As I've mentioned numerous times, I went to the Pitchfork Festival here in Chicago a couple weeksends ago. Since I couldn't think of anyone who would be naive enough to let me borrow their digital camera, I bought a disposable one, not knowing that it would take a FULL ****ING WEEK to develop the film. So, like two weeks later, here are my pictures from Pitchfork:
The first band I saw was The Mae Shi, at what was billed as their last show with their current line-up, before a bunch of the members split into their own group called Signals. Apparently, the only members there were the members from Signals and the others didn't even know they were performing there and are pissed that they used the band's name and there's all kinds of drama now. I don't know, I thought they were pretty fun. They brought out a local hip hop duo called Yea Big and Kid Static about halfway through and they were also a lot of fun.
After The Mae Shi, I took a break and checked out their poster and record fair, and spent the vast majority of my cash on records. They had an amazing selection. I would've bought half of the records I saw there if I had that kind of money to waste.
I thought from the crowds at 1 o'clock that this wasn't going to be as crowded as I thought it would be, but when I got back, it looked like it had doubled. I headed over to stage B at the other side of the park for where I caught Women who I quite like on record but they were like watching paint dry live. The music was nice but they had no stage presence whatsoever. They were then followed by...
DJ /rupture. He was pretty amazing. I was right in front of the speakers and he had everyone going wild. I was dancing. In public. Weird, huh?
These people were much more excited in person than they seem in this photo.
I hung out in the middle of the park for a while, took in a little bit of The Walkmen from a distance and then waited for M83 to start. (Pictured above) I obviously couldn't get very close to the stage and I was exhausted so I left after about 20 minutes and just relaxed for a little while. I did get to hear some good songs though, as well as their funny French accents. I liked the keyboard player's impressively sparkly blue blouse.
There were so many people waiting hours in advance for The Flaming Lips that I really had no chance of getting over to stage A to see Grizzly Bear. This is as close as I got. Waiting for The Lips was hell, as it got continually more and more crowded and the people around me kept getting more and more obnoxious. I stood and waited from about 7 o'clock to when they went onstage around 8:40. Yep.
And it begins! Wayne Coyne begins things as usual, by getting in his space bubble. Before this, the other members of the band were birthed onto the stage through a giant, glowing, psychedelic vagina on the video screen.
This is right before he rolled into the audience. I snapped a picture of that but it was dark and it didn't develop quite properly.
Wayne is riding a gorilla here. I thought it was a dinosaur for some reason when I was there. There were frogs and bunnies on either side of the stage throughout.
They initially said that they would be doing Pitchfork's "Write the Night" thing where fans vote for the setlist, but they announced at the beginning that they "know what their fans want to hear", so they kind of picked their way through the list. They did do two new songs ("Convinced of the Hex" and "Silver Trembling Hands") and a few rarities: "Bad Days", which they've only played one other time since 1996, and "Enthusiasm for Life Defeats Existential Fear" which they've never done live and said they probably won't ever do again.
