Incredibly Late Pitchfork Roundup: Friday

This is my fourth Pitchfork that I’ve attended and they’ve gotten better and better at getting the fest to run smoothly. This year there were no portable toilet issues and I never even really had to wait to use one. Plus even though it was sold out all three days I felt that it was somehow easier to manage maneuvering through all the people, except for the B Stage. What separates Pitchfork from Lollapalooza is that Pitchfork actually cares about its festival goers. On the first day water was reduced to $1, a free refill station was set up, and free water was passed out at nearly every set. I can’t ever see lolla doing something like that. However, the weekend was not its issues. The same sound problems still prevailed—many shows weren’t loud enough and the bass tended to rumble and muffle the guitars. Now if they could just fix that then Pitchfork would be nearly perfect.

Friday

Sharon Van Etten

Having received an email from her responding to a photo request I felt the need to at least check her out. There doesn’t seem to be too much buzz about her other than appearing on the latest Antlers album. She was a tiny figure on the stage pretty much playing the same chord over and over again. Not really my thing and didn’t seem too appropriate for a festival setting but I didn’t pay much attention so my opinion is only so valid.

The Tallest Man on Earth

I received his 2008 album “Shallow Grave” a week or so before the festival and quite enjoyed. A rather small man, the Swede gave it all he had furiously striking at his guitar and pouncing all over the stage despite saying he was jetlagged and hadn’t slept for two days. Normally guy with acoustic guitar doesn’t work well for a festival setting, especially on a main stage, but his songs were performed with so much energy that made everything sound larger than life. Watch out for this guy, he’s going to be huge.

Grade: B+

More like The Tallest Bro on Earth. Amiright?

Liars

Skipping El-P, sounded pretty lame, I stayed and picked up a good spot for Liars. The AV Club trashed this but this was definitely the best set of Friday. Keeping the energy up that Tallest Man started, Liars ripped through a set heavy on songs from this year’s “Sisterworld” and their previous self titled album. Even though “Sisterworld’s” songs are pretty odd they translated surprisingly well; they were able to keep the slow parts interesting, Angus Andrew’s voice was in spectacular form, and then tear through the faster parts. They got quite experimental at times but managed to keep up with enough bangers, “Scarecrows on a Killer Slant” and “Plaster Casts of Everything”, so that the set was balanced and always entertaining.

Grade: A-

Broken Social Scene

A lot of people skipped BSS for Michael Showalter, who bombed horribly I heard, and they missed a fun time filled with guitar solos and general merriment. Unfortunately, I unwisely decided to skip Robyn for a good spot up front. She sounded like a lot of fun and I regret not heading over. While BSS were not the penultimate live band, as I had been promised by many BSS devotees, they still were beyond competent showmen. Brendan Canning looked like a lesbian version of Paul McCartney and strutted around like Angus Young or a small child with ADD whilst Kevin Drew looked mainly like he would be an asshole if you spoke to him. There set consisted mainly of songs from Forgiveness Rock Record, which came off better live than the sub-par album, but the older “rock out” songs from past albums faired better. They skipped the slower songs, which was probably a wise decision for the festival crowd but it would have made the show a bit more emotionally impacting if they had.

Grade: B+

The two brains behind BSS. Sans beard, Brendan Canning looks like a lesbian Paul McCartney

Modest Mouse

I should have left BSS early but it didn’t really matter. When you’re so far away at a festival there gets to be a point where you would almost rather just go home and Modest Mouse didn’t do too much to keep my attention. They opened with Tiny Cities Made of Ashes, incredible, but the seven, I think, piece group quickly switched gears to songs from the newest album and that EP I never bothered to check out. They played a lot of songs from Good News so that was alright. That was the first album of there’s that I picked up; I was a freshman in High School and Float On was just starting to get noticed. Most of my friends that were there never “discovered” Modest Mouse like I did, instead got into them several years later and immediately started with their better albums. While I myself did that, I’ll always hold a special place for Good News. In terms of other “classic songs” they played Dramamine and encored with Gravity Rides Everything. Everyone was hoping for “Do the Cockroach” but that unfortunately did not happen. The band sounded great and played the songs well but I wish they would have ran through a couple more bangers.

Grade: B

Really shitty photo but I was miles away.