Pat Jordan

Pitchfork Festival ‘08

This past weekend I attended two of the three days of the Pitchfork Music Festival at Chicago’s Union Park. The festival was run by a Chicago-based review site, pitchforkmedia.com, and, overall, I was very satisfied. First, tickets were $50 for two days, unheard of these days when Lollapalooza is $80 per day. In addition, there was no price gouging in general: $4 beers, decently priced food, and a marketplace with original art posters for $20 to $40. Second, the sound quality was impressive, save a couple problems with kick drums and Boris’s set (see below). The echoes and effects during Spoon’s set proved especially rich -in particular “The Ghost of You Lingers”. Third, again, the beer was well done for a variety of reasons: it was Goose Island (instead of Bud Light), it was $4 (instead of $7), the IPA was very tasty, and the cups were supposedly 100% compostable. Fourth, the organizers shipped in many more urinals between Saturday and Sunday, showing real-time reaction to needs, rather than just watching lines pile up. Fifth, when then sun came out, they offered sunscreen for free. Finally, there was a solid and somewhat diverse lineup of bands. The music was high quality.

I had no major complaints in light of all the positive attributes listed above, but there were a few things that could be looked into. First, the drinking fountains were hard to find. I would prefer not to buy bottled water when I can fill up my own, especially on really hot days. My friend and I didn’t see them until the end of the festival, despite having looked. Maybe a couple signs here or there with arrows would solve that. Second, there weren’t enough recycling receptacles; thus, many compostable beer cups were on the ground. Finally, Boris didn’t have enough power for all of their equipment, ending their spectacular show after only 30min… that shouldn’t be a problem when you have Jumbotrons.

Now how about the bands? I wasn’t disappointed at all and was extremely impressed with a few. These are the one’s I saw (extra impressive ones are starred):

Saturday:

Titus Andronicus seemed drunk.

**Caribou’s dueling drums and harmonies channeled into an excellent and energetic show.

Pitchfork ‘08: Fuck Buttons by Pat Jordan on Zooomr
Fuck Buttons. Relatively uninteresting to watch, but that’s to be expected. Very rich sound and interesting noise, fuzz, screaming, and beats.

Pitchfork ‘08: Vampire Weekend by Pat Jordan on Zooomr
Vampire Weekend. Good, but nothing overly impressive. It’s as good as their short, melodic, pop could have been live.

Pitchfork ‘08: The Hold Steady by Pat Jordan on Zooomr
The Hold Steady. They loved being there and it really showed, though the heat seemed to be killing them.

Sunday:

Pitchfork ‘08: Times New Viking by Pat Jordan on Zooomr
Times New Viking.

Pitchfork ‘08: Boris by Pat Jordan on Zooomr
**Boris. Blew out the power with too much intensity, distortion, and (basically) sheer awesomeness.

The Apples in Stereo

Pitchfork ‘08: Occidental Bros by Pat Jordan on Zooomr
Occidental Brothers Dance Band.

Pitchfork ‘08: Ghostface + Raekwon by Pat Jordan on Zooomr
Ghostface and Raekwon.

Pitchfork ‘08: Bon Iver by Pat Jordan on Zooomr
**Bon Iver. Especially good when he got everyone singing along to “The Wolves.” It turns out the guitarist (the blonde guy on the left) was a year ahead of me at Lawrence University. Cool thing coming from such a small school.

Pitchfork ‘08: Spoon by Pat Jordan on Zooomr
Spoon (images didn’t turn out). Very energetic and on the mark show. The echoes and other effects sounded really good too. I’m a tad disappointed that they didn’t play “Black Like Me.”

Hopefully, I make it back next year.

(Videos are available at pitchfork.tv. You can see the top of my head in the Caribou and Times New Viking videos)