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...