinosaur Jr. To ensure a good spot for Dinosaur, Alex and I saw J. Spaceman from across the field. He was undoubtedly the loudest fucking set of the entire weekend--he was louder from across the park than Dinosaur was from twenty feet back. I'm not super-familiar with his stuff, but he played my favorite two tracks from Songs in A&E and didn't speak to the audience once during the set. Also, though his band kept playing, Pierce hurled his guitar at the drummer and walked offstage two minutes before his set was over, coming back out to wordlessly clap his hands and stare into space. If the "is this dude still on drugs?" jury was still out, I think they're returning a verdict sometime soon.
Spiritualized's ungodly noise got me superjazzed for Dinosaur and, as they warmed up, Alex leaned up to shout "I think I may shit myself from noise!" Though he didn't (how awesome would that be?!?) they were mindblowing. Mascis is a guitar god, although he seemed about as interested in playing a show as he would be in fighting an actual dinosaur. Lou Barlow was still really into what was going on and Murph is as thrilling a pure rock drummer as I've ever seen live. The power trio opened with "Been There All the Time" and "Back to Your Heart," my two favorite songs from Beyond. After the show, I asked Alex if it was obvious that they didn't like each other. His observation: "I don't think it matters because of how fucking good they are." Sage.
Spoon closed out another superb weekend of indie rock in the park with a tight set that, though not as good as the show I saw them play last October, was by no means disappointing. With some canny light effects, they played a solid mix of older and newer songs. Bradford Cox--of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound fame--joined the band onstage as we were leaving to bring the 2008 festival to a close.
And Now:
Greatest Misses of the Weekend:
No Age
Elf Power
Dirty Projectors
Dodos
Bon Iver
Cut Copy
Names I'd Like to See Next Year:
Okkervil River
Robert Pollard
Hot Chip
Bishop Allen
Belle & Sebastian
Islands
Wire
My Bloody Valentine (ha)
Pavement (ha-ha)
Dumbest Conversations I Heard:
"You know who they should get for next year's Don't Look Back? Guided by Voices doing Bee Thousand!"
"How are they gonna put Ghostface back here with this shitty speaker?"
To which Alex responded:
"How do you work with that shitty brain?"
As the 19-year-olds were passing a joint:
"No man, I have too many addictions already."
"But...you don't drink that much?"
"Yeah, I don't...but I have a HUGE collection of books and records."
-This one was actually Jeff, but I'm counting it anyway
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Pitchfork 2008: Saturday
I had more hope going into Saturday as I had a much better hangover (Friday started at 6pm and it's hard to carry a hangover that deep) and our team was four strong, burgeoned by the addition of Alex and Adrienne. The downside, however, was that we were staring down the barrell of at least two hours of rain. Nevertheless, we soldiered into the afternoon as both Adrienne and I wanted to make it in time for openers Titus Andronicus.
And thank God we did. Frontman Patrick Stickles opened by playing a solo cover of Pulp's "Common People," making it through the first verse and one chorus before the rest of the band joined him and the group slammed into an original number. From there, the set was a frenetic half-hour bash along that featured some scaffolding-climbing by Stickles and several unhinged and awesome cuts from their debut record The Airing of Grievances (which I subsequently picked up). They somehow managed to combine some crazy Dylan-y swinging with about as much punk force as a blast furnace. Stickles closed his set with a speech about remembering the community spirit of an indie rock festival when we all returned to our normal jobs on Monday where everyone is out to get one another. My surprise hit of the festival!
We skipped most of the Jay Reatard set to meet up with Jeff and secure solid spots for the upcoming Caribou performance, which turned out to be quite a spectacle. With a decent selection of both older songs and stuff from Andorra, Dan Snaith and his band put on an excellent show. The band's drummer is an ungodly good musician and the moments when Snaith stopped playing guitar to join in on drums were transcendent. As Jeff observed, "It looks like a mirror!" Highlights included "Melody Day" and "She's the One," my favorite song from the new record.
I'm not exactly sure how I fucked up and missed this part, but I've heard that the opening section of Fleet Foxes set was quite moving as they charmed the audience to silence. I saw most of the set from the extreme right of the stage, close enough to hear the music but too far away to hear Robin Pecknold's audience banter. Fortunately, I got to hear "White Winter Hymnal" before we split to get a better spot for for Dizzee Rascal.
After bursting onto the stage and dismissing Fleet Foxes as "folk shit," Dizzee Rascal started his first song twice in between shouting at the sound guy. (Note: Caribou went on about ten minutes late due to sound problems at the same stage and apparently the sound tech was a dick about it. What goes around comes around, eh?) After the initial fuckups, however, DR put on a highly fun and refreshingly gunshot-free hip-hop show.
We caught about a third of the Vampire Weekend set from somewhere near the sound tent, surrounded by a number of much bigger fans. According to Adrienne, we really pissed off a bunch of the people around us (my best joke: "I think the bassist is one of their dads!") and they were pretty boring out in the open air. Frankly, VW makes music aimed at indie-ish girls (to wit: the whole front row was filled with cute blondes who knew all the words) and I don't really care for it. "Oxford Comma" is a pretty good song, though.
Though Jeff was pretty excited for !!!, he graciously agreed to watch them from across the field so we could get close for the Hold Steady. I'm glad with our choice, because then the heavyweights showed up.
I've been enamored of Craig Finn and Co. for almost a whole year now, with feelings of admiration persisting for almost two years. I understand there's not a terrible amount of innovation to what they do, but once you see them live you realize that there doesn't need to be. Since Saturday, I've seen two responses to their set. Response A: I love the Hold Steady and they were awesome!!! or, Response B: I don't really like the Hold Steady...but they were awesome!!! And indeed they were. The emcee introduced them by saying "Ready? Hold...hold...Hold...Steady!" and then the five gents strolled onstage. Finn stepped to the mic and shouted "Hey Chicago, we're gonna build something this summer!" after which the group threw themselves headlong into "Constructive Summer" from their excellent new LP Stay Positive. I was grinning so much that I nearly forgot to breathe as Finn jumped to the front of the stage and began excitedly punching the air. As the song slowed down, I noticed that I had been squealing with delight throughout the opener but it was too loud for me to hear myself. Anyway, he introduced the group's next number as being about "A girl, a guy and a horse!" before the quintet slammed into "Chips Ahoy!" The set included a fair number of songs both from the new record and Boys and Girls in America. At one point I turned to Alex to shout "I'd pay five hundred dollars to go drinking with them one night! One of us wouldn't make it!...It would be me!!" Other highlights: Finn changed some lyrics in "Massive Nights" to involve drinking in a church and closed it out with "You guys are the hardest motherfuckers in this town!" Also, the audience got the group out for a one-song encore, "Killer Parties" from their debut Almost Killed Me. Before the song, as the band vamped, Finn offered: "I'm gonna say something...and I say it a lot, but I say it because it's true...there is so much joy in what we do up here--and we're glad that all of you could be a part of it." As the song drew to a close, he gleefully announced "All of us--and all of you--and all of your friends--and all of our friends--we are all...The Hold Steady!" I've never had more fun at a show and I've never seen a band take more joy in playing music. It. Was. Awesome.
Jeff had dipped out midway through THS to check out Atlas Sound, so Alex, Adrienne and I refilled our Goose Island beers and took up spots near the edge of the crowd for Jarvis Cocker, another of my heroes. While I was a bit far from the madding crowd to get the brunt of the set, Cocker is an undeniable showman and I'm glad I got to see him. He managed to take off his jacket by leaping and delivered a charming lecture on notable Chicagoans with a hefty amount of his British sense of humo(u)r peppered in to boot. The set contained no Pulp songs (oddly, Titus Andronicus were the only band to play anything by his old group) but did close with "Running the World," perhaps the only protest song to so prominently and gracefully feature the epithet "cunt."
I'm not all that into ghost effects so, though the light show was quite impressive, we skipped Animal Collective to see a bit of No Age before slipping out the back gate with Jeff. Unfortunately, I missed the NA/Abe Vigoda Replacements cover, though I could hear it from the other side of the wall.
Crammed full and exhausted after nine hours of live music, we set out to drag each other through every seedy watering hole that the Windy City had to offer. Though by that time I was too tired to get drunk (!), we still managed to drain Chicago of an admirable amount of its beer in preparation for the next day.
Stay tuned for Sunday highlights.
And thank God we did. Frontman Patrick Stickles opened by playing a solo cover of Pulp's "Common People," making it through the first verse and one chorus before the rest of the band joined him and the group slammed into an original number. From there, the set was a frenetic half-hour bash along that featured some scaffolding-climbing by Stickles and several unhinged and awesome cuts from their debut record The Airing of Grievances (which I subsequently picked up). They somehow managed to combine some crazy Dylan-y swinging with about as much punk force as a blast furnace. Stickles closed his set with a speech about remembering the community spirit of an indie rock festival when we all returned to our normal jobs on Monday where everyone is out to get one another. My surprise hit of the festival!
We skipped most of the Jay Reatard set to meet up with Jeff and secure solid spots for the upcoming Caribou performance, which turned out to be quite a spectacle. With a decent selection of both older songs and stuff from Andorra, Dan Snaith and his band put on an excellent show. The band's drummer is an ungodly good musician and the moments when Snaith stopped playing guitar to join in on drums were transcendent. As Jeff observed, "It looks like a mirror!" Highlights included "Melody Day" and "She's the One," my favorite song from the new record.
I'm not exactly sure how I fucked up and missed this part, but I've heard that the opening section of Fleet Foxes set was quite moving as they charmed the audience to silence. I saw most of the set from the extreme right of the stage, close enough to hear the music but too far away to hear Robin Pecknold's audience banter. Fortunately, I got to hear "White Winter Hymnal" before we split to get a better spot for for Dizzee Rascal.
After bursting onto the stage and dismissing Fleet Foxes as "folk shit," Dizzee Rascal started his first song twice in between shouting at the sound guy. (Note: Caribou went on about ten minutes late due to sound problems at the same stage and apparently the sound tech was a dick about it. What goes around comes around, eh?) After the initial fuckups, however, DR put on a highly fun and refreshingly gunshot-free hip-hop show.
We caught about a third of the Vampire Weekend set from somewhere near the sound tent, surrounded by a number of much bigger fans. According to Adrienne, we really pissed off a bunch of the people around us (my best joke: "I think the bassist is one of their dads!") and they were pretty boring out in the open air. Frankly, VW makes music aimed at indie-ish girls (to wit: the whole front row was filled with cute blondes who knew all the words) and I don't really care for it. "Oxford Comma" is a pretty good song, though.
Though Jeff was pretty excited for !!!, he graciously agreed to watch them from across the field so we could get close for the Hold Steady. I'm glad with our choice, because then the heavyweights showed up.
I've been enamored of Craig Finn and Co. for almost a whole year now, with feelings of admiration persisting for almost two years. I understand there's not a terrible amount of innovation to what they do, but once you see them live you realize that there doesn't need to be. Since Saturday, I've seen two responses to their set. Response A: I love the Hold Steady and they were awesome!!! or, Response B: I don't really like the Hold Steady...but they were awesome!!! And indeed they were. The emcee introduced them by saying "Ready? Hold...hold...Hold...Steady!" and then the five gents strolled onstage. Finn stepped to the mic and shouted "Hey Chicago, we're gonna build something this summer!" after which the group threw themselves headlong into "Constructive Summer" from their excellent new LP Stay Positive. I was grinning so much that I nearly forgot to breathe as Finn jumped to the front of the stage and began excitedly punching the air. As the song slowed down, I noticed that I had been squealing with delight throughout the opener but it was too loud for me to hear myself. Anyway, he introduced the group's next number as being about "A girl, a guy and a horse!" before the quintet slammed into "Chips Ahoy!" The set included a fair number of songs both from the new record and Boys and Girls in America. At one point I turned to Alex to shout "I'd pay five hundred dollars to go drinking with them one night! One of us wouldn't make it!...It would be me!!" Other highlights: Finn changed some lyrics in "Massive Nights" to involve drinking in a church and closed it out with "You guys are the hardest motherfuckers in this town!" Also, the audience got the group out for a one-song encore, "Killer Parties" from their debut Almost Killed Me. Before the song, as the band vamped, Finn offered: "I'm gonna say something...and I say it a lot, but I say it because it's true...there is so much joy in what we do up here--and we're glad that all of you could be a part of it." As the song drew to a close, he gleefully announced "All of us--and all of you--and all of your friends--and all of our friends--we are all...The Hold Steady!" I've never had more fun at a show and I've never seen a band take more joy in playing music. It. Was. Awesome.
Jeff had dipped out midway through THS to check out Atlas Sound, so Alex, Adrienne and I refilled our Goose Island beers and took up spots near the edge of the crowd for Jarvis Cocker, another of my heroes. While I was a bit far from the madding crowd to get the brunt of the set, Cocker is an undeniable showman and I'm glad I got to see him. He managed to take off his jacket by leaping and delivered a charming lecture on notable Chicagoans with a hefty amount of his British sense of humo(u)r peppered in to boot. The set contained no Pulp songs (oddly, Titus Andronicus were the only band to play anything by his old group) but did close with "Running the World," perhaps the only protest song to so prominently and gracefully feature the epithet "cunt."
I'm not all that into ghost effects so, though the light show was quite impressive, we skipped Animal Collective to see a bit of No Age before slipping out the back gate with Jeff. Unfortunately, I missed the NA/Abe Vigoda Replacements cover, though I could hear it from the other side of the wall.
Crammed full and exhausted after nine hours of live music, we set out to drag each other through every seedy watering hole that the Windy City had to offer. Though by that time I was too tired to get drunk (!), we still managed to drain Chicago of an admirable amount of its beer in preparation for the next day.
Stay tuned for Sunday highlights.
Pitchfork 2008: Friday
After seeing The Dark Knight, Jeff and I hiked back to Don's apartment where I discovered I'd lost my tickets. After a few minutes of very loud swearing and throwing some of my possessions about, we headed to Union Park where I hoped to score a weekend pass for not much above face value. Fortunately, thanks to the world's worst lowballer, I got three tickets for only five above face. Not too bad considering I paid DOUBLE PRICE to see Wolf Parade a week earlier...
Anyway, we entered the park as Mission of Burma were tearing through their post-punk classic Vs. with as much energy as they put into the original recording. They were easily the highlight of Friday night, though I sort of missed more of the concert than I'm proud to admit.
This was my second time seeing Sebadoh and, frankly, I don't understand why they played second. Maybe MOB had somewhere else to be? Anyway, they were fine and very similar to their recorded output: half moving balladry and skewed pop bliss and half punk rock screaming/ garbled nonsense. Lou Barlow's charming, if somewhat awkward, crowd chatter was endearing and I enjoyed their set more than most festival attendees, though Jeff and I slipped out three-quarters of the way through to get better spots for the PE show. I did feel bad, though, when I looked across the field to see Lou Barlow playing an acoustic guitar that was totally drowned out by the throbbing bass of the Bomb Squad's warm-up.
Confession: I've never been as enamored of old-school hip-hop as most whiteys. I know that the music is good and I do enjoy listening to it, I just prefer my rap to be slicker and about horribly irresponsible topics like killing and drugs. That being said, I was fairly excited for the live rendition of It Takes a Nation of Millions... and was...a little disappointed. To begin with, the Bomb Squad opened for PE and played almost a fifteen minute set of snoozarific beats that brought me down faster than Jim Cooper at a campaign rally. Public Enemy never fully climbed out of that hole as far as I was concerned. Chuck D's chiding of Flav for missing opener "Bring Da Noize" was funny, as was Flava Flav's repeatedly calling his own album by the wrong name. Frankly, the whole thing left me a little cold and Jeff and I boned out before the big closing medley, which I've read was awesome. Alas...
Anyway, we entered the park as Mission of Burma were tearing through their post-punk classic Vs. with as much energy as they put into the original recording. They were easily the highlight of Friday night, though I sort of missed more of the concert than I'm proud to admit.
This was my second time seeing Sebadoh and, frankly, I don't understand why they played second. Maybe MOB had somewhere else to be? Anyway, they were fine and very similar to their recorded output: half moving balladry and skewed pop bliss and half punk rock screaming/ garbled nonsense. Lou Barlow's charming, if somewhat awkward, crowd chatter was endearing and I enjoyed their set more than most festival attendees, though Jeff and I slipped out three-quarters of the way through to get better spots for the PE show. I did feel bad, though, when I looked across the field to see Lou Barlow playing an acoustic guitar that was totally drowned out by the throbbing bass of the Bomb Squad's warm-up.
Confession: I've never been as enamored of old-school hip-hop as most whiteys. I know that the music is good and I do enjoy listening to it, I just prefer my rap to be slicker and about horribly irresponsible topics like killing and drugs. That being said, I was fairly excited for the live rendition of It Takes a Nation of Millions... and was...a little disappointed. To begin with, the Bomb Squad opened for PE and played almost a fifteen minute set of snoozarific beats that brought me down faster than Jim Cooper at a campaign rally. Public Enemy never fully climbed out of that hole as far as I was concerned. Chuck D's chiding of Flav for missing opener "Bring Da Noize" was funny, as was Flava Flav's repeatedly calling his own album by the wrong name. Frankly, the whole thing left me a little cold and Jeff and I boned out before the big closing medley, which I've read was awesome. Alas...
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