The British electro duo Mount Kimbie make neat music that combines synthetic beats with dream-pop vocals, guitar, and some live percussion. They’re another band that’s new on my radar. I love discovering new bands through festivals, and their performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival might be a nice surprise.
Keep your mind open.
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Hometown artist Open Mike Eagle will be working the Blue Stage on July 20th at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. Mr. Eagle has a good blend of electronic beats and a smooth flow that discusses issues serious to him, his hometown, and the world in general. I haven’t heard much of his material, but I do like the few things I have heard. It should be an interesting set.
Keep your mind open.
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It’s a bit hard to describe Joshua Abrams and the Natural Information Society, but the best word is probably “minimalist.” They play an interesting form of minimalist jazz and low rock that’s centered around Abrams’ love and mastery of a three-stringed African guimbri lute. Their stuff can be both meditative and danceable. I first caught them at Levitation Chicago a while back, and they put on a good show then. It will be interesting to catch them in an outdoor venue this year at the Pitchfork Music Festival.
Keep your mind open.
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Chicago noise-punk outfit Melkbelly are playing one of the earliest sets (1:45pm on Friday) at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival in their hometown, and it would be well worth leaving work early to see them. Their fierce rock has an edge to it that will slap you out of your doldrums and fire you up for the rest of the festival. Their 2017 album Nothing Valley was one of the best of the year, and I’ve heard their live performances are game-changing. Don’t miss them.
Keep your mind open.
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| Get your tickets early for Pitchfork 2018. No lineup has been announced, but $150.00 for a three-day pass is a steal to any music festival, let alone one with such a diverse lineup. | ||||||||
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Day three of the Pitchfork Music Festival started out a bit chilly as the Windy City was living up to its nickname, but we soon got our sweaty groove on thanks to a great set by Chicago house music legend and pioneer Derrick Carter.
For those of you who weren’t dancing during his set, please see a doctor because something is wrong with you. He put on a house music clinic. It was a great way to start the day.
We also heard a bit of Colin Stetson‘s set. He plays this wild, droning, hypnotizing saxophone music that is difficult to describe but quite mesmerizing. We had plenty of time before Ride‘s set, so we met up with my college pal and his husband again before heading off to do a little shopping and eating.
Ride put on a good set of shoegaze that was a great switch from all the hip hop, electro, and funk we heard during the festival. Unfortunately, they had a shortened set due to some early technical difficulties, but they played new and old material and blasted all of us with the final song of their set. It was a loud, distorted, fuzzed-out assault. “I needed that,” said one man next to me by the time they were done.
Ride did a signing at the record fair afterwards, and I scored a signed copy of their newest album, Weather Diaries (review coming soon). They were happy to meet everybody, and I’m happy to report they had a long line of fans there.
Mandy caught Jamilla Woods‘ set, which she enjoyed very much, after she’d been moved from the Blue Stage to the Green Stage due to the Avalanches cancelling their performance. According to their Twitter feed, a family member one of the band members had some sort of dire medical emergency. My college pal came to the festival mainly to see them, so he was more than annoyed they weren’t playing. He and his husband learned via a Google search that the Avalanches are about as finicky as Morrissey when it comes to performing.
Thankfully, Nicolas Jaar put on an excellent set of his experimental electro / trance music that was both psychedelic and dance-inspiring at the same time. At about the halfway point of his set, a guy in front of me turned to his friends and said, “This is the best set I’ve seen all weekend.” and then left.
We split after that, beating the crowds and stopping to meet artist Jay Ryan so we could get one of his posters. He does really neat and cute art for a lot of bands and other projects. We already had a Bob Mould tour poster of his hanging in our living room, and now Mandy has a “It’s Time to Read” poster that will go in her office featuring bears, cats, and a wooly mammoth reading books.
I walked out with a new pair of sunglasses and CD’s by Screaming Females, Vacation, Waxahatchee, Tycho, Priests, Slowdive, She-Devils, Ride, and Wavves, and even a cassette by a band called Diagonal. I’ll have reviews of all this stuff in the coming months.
All in all, the Pitchfork Music Festival was a good time. We’d go back if the lineup was good and we could stay close to the festival. As it’s been for the last few festivals I’ve attended, VIP tickets don’t look worth the money. It’s not as laid back as a Levitation festival, but still fun. It also could’ve used a little more rock, in my opinion, but it was worth the trip.
Keep your mind open.
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We were happy to learn that the folks at Pitchfork Music Festival decided to open a second entrance on the east side of Union Park. This saved us from having to walk around the park to get into the lone entrance (unless you were a VIP), and saved probably thousands of people from waiting in another long line at the start of the day.
The new entrance, located at Ogden and Washington, sent us straight into the poster and print exhibition.
We immediately noticed it was far busier than the previous day. The weather was better, too. It was sunny and just a tad humid, whereas it had been mostly cloudy on Day One. The new entrance also put us near the craft and record fairs.
I’m curious to see how much prices drop on Day Three, as I’m sure all of the vendors would like to pack up as little as possible.
As for the music, we started off the day with George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic. We managed to find a college housemate of mine in the crowd. I hadn’t seen him in over 20 years, and it was fun to jam with him, his husband, and Mandy while Mr. Clinton and crew went nuts. I was surprised when they ended their set with some trap music. I expected more funk. As my friend said, “They need to have about fifteen more people on stage.” The group did include a foxy lady whose job was to stand next to the drummer and look sexy. She succeeded on all counts.
We had plenty of time until the next set we wanted to see, so we headed to the food vendors for drinks and snacks. The festival organizers made another smart decision by not checking I.D.’s at the entrance gates (like they’d done on Day One, creating an even longer wait time to get into the park), but instead checking them by the tents where you bought drink tickets. One extremely dry cider and two teriyaki chicken buns later, we were off to see Madlib.
Madlib gave a master’s course in mixing and spinning. He played a lot of tracks features different rappers he’s collaborated with in the past such as J Dilla and MF DOOM. I geeked out when part of his visual display showed clips of the psychedelic movie Phase IV.
I caught part of S U R V I V E‘s set, which was a neat blend of dark wave and film score music. I saw more than a few kids at their set and figured they were probably jazzed to see the guys who made the Stranger Things score. One man was tripping hard during their set and dancing like he was having a religious experience. More power to him.
We couldn’t get even halfway to the stage for A Tribe Called Quest. The crowd for them was massive, and having P.J. Harvey on a nearby stage before their set only added to the number of people on the main lawn of the park.
Nevertheless, we had a blast during ATCQ’s set. They ripped through classic and new tracks, and Ali Shaheed Muhammad is still one of the best DJs in the business.
The crowd around us was a bit low key, for reasons unknown to us. One woman was wandering around asking random strangers if they had any weed to share. A drunk man danced with Mandy and mumbled nonsense before learning I was with her and then freaking out a bit when he saw me. I patted him on the shoulder and told him not to worry.
One of the best, and most bittersweet, parts of ATCQ’s set was the unmanned microphone on stage for Phife Dawg, who died last year from diabetes. They still played his vocals, and even an a cappella version of one track that had the stage dark and only Phife’s vocals carrying across the lawn. The band was big on “Dis Generation” and “Award Tour,” which they restarted twice.
It was a fun way to end the day, but getting out was another story. Pitchfork has VIP entrances and exits, but they don’t open these exits to everyone at the end of the day. As a result, hundreds (at least) of us who figured we could get out through the east VIP exit were sent back through the record fair tents to the entrance and exit gate for the plebeians. This gate still had a folding chair, a box, and some cattle gates across it that should’ve been moved before thousands of people started to leave.
Day Three will involve Derrick Carter, Ride, the Avalanches, and Nicolas Jaar. Wish us luck.
Keep your mind open.
