Whadda trip. We spent a long weekend in Chicago, leaving on Thursday night and returning on Monday night - and for the first time, I spent all three days at the Pitchfork Music Festival. Chicago is such a great town, and this festival is pretty sweet too. I'm not a big fan of festivals in general, as I doubt I'd ever go to a Coachella or a Bonnaroo. Maybe the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival... :-) (photos will just be scatterd throughout this post)
What's great about Pitchfork is that while I know a lot of indie bands, there's usually half that are completely new to me. I like that I have to research and discover a whole list of new bands before even going to the Festival. And besides, it's about more than just the music. The people watching, the food, as well as the FlatStock Poster displays and merchants all make this a top-notch experience.
Day 1: We started off getting our bearings with EMA and Battles first. EMA seemed a bit wet behind the ears, but Battles polished things up right. Das Racist dropped some slick beats back on the Blue stage. We made it back out to the main stage for a bit of throwback Neko Case (a pleasant surprise). Back to blue to see James Blake who was surprisingly good in a Festival Atmosphere (I wondered how he'd do). He had some deep beats that really played well. We didn't stay long for Animal Collective.
Day 2: We walked in early as Woods were starting, then back to Sun Airway and the back out to see a super hot performance by Cold Cave. I can't wait until their Grog Shop show! Then we we're back to Blue for Wild Nothing with their soothing pop sounds, and we stayed there The Radio Dept. and Twin Shadow. The Blue stage was the place to be this particular afternoon. We stepped back out to the main stages to finish the night out with DJ Shadow (meh) and then an amazing Fleet Foxes performance. They were a band that I questioned having the close Saturday night slot - but they were superb!!
Day 3: Yuck started the day off, then we hung back at the Blue stage to catch Twin Sister, Shabazz Palaces and then Baths. I was thoroughly impressed with the electronic sounds for Baths and got close for his performance. I'll admit that I did do a quick walk by the OFWGKTA (Odd Future / Tyler the Creator) stage, just to witness some of the hype. Caught a little Deerhunter, but from the vantage point that would get us close for Cut Copy. We ended up even closer for Cut Copy, and it was HOT (in many ways). We went back to catch the end of HEALTH and then didn't stay for much of TV on the Radio.
Overall a great experience and one I'm looking forward to next year. Kudos to the crew for hanging with me...
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